Sandie Wernick: Andy's Chinese Cuisine

This Hong-Kong-style Chinese restaurant, located on Ninth Avenue in the Inner Sunset, is squeezed on a street loaded with little restaurants and food emporiums - one right after the other. You can't miss it, though, because the front entrance is painted a light avocado green. It's so bright you almost need sunglasses to get through the door!

This isn't a gourmet restaurant, but it is good food, served quickly, served hot and served plentiful. Although there's a smattering of hot and spicy dishes to choose from, most of the selections are moderate in terms of both heat and price.

We tried Andy's for lunch and found the menu to be extensive, but not so huge that you'd get lost in it. Even though we perused the menu, we pretty much knew what we wanted beforehand.

Irwin, who's a regular customer and introduced us to Andy's, had the sweet and sour prawns ($5.50). When I asked him why, he said: "It's served hot, but not too hot, sweet, but not too sweet, and there's plenty of sauce for the rice."

Sometimes, being happy with your food can be just as simple as that - enough sauce for your rice.

If that's the case, mine was also very good because I also had enough sauce. My choice was tomato beef ($4.95). Although I would have liked a little more beef, the food was tasty, hot and fresh.

My sister, Karen, had the asparagus with shrimp ($6.25), which she loved. You could tell because she cleaned the plate. That's always a good sign of satisfaction.

The asparagus were thinly sliced and the prawns practically jumped right out of the wok and onto her plate, hot and sauteed to perfection.

Before our entrees arrived, management gave us a plate of cheese and crab puffs, which are made fresh twice a day. The filling included cream cheese, cheddar cheese and "imitation" crab meat (they are honest about that). The puffs were crispy and tasty.

They tossed in an egg roll, which was average tasting, with each of our main dishes.

For dessert, we had some very delicious and very hot fried bananas ($3.50), which was more than enough for the three of us.

Andy's, named after owner Andy Lee, opened at this location in 1990. The restaurant is co-owned with his wife, Tracy.

About five years ago, Andy opened a second site at Polk and Union streets.

Andy's was voted "best take-out in the Bay Area" by the Bay Guardian and, consequently, their take out food has become the biggest part of Andy's business. They deliver from Ocean Beach to Twin Peaks.

The Dim Sum menu, which we did not get a chance to try, features 26 items and is available at lunch and dinner. Prices range from $2.95 to $12.95 per item.

There's also a vegetarian menu utilizing dry wok style cooking and entrees served with and without egg.

For larger parties, the banquet menu has feasts that range from $18 to $70.

Andy's is open daily, Monday through Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and Sunday, from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The restaurant is located at 1358 Ninth Ave., between Irving and Judah streets.

For more information, or free delivery (with a $10 minimum charge), call (415) 661-1803 or (415) 661-1804.

Credit cards Visa, MasterCard, Amex and Discover are accepted.

Sandie Wernick is a marketing, public relations and advertising executive at the Wernick Marketing Group.