In a word, yes.
There is no happy medium for Chinese eateries in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In the "authentic" restaurants, the ingredients are cheap and not-so-fresh and the hygiene level (filthy kitchens, leaking cardboard boxes stacked in the dining area) is unbelievably low. And shockingly, I've been served stale, almost crunchy, steamed rice on three of my last five visits to random "authentic" restaurants.
In the nicer restaurants, it is clean. Sure, the ingredients may be of higher quality. But I've got to put up with flaky (read: not sticky) steamed rice, or worse, brown rice. I don't need an egg roll with fluorescent red and tangy dipping sauce. I don't need a fortune cookie. I just want a tasty, inexpensive, quick meal that won't send me to the hospital.
I am generalizing, of course.
I grabbed lunch at Sam Woo in LA. It is one of a dozen in a chain (I know, I know). I got the satay shrimp lunch meal for about $7. It didn't come with soup, egg rolls, a fortune cookie, or a slice or two of orange. No, it was all I needed. The shrimp, onions, and green onions were all fresh and of the highest quality. The satay sauce was mild but distinct. The steamed rice was fluffy and sticky. What more could you ask for?
Satay beef picture source.
When we were in SF and doing the obligatory tourist walk through Chinatown, we got pulled into some Chinese restaurant. We were pretty tired and hungry, so we made it easy for them. I couldn't understand very well what they were saying so we just accepeted whatever they offered. All I understood was that it would be $15 per person. Soon enough they started bringing a sampler of each type of food and most of it was surprisingly good. So we were pretty happy until a group of people sat down on the table next to us and ordered the same thing and complained about the price and ended up getting it for half what we paid.
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