There is a challenge with "authenticity" with Chinese restaurants in the US, but it's not about good food vs. poor service. I've said for years that one of the challenges with Chinese restaurants in and around San Francisco is that they're too authentic. They have standards of cooking and hygiene that seem normal to people who grew up in a developing country but not the US. The restaurant I visited this weekend actually had attentive and helpful service. The food in the steam trays was authentic— in that it reminded me of factory cafeteria food I ate when I traveled in China. Ditto the... expectations of cleanliness. (I saw signs with diagrams of how NOT to piss in a toilet in China. I also saw... people aggressively not obeying the signs.) That's not what I'm looking for at a restaurant in Silicon Valley.
Re: 3.5 stars