April 2015 PDF

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CULTURE, POLITICS, AND THE RISE OF A *CHINESE-AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT

$4.99 April 2015
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TANK TO TABLE
No.
4
James Beard Award winning chef and TV host Martin

Yan transports the sights, tastes and discoveries of
modern day Chinese cuisine to America. He invites
you to explore China through the lobster menu at M.Y.
China. Choose your fresh two pound lobster then have it prepared
in one of six different ways, each inspired by one of six provinces in
China. Pictured here is the Golden Garlic Steam Lobstersplit and
topped with fried garlic, green onion, wine, and cilantroinspired
by the Southern province of GuangDong. tastemychina.com
No.
5
No.
1
DANCING
PLENTY AT
TWENTY
Born and trained

in Shanghai, principal
dancer Yuan Yuan Tan celebrates
her 20th season with the San
Francisco Ballet. Although a
frequent guest artist on the
finest international stages and
venues, you can still catch her
in San Francisco in April in a
variety of programsincluding
the Shostakovich Trilogy and
Capriceand in Romeo & Juliet
in May. sfballet.org
No.
2
YEAR OF THE WINE
Pairing wines with the myriad array of Chinese dishes

is manageable with this advice from San Francisco
magazines wine director Ian White. For spicy Hunan
or Szechuan dishes, try a Sauvignon Blanc or even a
sparkling wine or chilled Red Blendthe key is a well-balanced
wine with enough acid to cut through the spice and fruit to
complement the heat. For the more mellow Cantonese dishes, you
can be much more playful and decide based on the specific flavors
in the dish: if the sauces and spices are bold, choose a bold winea
Sonoma County Zinfandel or Russian River Pinot, as well as Red
Blends, Merlots, and lighter Cabernet Sauvignons; if the spices are
subtle and smooth, try a Ros, Chardonnay, or light red wine that
will not overpower the subtleties of the dish. @insidernapa
No.
3
ART ON THE ROCK
Make your way to @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz,

the monumental exhibition of new, site-specific art
by the famed Chinese dissident, which closes on
April 26th. Described by San Francisco magazine as
unmissablewith our editor-in-chief Jon Steinberg adding, Ai
may be a better dissident than he is an artist, but theres nobody
quite like him, and nowhere quite like Alcatraz. The hype is
justified. for-site.org
NEW COCKTAIL
AT CHINO
Acclaimed mixologist
and second-generation
San FranciscanDanny
Louie has created a new drink menu
at Chino in the Missiontry the AR
cocktail (named with the initials of a
colleague) which incorporates baijiu,
a strong clear spirit with a distinctive
fragrance and taste that is highly valued
in Chinese culinary culture. Dannys
concoction mixes lychee-infused baijiu,
Aperol, lime, cucumber juiceand
Lipton tea! 3198 16th St., chinosf.com
No.
7
The AVA chair was imagined by Song Wen

Zhong, a 28-year-old Chinese designer
who won the Roche Bobois Design Award
in 2011. Working with themes of nature and
the universal bond between Orient and Occident,
the designer also drew inspiration from the animals
of Chinese legends, from their supple and tapered
silhouettes. AVA would then be a kind of avatara
dragon turned into a chair which evokes a slender and
muscular animal, with a perfect balance between its
mystical inspiration and modern manufacturing. This
deep red version also conveys good fortune and joy.
Find more at the Roche Bobois showroom 701 8th St.,
roche-bobois.com
DJ BABY BOK CHOY AT

THE FERRY BLDG.
This farmers market has

everything And to prove it, just
take the Culinary Market Tour on April
7th with Market Chef Carrie Sullivan. After a
brief overview, its a whirlwind meet-and-greet
with farmers while you sample their freshest
seasonal items that week. Each week, guest
chefs join the group and highlight a favorite
farmperhaps Fresnos Chues Farm, whose
crisp baby bok choy is perfect for a Chunky
Pork Chop and Leafy Green Soup. cuesa.org
No.
9
NATURE CALLING
The Asian Art Museums

current exhibit, Exquisite
Nature, runs through the
fall and presents masterpieces
from some of Chinas most influential
painters of the 14th18th centuries.
These rarely seen paintings include
variations on popular subjects such as
landscape, birds-and-flowers, country
life and historical stories. Though
differing in style and geographical
representation, each artwork offers
a unique take on a shared theme:
humankinds celebration of the natural
world. asianart.org
HOT SEAT
No.
6
No.
8
LI PO SUCTION
Go deep at one of Chinatowns

