Wok Wiz Chinatown Tours/Cooking Co

Will take out of town friends on this tour - it was great! Great for locals as well.

We were 4 women from Southern California. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour with Lola. She was VERY knowledgeable about China Town since she was raised there. She gave us an overall picture of old China Town, we visited all kinds of shops, had opportunities to shop & she answered questions of politics and life styles. The entire group did not enjoy the food at 3 Seas Restaurant. It was very greasy and some was over cooked. We did like the idea of a variety of things (not just Dim Sum), however, it all tasted the same. We have all had better Chinese food in China Town. Overall, take the tour, but don't have the lunch.

We went on the tour last Sunday with the kids and my wife's cousin. I lived in San Francisco for 5 years (2 of them very close to Chinatown), and I learned a lot about the city and Chinatown. Dorothy was our guide, and she did a fantastic job explaining everything and keeping us moving. She brings a wealth of experience and enthusiasm to her tours, and we are richer in knowledge and understanding thanks to her. Todd

Could not have been happier with the tour. The tour lasted a full three hours and was chock full of interesting history and personal tidbits.Our tour leader was fantastic! If this wasn't enough, it culminated in a wonderful lunch with great company. What a bargain. A must do in SF.

Unable to go as I was sick Monday morning

Even if you live in San Francisco and have been to China Town many times this tour is a must. It is not only educational but lots of fun. You get to see the behind the scenes that you did not know existed. I have gone twice and will go again. I was thrilled to find the old Blums Coffee Crunch Cake made in Chinatown!

We really enjoyed the interesting tour of San Francisco Chinatown and the guide was great. She was very informative and had a very pleasant personality.

This was a wonderful tour. Our leader, Dorothy, was knowledgeable, warm & friendly. Our group enjoyed her narrative and the sharing of her own roots. Though we have lived int he area for some time, we learned things we didn't know at all about Chinatown. Red Blossom tea stop was a wonderful & informative highlight. The small shops she showed us were all places I would not have found on my own. The tour took a little more than 3 hrs and I was starving by the time we got to lunch. I'd recommend picking up a snack from a local store mid-way through. Lunch was excellent and a lovely chance to recap the tour. I would do this tour again with other family & friends!

Much to our delight we were lucky enough to have our tour done by the owner, Shirley herself. She mesmerized us with her colorful stories of the people that made up the history of the real Chinatown, and tantalized our tastebuds with the flavors of the real Chinatown. We left with a deep respect and understanding of the people that make up this colorful area of San Francisco, not to mention a full belly as well. A must do for any visitor. Forget the tourist traps ....do yourself a favor and get a real look into this wonderful historic area by booking a tour with this company.

This tour was enlightening and overall great fun. You will learn so much about Chinese immigrants and Chinatown. It is a rare occation that you get to know a culture from the inside out.

Our day guide, Dorothy Quock, was a delight. She wove a tapestry of her own life mixed with the life of Asian Americans as they came to this country. We walked through Chinatown starting at Portsmouth Square and she spoke of the political changes and the specialties of the area as we walked. She even talked about the influence of African Americans in the area as well as other ethnic groups that settled in the vicinity in the 1800's and early 1900's. Fascinating! She was enthusiastic and alive in her presentations. One of the highlights is the Red Blossom Tea Company and the explanations of the various kinds of tea leaves and our tasting. We stopped at Chinese herbalists, passed the fortune cookie factory, and explored the many alleyways of this area of San Francisco. We find that this Wok Wiz Tour is one of our favorite things to do with out-of -towners and family. I have done the tour now four times and each has been slightly different based on the guide, but all fabulous! The dim sum lunch at Four Seas was out of this world--fresh, tasty and all explained by our host/guide Dorothy. This is a must on anyone's itinerary when visiting San Francisco. Shirley Fong-Torres, the founder and owner, has created a Bay area treasure.

This was a good way to get to know Chinatown -- we strolled through some interesting areas and saw some places that I'd never been to, despite having lived in San Francisco for seven years. The destinations included an excellent tea store, some alleys that passers-by might overlook, and various historical buildings. But the tour also felt like a sales pitch sometimes: we would actually go into certain stores (for example, a framing store) and the tour guide would tell us why we should buy a bunch of stuff. That seemed a little sketchy, but fortunately it only happened a few times.

Have you ever been on a tour where it feels like the tour guide is making mountains out of mole hills while point out and discussing the most insignificant details of your surroundings? This is EXACTLY what this tour is. It is an underwhelming 3 hour tour of a two block radius. I will not recommend it to anyone. It was definitely not worth the $47 we each paid. Though our tour guide was a very nice lady, she was extremely boring and slow speaking and the tour itself was a complete disappointment. A majority of the time was spent walking through and standing in the back alleys, listening to the tour guide point out the FORMER sites of different buildings and her OWN life story. We expected to hear some useful tips about modern day China town somewhere along the way (best places to try different dishes, best places to buy specific products)....anything...There were none. Anything she told us about a store could be inferred from simply walking through the doors and taking a quick glance around. We spent about 20 minutes of the tour just briefly passing through the main streets to get to the alleys. Several times during the tour, members of my group, including me, debated on whether or not to continue with the tour or just forfeit the money we paid which we were sure was going towards a delicious lunch at the conclusion of the three hours. Unfortunately, we found out that it would have been to our advantage to make better use of our time and just leave the tour. We were taken to the Four Seas restaurant for the most bland dim sum we have tried thus far. We are all huge fans of dim sum and knew from prior visits to China town not to eat at this restaurant. The food is of substandard quality. In addition, we are well aware of the prices for the various plates and the items we were served were all from the cheapest category on the menu. All together at an average dim sum restaurant, it would have been about $20-$25 total for the food we were served. We were extremely frustrated by the end and left immediately after lunch to go down the street for real food. For those of you visiting San Francisco's China town, I strongly discourage you from signing up for this tour. There are far better tours of the city for even less money than this one.

thought it was a dim sum tour. Not a tour of Chinatown and history behind the settlers. Food at the end wasn't that good and again i expected to go to more resturants. Not worth the money. I could have went to a more decent place to eat and gotten more food at the same cost of the tour..

I've always been fascinated with San Francisco's dynamic and colorful Chinatown. Having been on tours of other cities, I decided to "play tourist" in my own backyard, to educate myself, and family, about a community that I've always recognized as wonderfully unique. After the tour, with our terrific guide Lola, I feel I understand the community and it's relationship to our shared history. And I appreciate so many special aspects of the community: how supportive, welcoming and friendly it is...to visitors like me and my family group...and to new immigrants. Thank you for the attention to my husband's dietary restrictions. The lunch was delicious...we all want to go back and try other dishes!! I loved every aspect of the tour, and can't wait to go back to Chinatown to explore on my own.