Dinner at Eight is a regular column by Ms.Collins reviewing restaurants in the Bay Area. If you have a restaurant you want reviewed, please send an email to the editor: midori@realgirlsmedia.com.

Rating Scale: 

Panties in a twist (unimpressed)

Panties low-riding (intrigued)

Panties on the floor (impressed)

Panties swinging from the chandelier (amazed)

Jai Yun

923 Pacific Avenue

San Francisco, CA 94133

(415) 981-7438

Conditions: Group dinner with seven friends on a quiet Monday night.

Rationale: One of group had been here several times, and described the experience to another, who organized the group date.

Long story short: Places like this make you appreciate living in San Francisco.

The deal: There is no scene. There is no atmosphere. There is what barely passes for a bar at a stone’s throw, where you can have a pre-dinner cocktail. There is no menu. There is one choice—do you want to spend $30 (minimum) a head or more? Make that call and the fun begins.

As soon as you sit down (if you are with a large group—and lucky) at the lazy Susan table, the plates start coming out. Head spin.

Lotus root. String mushrooms. Cucumbers that have more flavor than you thought possible. Chopped tofu with parsley. Jellyfish. Seitan. Foo Yung abalone (pillows of abalone with egg whites, enough for two orders). Rock shrimp that melt when you bite into them. Roasted pork that falls off the bone. Spicy chicken. More mushrooms in clear noodles that look and taste entirely different from the first round (which now seems hours past). Whole grouper covered in decorative red and yellow peppers. No rice. Just little gems, tastes of things you have probably never had (or at least, not lately).

Take advantage of the BYOB policy. Bring a mix of whites and reds, in order to follow the path of the meal, which starts with the lighter vegetable and fish dishes, and ends with the heavier meat dishes.

On a weeknight, there was hardly anyone else in the restaurant, which looked as if it could barely seat more than twenty-five people. The décor, more lunch-break room than anything, is largely overshadowed by the food, which returns briefly to a lunch-break room atmosphere when a little basket of snack-sized Snickers arrives at the end of the meal. A fitting end? Perhaps.