most notorious dive bars, the
Li Po Cocktail Lounge, opened
in 1937. Named after one of the
greatest poets in Chinas Tang Dynasty, the Li
Po (LEE-poe) is a small and unpretentious
Chinatown dive that lies behind a set of large
red lacquered double doors, through which
noir fans and night owls alike cloak their
footsteps in mystery. No less an authority
than roving superchef Anthony Bourdain has
ranked the infamous mai tai as the best in the
land. Save it, Tonywe already knew that. 916
Grant Ave., lipolounge.com
No.
10
GOLD MEDAL DRINKING

San Franciscos beer lovers have a new
haven at Liquid Gold, with over 30 beers
and cider (and a few wines!) on tap. The
bottle shop and tap room on
Nob Hill also carries a wide
variety of domestic bottles to
enjoy inside or to go. Stop by
and peruse a wide selection
of locally sourced craft beer
and wine, and chat with owner
and life-long San Franciscan
Tim Lee, a fervent supporter
and advocate of local makers
and brewers. 1040 Hyde St.,
liquidgoldsf.com
PHOTO CREDIT: YUAN YUAN TRAN/SF BALLET: ERIK TOMASSON
MINI OF SAN FRANCISCO BRINGS YOU THE TOP

10 HIP THINGS TO DO IN SAN FRANCISCO RIGHT
NOW. FOLLOW #HIPLISTSF
CONTENTS | APR
THE CHINESE CITY

A SPECIAL ISSUE DEVOTED TO NEW POWER HOLDERS,
OLD GRUDGES, AND ETERNALLY GOOD DIM SUM.
San Francisco | April 2015
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANRONG XU
SAN FRANCISCO, 220 POST ST. 415.986.4300
ISAIA
saks.com
San Francisco
CONTENTS | APR
IMPACTS
27 The Dragon and the Dome
How Chinese Americans found their place at the
top of the establishment. By Chris A. Smith
34 Lunch with the Lees

An intimate conversation with the First
Couple of San Francisco. By Jon Steinberg
38 The Guanxi Game

A survey of the 62 most connected Chinese
Americans in the Bay Area. By Ellen Lee
40 Where Print Rules

Chinese-language newspapers arent just
survivingtheyre thriving. By Adam L. Brinklow
42 To Shoppers, with Love

How savvy Union Square retailers are wooing Chinas
label-loving big spenders. By Lauren Murrow
DELICACIES
45 Treasures of the Near East
The A to Z of dim sum; a soup dumpling
pilgrimage; the secrets of San Tung; regional
cuisine takes a bow; and more.
IDENTITIES
61 Its Easy to Be Chinese
in San Francisco
The benefits of membership in Americas
most Chinese city. By Bonnie Tsui
66 Yuan Yuans World

At home with San Francisco Ballet icon
Yuan Yuan Tan. By Lauren Murrow
68 My So-Flawed Life
Growing up in the middle of a culture clash.
By Kristina Wong
72 The Shoulders I Stand On

Three artists discuss the works and people that
influence and inspire them. By Annie Tittiger
MARK MAHANEY
74 So You Want Your Kid

to Speak Mandarin?
Chinese immersion schools are hot right now. But for
some parents, theres a downside. By Rachel Levin
COVER: PHOTOGRAPH BY AMY HARRITY
PHOTOGRAPH BY KIMBERLEY HASSELBRINK
tSHREVE & CO.
POST & GRANT, SAN FRANCISCO STANFORD SHOPPING CENTER, PALO ALTO
SHREVE.COM 800-5-SHREVE
CONTENTS | APR
UNDER
CHINATOWNS
SKIN
80 How Chinatown Works
Meet the SRO dwellers, produce
vendors, political activists, and
beauty queens who make up
the neighborhood.
86 The Dim Sum Revolution

How a brigade of exploited workers
took back what was theirs.
By Vanessa Hua
94 Where Have All the

Gangsters Gone?
Chinatown was once a place of
legendary violence, but now its
streets are quiet. What happened?
By Max Cherney
100 Long Live the Empress

