My husband(34), sister(15) and I(33) will be traveling to San Francisco for the very first time. We will be staying at the Carlton Hotel and will love to have some resturant suggestions. We will be there for 4 days and hoping to have some real good chinesse food. We are going to celebrate my sister's 15th birthday and she loves Chinesse. We would also like to have some good seafood. The only problem is that we don't want to comeback broke. Any recomendations will be greatly appreciated.

Take the ferry or drive to Tiburon and have lunch or dinner at Sam's Anchor Cafe. The outdoor seating, on the water, is great -- but watch out for the birds -- they'll take food right off of your plate.

Before or after your meal, enjoy walking around Tiburon.

www.samscafe.com

[don't know where you're comming from, but you should expect SF restaurants to be double what you're used to]

BEST Chinese Dim Sum (for lunch) is Yang Sing (101 Spear- a block south of market st.- near ferry bldg.)

We also like 1930 Shanghai @ 133 Stewart, a block or 2 south of market also near ferry bldg.

Note: cable car on California ( a few blocks north of hotel) goes to ferry bldg- well worth a visit and you can catch the F line street car to Fishermans wharf (seafood utopia).

Don't miss Chinatown, which of course has tons of restaurants.

Dim sum is at Yank Sing, and it's not cheap. But IMHO it's well worth it for a vacation splurge.

I have some Chinese restaurant suggestions from another board:
Great Eastern, Jackson & Grant.
Hunan Home's Restaurant, Jackson at Kearny.
Yee's, Grant at Jack Keroac.
Chef Jia, Kearny & Columbus
--Karen

I know you didn't say beef, but one of our favorite restaurants in the City is the House of Prime Rib on Van Ness. The specialize in (surprise!) prime rib. But it's a surprisingly affordable dinner. Has a nice old english manor feel from the inside. For your $22-32/person (trust me, this is inexpensive quality dining in SF) you get their salad (which has this amazing curry dressing I've been trying to duplicate for years), prime rib, potatoes, creamed spinach and yorkshire pudding.

Hint, make reservations early. ENJOY!

Chinese, Hunan Home is excellent. Personally, I'm not a fan of Yang Sing, Harbor Village in Embarcadero Center is better, although not any less expensive.

Try looking at chowhound.com. That's where the foodies post their favorite restaurants.

For good italian food, go to North Beach and dine at the Mona Lisa. We had an excellent meal there and it was reasonably priced. LoveItaly recommended it to us. Maybe she can chime in and tell if it is still good. We ate there about a year ago. Beach Blanket Babylon is a fun show that you could take your sister to. I believe Sunday is the day they allow under 21 to see. We took our kids who were 11 and 12 at the time. Some jokes they got, some they didn't.
We did a chinatown tour with WokWiz and had Dorothy as our tour guide. It ends with Dim sum lunch. Every thing was excellent. The tour was great and the lunch was very good also.

Betsy, you are correct, the English name of the restaurant is Yank Sing. Its meaning in Chinese is "goat city". Canton (Guangzhou) was founded by 5 celestial beings who decended from heaven on 5 goats, thus, the city is still referred to as Yang Cheng. Yang is Chinese for goat, hence my error. (cheng means city). Yes, it is expensive, but it is the best Dim Sum; although I never had any with goat meat.

I know it's not Chinese, but one of my favorite restaurants is The Stinking Rose - everyone in your party MUST love garlic, though!!

We hated the Stinking Rose. Sorry, seasweetie. The food came out too fast, like it just had to be popped into the microwave for 2 minutes or pulled from under the heat lamp.

There are so many choices in Little Italy, you can easily skip this one.

Does sushi count as seafood? Tokyo Go Go in the mission is a lot of fun. Some very creative rolls, and their prepared dishes are also very good. My favorite sushi place is out in the Sunset, Ibiza. Be prepared to wait though.

For a great SF diner experience, go to the Fog Horn Cafe off Embarcadero. It's where So I Married an Axe Murderer had a scene. Not terribly expensive, but good ambiance.

For dim sum houses in Chinatown:

-Try New Asia Garden or Miriwa, both on Pacific. New Asia Garden is supposedly the largest dim sum house in SF, it seats about 1000.

-Also in Chinatown is Gold Mountain, much recommended but probably a slight degree below the other two in taste on its dim sum dishes.

Out on Geary is the Mayflower. It's more a locals restaurant because you probably won't be going there unless you live in the area or are going to the Russian Orthodox Church across the street (lo!). Serves very good dim sum and, at night, seafood.

For seafood, Great Eastern (we're still in Chinatown) on Jackson serves fish that's live and swimming. Seafood even in Chinatown may be a bit pricey, but still below that of such famous American seafood places as Farallon (Union Square area).

Sorry, I'm not a fan of Shanghai 1930. It's more a drinks place than a food place. Guess your 15 year old sister won't be too impressed.

Another neighborhood place is San Tung on Irving. Try their dry crispy chicken wings and their fresh made dumplings. San Tung is a Northern China restaurant, so don't expect dim sum. The dough for the dumplings and the noodles are fresh made, not refrigerated stuff. It's one of the hidden gems of San Francisco Chinese restaurants.

South of San Francisco, in Daly City, is Koi Palace. If you have a car, go there. It is by far the best Chinese restaurant in the Bay Area. Very, very crowded and busy. Try to dine at 5pm or for dim sum, go at 9:30am! Otherwise the wait is horrendous. Lots of seafood swimming around in tanks and tanks. Lobsters, spider crabs,geoduck clams, fish, etc. etc. Avoid it on the weekends.

Chinese waiters are not known for smiling service. Go for food and not for service.

Oh, on Yank Sing, it's fine. The prices are pretty high, the dim sum is good. Go only if you feel lost and can't navigate your way around the whole concept of dim sum.

Enjoy!

For seafood, try Cha Cha Cha in the Haight or the Mission District. They have a website, so you should be able to google it. My favorite restaurant in the city--never had a bad meal there. Lots of food, great prices, and the Caribbean tapas menu includes lots of yummy seafood dishes! The fried plantains with sour cream and black beans are my fav though!

in Sausalito, there's a wonderful suchi place called "Sushi Ram". Besides in Japan, no better tasting sushi exists! You mentioned seafood but wasn't sure if everyone eats sushi...

Oooops. I meant Sushi Ran (http://www.sushiran.com/)

Thank you very much to everyone that has given me great ideas. I am coming from The Chicago area, so probably the prices in San Francisco are very comparable with here. Can't wait to go there and try some of the suggestions I was given. One more question. Is the Carlton hotel in a easy or centralized location and do we need to buy tickets togo to Alcatraz in advance? Sorry never been there.

Definitely buy your tickets to Alcatraz in advance. We did it through Blue Line? and got our trolley tickets included. Many times the Alcatraz tour will be sold out days in advance.

Sorry, I am not familiar with the hotel.

One mor question, Is it better to take a shuttle bus from the airport to the hotel or a taxi? The bus charges 14.00 per person one way. Do anyone knows how much a taxi will charge to the hotel Carlton?