Wok Wiz Daily Tour

Lots of history and good food. Our guide, Ray I believe, was born in China Town -- his knowledge of the local history was amazing. He was delightful and entertaining too. We HIGHLY recommend this great adventure!

My girlfriend and I went on the tour with Chuck. We were expecting a tour of Chinatown that showed us things that you usually wouldn't see or not as obvious from walking down the street. The tour really didn't offer us anything exciting or out of the ordinary. We visited a school house, a meat stand, a temple, and a fortune cookie factory (the highlight of the trip). Most of the tour was a lesson on chinese culture and had nothing to do with the actual city. The meat stand consisted of a store front with roasted ducks hanging in the window. The temple wasn't much of a temple, the school house where we stood for about 10 minutes had jackhammers going off 15 ft away, and the fortune cookie factory consisted of 3 women folding cookies. That was neat but not worth the cost of the trip if you can find it on your own. The tour guide told us of a real marketplace up the street but it was too busy for him to take us. That was the kind of stuff we wanted to see, not store fronts. We did not do the lunch and departed the tour right before since it was quite frankly boring. I would recommend walking around yourself with a map of the area and save yourself some money.

Any Chinatown can be overwhelming at first glance...so colorful, so busy...our guide, Dorothy, was so wonderful...genuinely kind, a lovely soul. She is a marvelous story teller and weaves Chinatown history into every day living. She knows every nook and cranny of her own area of San Francisco and shines when she shares her heritage. We were so fortunate to have her!

With the exceptional amount of reviews here, I really expected this to be quite fantastic. It was, after all, rated number 15 on "Trip Advisor" as a must do in San Francisco. Having said that, I was, unexpectedly, severly disappointed. About myself: I am korean-american, raised in NYC, moved to LA, visiting SF for the first time. My bf, being chinese and never getting a good look at the famous Chinatown in SF, wanted a tour that took an in-depth look at the oldest Chinese area in America. So, I booked it, without dim-sum. (So I can't vouch for that, as I read the reviews here and it didn't sound so great). We met at the Hilton lobby in the financial district. There were two groups, Shirley and Lola. We wanted to go with Shirley but since we got there 1 minute before the designated 10am, we had to go with Lola, who was very friendly herself, born and raised in SF. The tour: -gave us 2 red envelopes, a $.06 cent value. -brief chinese SF history - 3 minutes -Chinatown's park, 2 minute description -showed Chinatown's phone directory (that, actually, was interesting) 2 minutes -Chinese colors, red, green, gold -Chinese wedding -Man in barber shop playing Chinese instrument -She went grocery shopping (ok, it was only tofu, but we all went in the store while she bought her condensed bean curd... WHAT IS THAT?!!?! what does that have to do with anything!) -went on a street, and 30 minutes later, went back on the same street, on the other side (SO INEFFICIENT!) -tea ceremony: interesting, by blossom tea company, she had nothing to do with this, however. -didn't get to do half the things that were advertised It was more about chinese culture tidbits rather than the town itself. Honestly, you could read this stuff in about 8 minutes from the internet. I don't know why they call it the walk and eat tour. I mean, there's food everywhere, but that's just street food, and you don't stop to buy some. If you walk around NYC, and you buy a hot dog, does that make it a walk and eat tour?? I highly doubt it. Overall, I don't recommend it, especially if you are of asian descent, because you probably know all this from your friends or your asian association from college. We seriously covered like 5 blocks in 2 hours. (the last hour is for dim sum, which we did not participate in). We did walk to our own dim sum place, however. It was called CITYVIEW and it was pretty solid dim sum, but don't go there either. It was $40 for the 2 of us. That's super expensive. Should have noticed by the lack of chinese locals and having the dim sum people actually speak english. (always expensive if they speak english!) Listen, dim sum should be $8 a person for a full amount of food. Well, good luck. Whether you do this tour or not, SF's awesome. And this is coming from a New Yorker (we generally don't like anything else besides our own city!) Enjoy your visit!

chuck was a perfect host!

My friend recommended this walking tour to me and I have to say she was right on. The guides were very friendly and knowledgable. We learned more about Chinatown than your average bus tour would provide. The walk was not strenuous. It was nice to end the tour with a dim sum meal. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to do something a little different in San Francisco.

You get to see things you'd never see on your own. Highly recommend this tour.

Chinatown is not that big but out tour still lasted over 3.5 hours. Our guide, while knowledgeable, rambled on and really gave way more detail than was needed. For instance, we spent 45 minutes standing in the square where everyone plays checkers and cards. That should've been ten minutes tops. The stops along the way are interesting, the tea tasting is quite informative and worthwhile. Lunch was good, but by then we were totally ready to complete the tour and get on with our day. We would be much more willing to recommend this tour if it was 1.5-2 hours total.

My new husband and I really enjoyed the Wok Wiz tour and Frank, our 2nd generation Chinese guide. Lots of insight into Chinese culture and how they adapted resourcefully to opportunities and opposition in San Francisco. Wonderful lunch at the 4 Seas Restaurant too.

I really enjoyed this tour. It was a great deal for the money. I felt like I was able to learn more about Chinatown than I would have just wandering through it myself. We heard about the history of Chinatown, what it was like growing up in Chinatown, and how people live there now. We were able to see a lot of little stores and the tour guide had lots of fun stories and good information. It is a fairly long tour and seemed to be catered more toward older teenagers and adults.