The sale of the Empress of China
building has opened a debate about
the future of the citys most unique
neighborhood.
By Andrew Leonard
14
20
22
121
124
140
Feedback
Pub Notes
Prologue
Outtakes
Eats
Affinities
COVER: PHOTOGRAPHS BY TIMOTHY OCONNELL
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FEEDBACK
Mr. Wright, 58
Mike, 53
Carolina, 40s
Jim, 64
This is an excellent
primer on the history
of and approaches
to San Franciscos
homelessness situation.
@kimmaicutler,
VIA TWITTER
Joshua, 11
Erin, 26
THE
OUTSIDERS
Brian, 38
For more than 30 years

the homeless have roamed
San Franciscos streets.
Are they destined to suffer
here forever?
A great and in-depth

look into a challenging
issue facing S.F. and the
nation.
By Gary Kamiya
Photographs by Mark Mahaney
96
San Francisco | March 2015
March 2015 | San Francisco
97
This is a great
article on S.F.s
A marvelously written piece

about the homeless in S.F.
Thank you to @sanfranmag for the thorough and

compassionate reporting about #SF homelessness.
homelessness
by Gary
@MeiraInSF, VIA TWITTER
@kristinaurora, VIA TWITTER
Kamiyait
embraces the
complexity and
makes some
Homelessness in focus
clear, if hard,
proposals.
I am a new subscriber to San Francisco: The February issue on sex was so interesting that I
sent in my subscription. However, the cover of the March issue horrified meone more
paean to the rich, I thought. Then I read the fine article by Gary Kamiya on the homeless
crisis [The Outsiders]. I so appreciate the juxtaposition of Lush Life and homelessness
that I can only salute you for your sensitivity to what goes on in our city. One of the portraits in The Outsiders is of a homeless man who came to Trinity Episcopal Church
when I was rector, from 1983 to 2002. I ache to think of him on the streets.
@jlipps,
VIA TWITTER
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The Reverend Robert Warren Cromey, SAN FRANCISCO

If you care about income inequality, you could fret over Google, Facebook, and the rest driving real San
Franciscans from their homes and
I love your magazine, but I struggled with the mixed messages in

the March issue, wherein a moving
and socially conscious article on
throw rocks at buses. Or, you could

appeal to tech firms to donate cash
to organizations like Downtown
Streets Team, which empowers hun-
homelessness was spliced with ads

for expensive labels and elite promotions. Although there may be a
business need, I found the editing
dreds of homeless people to get jobs

and find permanent living situations. The choice is yours.
choices confusing and disheartening. Why showcase something so

important only to contradict it a
page later?
David Holmes, PANDODAILY
Angela McIsaac, SAN FRANCISCO
SPECIAL REPORT WHY CANT SAN FRANCISCO HALT ITS HOMELESS CRISIS? BY GARY KAMIYA
WINNER
2015
National
Magazine
Award
lush
life
SPRING
FASHION
THE SEASONS MOST

RADIANT DESIGNS IN
THE BAY AREAS MOST
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$4.99 March 2015

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SAN FRANCISCOS COLDEST RIVALRY / LONDON BREED SPEAKS HER MIND
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FEEDBACK
Congratulations on publishing the article by Gary Kamiya
that addresses the serious problem of homelessness in San
Francisco. But in considering why cant San Francisco halt its
homeless crisis, Kamiya never mentions what I believe to be
the obvious reason for homelessness in Americapredatory
capitalism. The simple truth is that the homeless are a natural
by-product of our winner-take-all economic system. The solution to homelessness in San Francisco and the destitution of
millions across the nation is to adopt a democratic socialist
system, under which the nations major resources are used to
serve the common good, in place of the present plutocratic
system, under which the top 1 percent monopolize the
nations wealth.
Al Cardwell, NAPA
I found your piece to be the most thorough and comprehensive accounting of San Francisco homelessness ever written.
So many journalists get the story wrong, and you got it right.
San Francisco may be the only local print publication that
would give so much space to such serious writing. Congratulations on an outstanding accomplishment.
Randy Shaw, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TENDERLOIN HOUSING CLINIC
The coupon-clipping politician

While newly minted San Francisco Board of Supervisors president London Breed [Think Tank: London Breed, March] concedes that gentrification in neighborhoods like the Western
Addition and Hayes Valley has produced cosmetic improvements,
she expresses concern about the impact of such changes on those
with fewer financial resources. San Francisco is so pricey that
Breed, a vocal champion of small business, has to shop at a discount chain. Mull that over while you look at your savings account
and cry.
Robyn Hagan Cain, RACKED SF
London Breed is the first supervisor to correctly identify the real
source of the housing crisisthe cost of building.
@woolie, VIA TWITTER
S.F. is cray crayand needs to check itself!
@mariaajudice, VIA TWITTER
When kale becomes kids food

