Unfortunately, hygiene in many Chinese restaurants seems to be lacking, but you can find some that will be acceptable.

In San Francisco, try the Harbor Village Seafood Restaurant. Excellent food, but rather pricey. It's away from Chinatown, in Embarcadero Center. We did our wedding banquet there, incidentally, and actually, for banquets, you can find pretty reasonable costs (especially if you were to price an equivalent bash in Hong Kong or Taipei).

Yank Sing serves the office workers in the financial district and their facilities tend to be fairly clean.

I tend to also note that the quality and authenticity of the food isn't necessarily connected to its decor or lack thereof (that's why hawker centers, street food is popular in Malaysia, Singapore). And my mother in law would really feel out of place in a place like PF Chang's. But there are both places that are pretty pristine and serve authentic food, as well as lousy crappy places whose food matches the decor.