In anticipation of my trip next week to Paris, I decided to spend most of the day walking in San Francisco, testing the comfort of my boots and practicing not having an agenda.

I stopped by Pearl’s to pick up a journal for my trip and because it was close by, I stopped by the infamous Vietnamese restaurant, Tú Lan.

The grungy interior would turn any well-intentioned connoisseur of fine food running in the opposite direction. It makes you wonder what the place looked like when Julia Child ate here in 1970-something and gave the place an enthusiastic thumbs up. A recommendation that the restaurant still thrives on, by the way. The drop ceiling, which used to be white, is now that color of ochre that comes only from years of grease and smoke floating towards heaven and not quite making it to its destination. The walls are not much cleaner, though they fade into wood paneling that has probably been there since the sixties.

Don’t let the scenery or the questionable silverware discourage you from this little culinary adventure. The place is packed, and it is well past high lunchtime. Aromas of curry and ginger fill the air and the line goes out the door. This place has become somewhat of a dot-com lunch scene and the clientele are a mix of web workerbees and blue collar workers from the neighborhood, with a few curious folks just in off the street.

Sitting at the counter allows for a fascinating view of fire and sizzling woks while the chefs click and clang their wok tools as they stir the fry. You can easily imagine these guys cooking it up in a streetside cafe in their own country of Vietnam….

The menu offers all the Vietnamese regulars – shrimp rolls, imperial rolls, soups and noodle dishes as well as rice plates which are actually served ‘family style’. I ordered a curry chicken rice plate that came piping hot from the wok with a lot of chili peppers in a thick green curry sauce that included chunks of green bell pepper, onion and potato, accompanied by a large bowl of rice. The portion was large enough for two and at $5.95, I call that a deal. A lot of the other customers seemed to be enjoying stir-fried rice dishes and many of the to-go orders included shrimp rolls.

There were just as many people picking up orders to go as there were people sitting in the seats. The occasional homeless person would wonder in to spare change the customers but they were gruffly shooed away by the waitstaff.

Tú LAN is a lively novelty among the destitution of a crappy neighborhood that sits only a block from the San Francisco Shopping Center.

Túlan

8 – 6th @ Market
San Francisco, CA
T: 415.626.0927

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