This article [Kids These Days,
March] could be about my son!
@anjikets, VIA TWITTER
You know your kid watches too
many cooking shows when he asks if
he can make salmon en crote. WTF?
@zerena_hoofs, VIA TWITTER
CORRECTIONS: In Souvenirs from the Long Haul (February),
In The Outsiders (March), New York mayor Bill de Blasios name

was misspelled.
16
SERGE SEIDLITZ
we erroneously stated that designer Erica Tanov collects oak pus;

in fact, she collects oak galls.
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The five most popular blog posts on Sanfranmag.com last month.
1. The Best Transit Map of San
Francisco Ever Is Here
Its wonderful. Heres how to
use it.
One Week Only!

April 1419, 2015
2. Jerky Neighbor Makes

Zuckerberg Staffer Want to
Punch People in the Face
Househusbands of Palo Alto.
3. Five Breweries Thatll Make
You Forget Youre in Wine
Country
A guide to beers both beloved
and little known in Napa
and Sonoma.
SOUNDBYTE
The Albany Bulb

attracted characters,
and with them came
their artBoxer Bobs
Mansion, Mad Marcs
Fairy Castle, the colorful
paintings of Danielle
Evans, Judith Leinens
zoetropes and mandalas,
and Jimbow the
Hobows rugged poetry
and painted driftwood
all on display at the
SOMARTS exhibit.
The Bay Area welcomes spring each year

with this popular week-long exhibition featuring

designers create arrangements that pay tribute
to and draw inspiration from the works in the
de Youngs permanent collection.
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5. The Lead Guitarist from

Journey and the White House
Gate-Crasher Lady Are Suing
the City
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PUB NOTES
PUBLISHER PAUL REULBACH SHARES THE STORIES BEHIND THIS ISSUES STORIES.
This issue is the product of many months of planning, reporting, andmost enjoyable for me
lunching. Last fall, editor-in-chief Jon Steinberg, food editor Rebecca Flint Marx, and I had the
pleasure of sitting down for a long, spicy meal at Z & Y Restaurant on Jackson Street with George
Chen and his team. If you havent heard what Chens up to, you will soon: Hes building a mega
food hall on Broadway in Chinatown that will do for Chinese cuisine what New Yorks Eataly
did for Italian food. When it opens later this year, China Live will join a bumper crop of bigticket restaurants, like Crystal Jade and Hakkasan, that are changing perceptions about what
Chinese food can be. Theyre symbols of a new era: the age of Chinese-American preeminence
in San Francisco, which this issue explores to the fullest. Enjoy. Paul preulbach@modernluxury.com
THE CHINESE BUREAU
Kristina Wong
Writer, My SoFlawed Life, page
68. The Chinese
city in five words:
Chastity until
after med school.
Andrew
Leonard
Timothy
OConnell
Photographer,
cover. The Chinese
city in five words:
A community
anchored in
tradition.
Its Fun to
Stay at the...
When photo director
Nadia Lachance went
in search of a central
Chinatown location
for our cover shoot,
she looked no further
than the Chinatown
YMCA, a gathering spot
for the neighborhood
since its doors opened
in 1911. Over the
course of two days
there, photographer
Timothy OConnell
shot portraits of more
than 80 members of
the Chinese-American
communitysome, like
politicos Carmen Chu
and David Chiu, were
invited to the shoot, but
others trickled in off the
streets, curious about
what was happening in
the lobby of the Y.
Jason Lam
Photographer,
Chinese
Bakeries, page 50.
The Chinese city
in five words:
Lifes better with
Chinese bakeries.
Max Cherney
Writer, Where
Have All the
Gangsters Gone?
page 94. The
Chinese city in five
words: Dont F
with the tongs.
Writer, Long Live

the Empress, page
100. The Chinese
city in five words:
As American as
apple pie.
Stephen McLaren
Bonnie Tsui
Photographer,
Under Chinatowns
Skin, page 80. The
words: Old Gold
Mountain sparkles
promise.
Rachel Levin
Writer, Its Easy

to Be Chinese
Here, page 61.
The Chinese city
in five words: So
unremarkable that
its remarkable.
Writer, So You
Want Your Kid to
Speak Mandarin?
page 74. The
words: Sunday
night San Tung
takeout.
Vanessa Hua
Writer, The Dim
Sum Revolution,
page 86. The
words: Chinese
diaspora connects
and compels.
20
Writer, The
Dragon and the
Dome, page 27.
The Chinese city in
five words: Theres
nothing monolithic
about it.
Alanna Hale
Photographer,
Yuan Yuans
World, page 66.
The Chinese city in
five words: Dense,
mysterious,
significant, Kurt
Russell.
Kimberley
Hasselbrink
Photographer,
Our XLB Inspire
Obsessive
Pilgrimages, page
46. The Chinese
city in five words:
Jook is my noodle
soup.
How Chinatown Works

