After opening in August in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood, Happy Crane has garnered acclaim far and wide.

So, it’s no wonder that landing a reservation to enjoy Chef James Yeun Leong Parry’s contemporary take on Cantonese cuisine is as hard as getting invited to Taylor Swift’s upcoming nuptials.

A tip to the wise: Reservations open up 30 days in advance at noon on OpenTable. So, set yourself up with your phone, laptop or desktop five minutes before, and keep refreshing the page over and over again. When the reservations finally so pop up, immediately pounce.

That’s how I managed to secure a reservation for four a few weeks ago. And it was absolutely worth jumping through those hoops.

Like with Mister Jiu’s and Four Kings, both in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Happy Crane has reinvigorated Chinese food with fresh, young energy with the use of top-quality ingredients, time-honored and modern techniques, and playful reinterpretations.

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