PRICE:
Frommer's Highly Recommended

This gymnasium-size restaurant is a must-visit for anyone who's never experienced what it's like to dine with hundreds of Chinese-speaking patrons conversing loudly at enormous round tables among glittering chandeliers and gilded dragons while dozens of white-shirted waitstaff push around stainless steel carts filled with small plates of exotic-looking edible adventures (Was that sentence long enough for you?). Chicken feet, pork buns, shrimp dumplings, honey-walnut prawns (yum), the ubiquitous chicken-in-foil, and a myriad of other quasi-recognizable concoctions that range from appealing to revolting (never ate beef tripe, never will) whiz about at eye-level. I remember coming here as a little kid on late Saturday mornings and being infatuated with the entire cacophonous event. And even if you eat until you're ill, you'll never put down more than $20 worth of food, making Gold Mountain a real bargain as well, especially for large groups. Don't even bother with the regular menu: it's the dim sum service from 8am to 3pm on weekends and 10:30am to 3pm on weekdays that you want.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's San Francisco 2009, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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