It all started innocently enough for web
editor Scott Lucas, whose Mandarinspeaking wife has been taking him
grocery shopping along Stockton Street
for years. He simply wondered, how do
those markets operate? Little did he know
that he was opening Pandoras box: One
question about Chinatown logistics led
to another, which eventually led to the
entire package titled Under Chinatowns
Skin, on page 80. Of all the nuggets to
come out of Lucass weeks of reporting,
his most treasured is the fact that you can

buy a whole goose on Stockton Street for
a mere $30. Ive always wanted to cook a
whole goose, he says. Nows my chance.
ALANNA HALE; COURTESY OF YMCA; COURTESY OF SUBJECTS
Chris Smith
PROLOGUE
From the Editors
LITTLE OVER four years ago, on January 11,
Still others are newly arrived immigrants whose H-1B
2011, Edwin Mah Lee was appointed the first
visas have allowed them to join that other dominant caste
Chinese-American mayor of San Francisco.
of San Francisco: techies. Some live in Chinatown, Amer-
The big surprise then wasnt that the impos-
icas oldest Chinese community; others inhabit the Rich-
sible had occurred; it was that the inevitable
mond, the Sunset, the Excelsior, and Hunters Point, not
had taken its sweet time (162 years, to be
to mention Oakland, Millbrae, Palo Alto, and every other
exact) to come to fruition. Chinese Ameri-
corner of the Bay Area.
cans, after all, are among the longest-ten-
The fact that these subgroups actually have very little
ured San Franciscans: Chinese workers alighted here with the rest
in common creates a problem for thoselike usin search
of the 49ers to mine Gold Mountain, andthe odd Chinese Exclu-
of universal truths about the Chinese-American city. Its
sion Act notwithstandingthey havent stopped streaming in since.
impossible to encapsulate the entirety of Chinese-Ameri-
Today, one in five San Franciscans is of Chinese descent, more than
can life and culture in San Francisco in a mere 140 pages
triple the percentage in any other major American city. Ed Lees
not when the populace is as vast and heterogeneous as
ascension to mayor and his subsequent election in November 2011
ours is. But hey, can you blame us for trying?
werent just markers of demographic destiny: They were signals that

the city has finally embraced its Chinese roots.
In this issuethe first weve ever devoted to a single

ethnic minorityyoull find stories that explore many, if
During the four years since, the Chinese-American juggernaut
not all, sides of the Chinese-American experience in San
has only grown in strength. Not only does Lee look to be heading
Francisco circa 2015. Weve divided these dispatches into
for a cakewalk of a reelection (as of press time, he faces exactly zero
four broad categories: Impacts, on page 27, focuses on
legitimate contenders), but the largest municipal transit project
politics and the wielders of influence; Delicacies, on
since BARTthe $1.5 billion Central Subwayis inching toward
page 45, unearths the hidden gems and longtime classics
its Chinatown terminus. The old neighborhood itself is undergo-
of our obscenely good Chinese food scene; Identities, on
ing a lot-by-lot overhaul, with the landmark Empress of China
page 61, features personal stories about fitting in with (and
building on the market for a rumored $25 million, Chinese Hospi-
breaking away from) a hyphenate society; and Under
tal in the midst of a $160 million expansion, and A-list restaurant
Chinatowns Skin, on page 80, digs beneath the surface
projects like George Chens China Live and Brandon Jews Mister
Jius speeding down the pike. Combine these bursts of progress
with continued Chinese-American successes at the ballot boxsee
the rung-by-rung advances of politicians like David Chiu, Carmen
Chu, Fiona Ma, and Phil Ting, among othersand its clear that
the city has never been more under the sway of Chinese-American
movers and shakers. (And we didnt even mention Rose Pak, the
Its impossible to encapsulate all of

Chinese-American life in 140 pages. But
hey, can you blame us for trying?
towns consummate power broker. Hello, Rose!)

