San Francisco is home to many ethnic areas so I decided to spend the day exploring three different areas: Chinatown, Union Square, and Tenderloin aka. Thai Town (my phone died so I unfortunately do not have any cool images of the later two cities *cries*) – nevertheless I’ll still compile a list of the places you’ll have to visit!

It’s quite a walk from the Exploratorium – but after a good 30 minutes or so we finally made it to Chinatown. Notes: Most of these restaurants won’t have their own business pages so I included a hyperlink to their respective yelp pages – hope it helps! 🙂

Chinatown Food (Cheap Eats)

New Lun Ting Cafe: By the time we walked to Chinatown I was famished. I pulled up my phone and looked for some cheap eats with generous portions and this restaurant popped up. My friend and I shared the Oxtail stew and for $8.95 it was quite a steal. The meat was fall off the bone tender and the gravy was a great accompaniment to the rice and veggies.

Good Mong Kok Bakery: Serving traditional dim Sum in a fast food type of manner. If you see a long line outside you’re in the right place. Stand there and get read to point to everything you’d want to eat. They have everything from har gaw, BBQ buns, shu mai among other items. Each item is also jumbo sized – like twice the size of a typical counterpart. Cash only.

Golden Gate Bakery: No trip to SF’s Chinatown would be complete without sampling the famous egg tarts – if you catch them when they’re open. On many different occasions this bakery has closed due to random vacations, but  you can check their Facebook page to see status updates.

AA Bakery and Cafe: A bakery serving authentic sweet and savory pastries for a very affordable price point. I took two buns home and they tasted great 🙂

The Fashionable Diva ($$$) in the Financial District/ Union Square

Tourists and locals would flock to Union Square to as it’s the Heart of San Francisco (complete with all the heart sculptures you can imagine). It’s also home to almost all the major designer labels and fashion staples. But if you’re looking for something a bit more unique consider the shop below.

Angelic Pretty and Harajuku Hearts: If you’re into Japanese fashion, you’re going to love this store. Angelic Pretty carries more girly, frilly items whereas Harajuku Hearts tailors to the moth goth punk crowd. Both share the space and there are a bunch of really cute unique items. Kawaii!

Authentic Thai ($) in Tenderloin, CA
Sai Jai Thai Restaurant: When most of the patrons are Thai you know you’re in a solid joint. This hole in the wall restaurant serves traditional Thai fare for a very reasonable price (see menu above). The pad thai with shrimp was really tasty and I would definitely be back again!

Do you have a favorite frugal find that I missed? Comment below!

 

XOXO,

Rockstar