Irving St. / Outer Sunset Food Map

Here's a guide to some of the great, cheap and often fast food along Irving St in San Francisco, where we used to live. In fact this street is the best value in terms of good food I have found in the Bay Area. Parking can be a challenge, especially during weekend days. Here's how to get to Irving and 23rd.

Menus for many of these restaurants can be found online Here.

Unfortunately, as we no longer have a house there, this page is slowly getting out of date.

Dim Sum/Chinese Bakeries

There are half of dozen of these along the block. All so far seem to be very good. Superb prices on your usual items like BBQ pork buns, turnovers, curry puffs, custards, sesame balls, dumplings etc.

Tapioca Drinks

Known as Pearl Tea, Bubble Tea, Boba etc. these are teas and fruit drinks filled with soft, chewy balls of tapioca. They came from Taiwan, I think, and are sweeping the world. I like them. There are half a dozen places on the street to get them.

The Map

Even numbers are on north side, and do not always align with the odd numbers. North (and G.G. Park) are to the left. There are more places to come...

Note: NETY means Not Eaten There Yet. Bold places are particularly recommended.


		19th Avenue
If you must	Starbucks	1800	1825	Irving Pizza	Pretty good pie (if you like soft crust) and slices. And really, your only choice for quasi-Italian.
Very tasty, famous for 5-space chicken and soups.	PPQ Vietnamese	1816	1833	Pho Hoa-Hiep II	NETY. Vietnamese noodle soup (phở )
NETY	Peko Sushi	1830
Quite tasty Cantonese, open until 1am	Go Go Cafe	1830
		20th Avenue
If you truly must	KFC/Taco Bell	1900	1919	Sweety Cafe	Tapioca drinks
Very good Tapioca, internet cafe. Has other snacks not yet tried.	iCafe	1916
Decent Korean, higher priced than average	Tofu Village	1920	1941	Sheng Kee Bakery	The fanciest looking with a very wide bakery selection and smaller dim sum selection. By strange coincidence, one of their other branches is within walking distance of my Sunnyvale house!
NETY	K's Cafe	1924
General Chinese, open until 11pm. Average quality in our 1 visit so far.	New Cheung Hing	1936
		21st Avenue
731-2548 Veggie Chinese. NETY. Several reviewers name it the best Vegan in the city. One vegan friend said the meat substitues were almost frighteningly realistic.	Shangri-La Vegetarian	2026	2025	Wonderful Foods	Tapioca drinks and candy. Driven down the block by Quickly's pricing.
Great custard, larger variety of dumplings	Sun Maxim Bakery	2034	2049	Happy Donuts	Donuts mostly, but also Vietnamese Sandwiches for $2.50!
		22nd Avenue			N-Judah to downtown
A chain with various fried snacks and great price on basic tea and tapioca tea.	Quickly	2116	2115	Sunrise Deli	Arab food. Fantastic Falafel (right out of fryer,) pitas etc. Many vegan options.
Nice, but not stellar standard Japanese	Micado	2126	2123	Chabaa Thai	Brand new, open until 1am! Two sisters serve, the mom cooks the food. Very friendly. A touch below Marnee, but good.
NETY, often out of the good stuff early. Dim Sum, buffet	Irving Seafood	2130
Great Ban Minh (Vietnamese Sandwiches) for $2.50. Highly recommended. Closes at 6:30	Irving Cafe	2146	2181	Yum Yum Fish	566-6433 We found the sushi good though not superb (later in the day.) But great value -- $1.20 for a piece of Nigiri. Last order at 7:15pm. (Among many Chronicle Bargain Bites winners on the list.)
Closed. A smoothie bar is coming?	Star's Flowers	2154	2191	New Hai Ky	A Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant, excellent BBQ, noodles, great prices, closest full restaurant. Cheapest tapioca teas on the street, too. Closed but replaced with something similar.
Former House		23rd Avenue			N-Judah outbound
Dim Sum, good. Closes 6:30	TC Pastry	2222	2225	Marnee Thai	665-9500 One of the better Thai places in San Francisco. Chronicle review.
Tasty phở bò noodle soup	Loi's Vietnamese	2226
731-3143 Hip chinese food. Cheap and excellent. Huge, fresh portions. Till '10. CLOSED Chronicle Review. Reviews	So	2240	2243	Happy Bakery	Dim Sum, good, combined with a cheap buffet take-out (untried).
	Baskin Robins	2250
		24th Avenue
			2305	Johnny's Hambergers	Classic American. NETY
For a break from the asian delights. NETY. And there's also the Dubliner pub on 20th closer to Lincoln.	Durty Nelly's Irish Pub & Restaurant	2328	2335	Ha's Chinese	NETY.
			2337	Lam Hoa Thuan	This vietnamese/chinese restaurant always has a line in front of it on the weekends. People are lining up for roast meats and poultry by the pound, as well as takeaway food. We went to the restaurant part, and it was great and cheap viet/chinese food. Very similar to New Hai Ky.
		25th Avenue
			2495	Tel Aviv Kosher Deli & Liquors	NETY.
		26th Avenue

Also note: Yan Yan Seafood at 2241 Judah, NETY.

Goemon Japanese at 1524 Irving is quite good, better than Mikado or Yum Yum. Underdog hotdogs at 1634 Irving is tasty with plenty of Organic politics in your dog.

What Else

What else will you find on these streets?

Branches of most banks with ATMs.
Several large asian grocery stores and a few smaller ones
Lots and lots of hair stylists, salons, massage.
Every kind of cell phone shop.
"Random" stores with unpredictable cheap asian imports.
A hardware store that's amazing for its size.
A bike shop.
And of course, Golden Gate Park -- the world's largest man-made park and one of the largest urban parks in the USA -- just a block away.
Various other usuals -- dental, real estate, variety etc.

Need More?

Well, there are also great clusters of restaurants at 9th and Irving (N-Judah goes through there on the way so you can get off and get back on easily with your transfer) and a few in Cole Valley you can also get to from the N-Judah. There's also a nice concentration at Taraval and 19th, and a superb collection in the Richmond on Clement and on Geary from 10th to 2nd.

If your tastes run to Indian or Mexican or the other major non-asian cuisines you'll need to check out these areas.