Of course, thats not to say that San Franciscos 171,564 ChineseAmerican citizens (as counted by the Census Bureaus 2013 Ameri-
22
of the citys most unique and, at times, most impenetrable

neighborhood.
can Community Survey) constitute a monolithic entityor that
Throughout this issue, youll find stories, many of
theyre all uniformly successful. In fact, the community of people
them written by Chinese Americans, about oft-overlooked
who share Chinese ethnicity is as socially and economically diverse
aspects of this astonishingly rich culture. Given the rise
as any group of random, unrelated Americans. Some are third- or
of the new Chinese-American establishment, you might
fourth-generation San Franciscans who dont speak or read Chi-
think that all of the narrative stones have already been
nese but have chosen to enroll their children in one of the citys 14
turned over. But Mayor Lee and his high-powered cohort
Chinese-language immersion schools. Others are blue-collar ser-
are just one element of the overall landscape. There are
vice workers, many undocumented, who speak in dialects that are
thousands of other tales worth telling. Were proud to
mutually unintelligible (your Taishanese is Greek to my Mandarin).
present a few of them here.
First Republic is always there for us from

remodels to equipment purchases they are our
partner in growth.
M U I R O RT H O PA E D I C S P E C I A L I S T S
Pictured left to right: John M. Knight, M.D.; George J. Tischenko, M.D.;

Charles F. Preston, M.D.; Joseph X. Kou, M.D.
(855) 886-4824 or visit www.firstrepublic.com New York Stock Exchange Symbol: FRC
Member FDIC and Equal Housing Lender
THE
CHINESE
CITY
A NEW SAN FRANCISCO DYNASTY
TAKES HOLD, FROM CITY HALL TO
STOCKTON STREET.
PART 1
Impacts: The destiny of demographics, the
legacy of a mayor, the power of the press.
PART 2
Delicacies: The joy of a dumpling, the
mysteries of a hot spot, the glory of a dive.
PART 3
Identities: The pull of community, the trials
of a teenager, the mementos of a dancer.
PART 4
Under Chinatowns Skin: The secrets of San
Franciscos most impenetrable neighborhood.
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The Dragon and the Dome

How a ghettoized minority cracked the San
Francisco establishmentand then became it.
By Chris A. Smith
ILLUSTRATION BY
John Ritter
TS A WINTER AFTERNOON in Chinatown, and three lushly tressed Golden State

