Fodor's Expert Review Lucky Liu's

No Asian fusion here; instead this red-walled Gaslamp restaurant guarded by two bright-eyed dragons cooks up authentic Chinese comfort food to eat in or take out. The veteran chef, who often takes orders in Chinese from non-English speaking customers, shops daily for seafood, meat, and vegetables for the Cantonese and Szechuan dishes. Start with tender pot stickers bursting with shrimp and pork, the popular lettuce wraps or bowl of hot-and-sour soup. In addition to kung pao, Mongolian beef, honey-glazed walnut shrimp, and scrumptious orange chicken, entrées include black-pepper filet mignon, oolong sea bass, and other chef specialties on “Grandma’s Secret Menu.”