If you go

Where to stay: Chinatown is an easy walk from many hotels, including those within the neighborhood and around Union Square and the Financial District.

•Hilton Hotel, 750 Kearny St., (415) 433-6600 or (800) 445-8667, www.hilton.com. This hotel, in the Financial District, was a Holiday Inn until early 2006. Now, about $40 million later, its interior gleams with Asian-inflected minimalist design. It’s not cheap – continental breakfast runs $11 in the restaurant (Seven Fifty, it’s called) – but views from its higher-up rooms can be tremendous. Doubles from $179.

•Grant Plaza Hotel, 465 Grant Ave., (415) 434-3883 or (800) 472-6899, www.grantplaza.com. The 72-room Grant Plaza is a solid budget option: a little short on personality, perhaps, but long on value. Doubles from $55.

•Hotel Triton, 342 Grant Ave., (415) 394-0500 or (800) 800-1299, www.hoteltriton.com. It aims to be hip, with colorful design flourishes plus a tarot card reader who sometimes turns up in the lobby during Friday night happy hour. Some of the 140 rooms are small and service can be uneven, but the location is excellent. And the casual restaurant, Cafe de la Presse, is a great place to meet a friend or linger over a Sunday paper. Doubles from $149.

Where to eat: In local polls, three of the perennial favorites are Ton Kiang on Geary Street, Yank Sing (two locations south of Market Street) and Tommy Toy’s (on Montgomery Street).

I didn’t eat at any of those places, nor at the widely admired R&G Lounge at 631 Kearny St. (415-982-7877), because I’d had a fine meal there only six months before and wanted to explore. Never spending more than about $9 on a dish, I set out on a dining itinerary that included:

•Gold Mountain, 644 Broadway, (415) 296-7733. An excellent dim sum breakfast (amid mostly San Francisco locals).

•Hang Ah Tea Room, 1 Pagoda Place, (415) 982-5686. Tasty dim sum lunch.

•Utopia Cafe, 139 Waverly Place, (415) 956-2902. Down-home cafe good for a hearty bowl of won ton soup.

•House of Nanking, 919 Kearny St., (415) 421-1429. This place often has lines out the door, but when we waltzed in a little before 6 p.m., a third of the tables were empty.

If you’re looking for old-fashioned restaurant glamour along the main drag:

•Empress of China, 838 Grant Ave., (415) 434-1345. Its ornate sixth-floor dining room offers views to Coit Tower, and its lobby wall of fame boasts glossies of Jayne Mansfield, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Mick Jagger, Jackie Chan, Marcel Marceau and our governor. (You have to guess which two of those were dining together.)

•Four Seas Restaurant, 731 Grant Ave., (415) 989-8188. I did eat a fairly good lunch (with a tour group) at this similarly showy spot.

More information: Contact the following:

•San Francisco Visitor Information Center, 900 Market St., (415) 391-2000, www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com.

•Chinese Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco, 730 Sacramento St., (415) 982-3071.

•Also visit chineseparade.com and sanfranciscochinatown.com.