Warriors cheerleaders stand at attention near the door of a rec center gym. In the
bleachers, dozens of kids squirm excitedly: The Warriors are here! Up on stage, Harrison Barnes, the soaring 6-foot, 8-inch small forward, and Draymond Green, the 6-foot,
7-inch defender extraordinaire, loom over the proceedings, swathed in NBA-branded
swag. They are here for the unveiling of a special Golden State uniform celebrating Chinese New Year, a sleek, slate-gray number bearing the teams name in Mandarin.
A decent slice of the citys Chinese-Ameri-
to swing elections. Last fall, Chinese Americans
were just here to make money before rejoining
can political class has turned out, looking no
gave David Chiu the crucial margin over David
their families in China. Some of the immigrants
less delighted than the kids. Carmen Chu, the
Campos in the east-side state assembly race, and
saw to it that their bones would be shipped back
assessor-recorder, is here, as are west of Twin
they voted overwhelmingly against Proposition
home when they died.
Peaks supervisor Norman Yee and longtime
G, San Franciscos proposed real estate transfer
Clustered together by both necessity and incli-
Chinatown power broker Rose Pak. Mayor Ed
tax, ensuring its defeat. Demographic and voting
nation, the Chinese governed themselves. An
Lee sits next to Green, looking like a one-story
trends suggest that moderate-to-conservative
institution called the Chinatown Six Companies
bungalow in the shadow of a skyscraper. A former
Chinese-American and other Asian-American
Benevolent Society acted as a quasi-government,
pickup player himself, the mayor dips into his
voters may soon dominate the districts along
controlling commerce and providing some social
bottomless reservoir of goofy jokes and comes
the citys southern rimfrom the Bayview to
services. The tongs, mafia-like organizations
up with a quip: I used to dunkof course, with
Crocker-Amazon to west of Twin Peaks.
with old-world roots, ran the opium and pros-
Dunkin Donuts, right?
Demographics is destiny, as the saying goes,
titution rackets and kept a rough sort of order.
The event is, at bottom, a transactional aair.
but thats just part of the story. This political
For my fathers generation, says Wayne Hu,
It aims to build the teams brand in China, the
transformation is also the result of a decades-
next great global basketball market, and stroke
long give-and-take between the establishment
a key part of its local fan base. There are roughly
and Chinese-American activists, politicians,
1.7 million Asian Americans in the Bay Area, and
and fundraisers. Since the 1980s, if not earlier,
more than 20 percent of the population of San
conventional political wisdom had held that the
Franciscofuture home of the Warriors arena
Chinese-American electorate was a sleeping
on Mission Bayis Chinese-American. In its mix
giant. Ed Lees election confirmed that the giant
of genuine goodwill and ruthless self-interest,
had, at long last, awakened. While that history
substance and symbolism, the unveiling of a
is well known, the story of the formative early
Chinese-themed uniform oers a useful way to
yearsin which each side worked out exactly
think about relations between Chinese Ameri-
how it could be of use to the otheris less so.
cans and San Franciscos traditionally white-
It was always just a matter of who and when,
dominated political and business establishment.
not if, says Vincent Pan, executive director of
Once well outside the political mainstream,
the Chinatown nonprofit Chinese for Arma-
the Chinese-American community has become
tive Action. But the how is a curious thing.
an electoral powerhouse, able to provide friendly
28
Ed Lees election
confirmed that the
giant had, at long
last, awakened.
a 70-year-old real estate consultant who helped
run the Chinese New Year parade for years, it
candidatesincreasingly Chinese-American
F O R R O U G H LY the first century of its exis-
themselveswith votes, money, and small armies
tence, Chinatown was a neighborhood apart. A
Up through the mid-20th century, a few Chi-
of campaign workers. Ed Lees election in 2011
latticework of racist laws prevented the Chinese
nese political bosses handled interactions with
as the citys first Asian-American mayor is just
from attending schools outside Chinatown, hold-
city hall, which tended toward the baldly quid
the most obvious example. Chinese Americans
ing government positions, or living west of Powell
pro quo. Because the 1943 Magnuson Act capped
currently hold 3 of 11 seats on the citys Board of
or north of Broadway. The city fathers, who saw
Chinese immigration at a mere 105 souls a year,
Supervisors, both of San Franciscos state assem-
the neighborhood as a breeding ground for vice
wealthy Chinese were forced to pay fixers like
bly seats, and a host of other positions, from the
and filth, periodically tried to make it disap-
attorney Albert Chow up to $5,000 a pop to pro-
local school board to the state controllers oce.
pearafter the 1906 earthquake, in fact, they
cure visas. For white pols, engagement with Chi-
This community is anything but monolithic: It
attempted to exile the community to the remote
natown consisted of little more than showing up
is American-born and immigrant; English- and
and far less valuable real estate of Hunters Point.
to collect a check. Youd go to Chinatown, thered
Chinese-speaking; made up of west-side home-
At least at first, though, Chinatown was also
be a big dinner, and youd pose with the leader-
owners, San Bruno Avenue shopkeepers, and Chi-
isolated by choice. Early on, many Chinese
ship of the Six Companies, says Doug Chan, past
natown tenants. Nevertheless, it now constitutes
who had migrated to Old Gold Mountainas
president of the Chinese American Democratic
18 percent of registered votersa tick below its
San Francisco was knownsaw themselves as
Club (CADC). That was the deliverable.
share of the population but more than enough
temporary residents, so-called sojourners, who
was Keep to yourself.
Such was the situation when Phillip Burton
Lee, later wrote, Chinese Americans actually

outnumbered tourists on Grant Avenue.
The Six Companies went ballistic, says
Ling-Chi Wang, an activist who cofounded
Chinese for Armative Action and chaired UC
Berkeleys Asian American Studies department
in its earliest days. They were humiliated. They
always bragged that they could take care of
their own problems, so they felt a loss of face.
According to Lee, someone put out a hit on four
of the activists. Luckily, the would-be assassins
were nabbed at SFO with guns in their bags.
The student protest was a measure of how
much had already changed in the Chinese-American community. In 1965, the federal government
relaxed its immigration laws, allowing 20,000
Chinese to enter the country annually beginning
in 1968. The resolution of one problem, however,
created another: The rush of immigrants, many
of them poor and monolingual, overwhelmed
Chinatown, and the old systemnever that
reliable to begin withbegan breaking down.
By the late 1960s, the neighborhoods run-down
tenements were filled to bursting, the tuberculosis rate had skyrocketed, and immigrant youth
gangs clogged the street corners. The journalist
Ben Fong-Torres wrote, People were being killed
in the streets, merchants were being extorted;
gangs were at war not only with each other but
The board of the Chinese Six Companies Benevolent Association meets at its Chinatown headquarters, San Francisco, 1946.
with community leaders and cops.

