From its very modest-looking exterior, Fook Yuen, located in Millbrae, offers some very good dim sum, as well as lunch or dinner for your taste buds. Don't go too fast selecting items, as the selections come quickly from the women carrying dishes to offer. Upon selecting a dish, a stamp is placed on your bill, along with a thank you from the woman serving. Selecting dishes is a personal preference. I like to stay away from the buns and noodles dishes in this type of setting, as those represent fillers. I'd prefer to leave room for other types of dishes to try and taste. I've never seen chicken siu mai before here, and it tasted quite good. Usually it's only beef or pork and quite salty. The roast duck with the dipping sauce was very good. The seaweed dish and the Chinese broccoli were both good, and the deep-fried shrimp and scallops, pot stickers, and baked Chinese BBQ pork buns were just alright, not great. If a particular dish you'd like hasn't been brought around, ask if they have it. The roast pig dish will set you back $15 if you choose it. One annoying thing I find about these types of billing is that we don't know what dishes cost till the bill is tallied by the staff. Credit cards are accepted and there is street parking.

Dim sum hours Monday-Friday 11am-2:30pm, weekends 10am-2:30pm, Monday-Friday 11am-9pm, weekends 10am-9pm

BART Millbrae station, Caltrain Millbrae station, SamTrans bus route no. 391

Aside from having a great name, Fook Yuen has great dim sum. It is located not far from the San Francisco International Airport, so if you have a few hours between flights and it is lunch time, it is worth catching a taxi over to this restaurant instead of suffering in the airport.

The room is large, with many tables that will seat parties of 8 or 10. The server will hustle over with jasmine tea when you are seated; try the chrysanthemum tea instead -- it is gingery-peppery, and I think it is very refreshing with the sometimes-oily and richly flavored dim sum. Lift the lid of the pot and you will see the whole dried flowers floating in the hot water!

Fook Yuen is one of my favorites because of the variety of dim sum They have all the traditional specialties, but also some I have not seen many places before. We have been offered minced shrimp that was wrapped around a spice of sugar cane and fried. We have had thin crepes filled with whipped cream and sliced fresh mango, which we have not seen outside Hong Kong. The servers are very nice and most can explain in English what they are serving. (This is not intended to be a snide comment; many dim sum servers do not speak much English.)

The restaurant usually makes the list of Top 100 San Francisco Restaurants, rated by the SF Chronicle food critics. Although they also serve dinner, dim sum is served only at lunch. Most items are in the $2-3 range.