Meanwhile, the Asian-American movement
was rising at colleges across the Bay Area. At San
arrived on the scene in the 1950s. An ambi-
Tommy Maloney, the longtime incumbent, by
Francisco State in 1968, students held teach-
tious young progressive whod been shut out
winning 84 percent of the Chinese-American
ins and marches and shut down the campus,
of oce by the Irish political machine, Burton
votea decisive total in an election decided by
demanding an ethnic studies program and a
was the first white politician to see Chinatown
just 659 votes. Burton would go on to build the
more diverse faculty and student body. There
as something other than an exotic ATM. As John
Democratic machine that ruled Northern Califor-
were firebombs, mass arrests, and busted heads,
Jacobs recounts in his biography of Burton, A
nia for decades to come, and Chinese Americans
but five months later, the school caved and rolled
Rage for Justice, Burton joined forces with a
were part of it. With Low, Lee, and Lees wife,
out the nations first college of ethnic studies.
well-connected political organizer named Lim P.
Catherine, Burton founded the CADCa key
Even in victory, though, the activists recog-
Lee, who introduced him to all the right people.
first step into the political mainstream. The club
nized that campus protest wasnt enough. The
Burton schmoozed the editors of the Chinese-
would help train a generation of operatives over
strategically foulmouthed spokesman George
language newspapers, knocked on doors, and
the years, but progress would be slow. In 1960,
Woo pressed students to put their ideals into
wooed the leaders of the Six Companies.
Chinese Americans made up just 5 percent of
practice by serving the community. Identity
Most important, Burton championed issues
San Franciscos population, and they didnt have
without action, he thundered at a Yellow Sym-
that mattered to the Chinese-American commu-
the money to compensate for the lack of bodies.
posium at UC Berkeley, was just mental mas-
nity. During the McCarthy era, in 1956, federal
As Phil Chin, a former Chinatown activist who
turbation. Students heard the call. Sue Lee, a
attorneys subpoenaed membership records held
worked for both Art Agnos and Willie Brown
Chinatown-born activist who has worked for
by Chinatowns traditional organizations. Few
during their mayoralties, says, The number of
five dierent mayors and now runs the Chinese
Chinese had come here on wholly legal terms,
people who played in the sandbox was very small.
Historical Society of America, was one of them.
and the community was terrified. Burton was the
E I G H T Y E A R S L AT E R , on a quiet Satur-
federal judge ordered an end to the subpoenas.
day evening in August of 1968, a few hundred
Chinatown storefronts soon sprouted a con-
It was the right thing to do. But it was also
Chinese-American students marched down
stellation of nonprofits devoted to social justice,
the smart thing to do. Burton, a pioneer in voter
Grant Avenue, under the gilded eaves and past
legal aid, and elderly care. Fueled by federal
analytics, understood that the citys ethnic com-
the throngs of tourists. It was the first such
grants, the new organizations became farm
plexion was changing. Harry Low, who became
protest Chinatown had ever seen. The students
teams for the Chinese-American political class,
the first Chinese-American judge in Northern
carried signs proclaiming Equality for Chinese
launching the careers of future leaders like Ed
California, says that while Burton genuinely
and Chinatown Is a Ghetto, indicting both the
Lee and Phil Chin. Most of the current crop of
cared, he was, of course, counting votes. He
slumlords and the predatory business owners
Asian-American politicians, from Phil Ting to
probably ate voters lists for breakfast.
who made up the Six Companies, along with
Norman Yee to Jane Kim to Eric Mar, came out
In the race for the citys east-side state assembly
their partners in the white establishment. For
of the nonprofit world. [The nonprofits] shaped
seat that fall, Burton took down unbeatable
once, as one of the organizers, William Poy
the way we see our mission, Ting says. Its like
going to make a dierence in Chinatown.
BETTMANN CORBIS/AP IMAGES
30
People came out of college and thought, Im
only politician to raise a stink, and eventually a
developers from building high-rises among

the tenements. Peskin, whose relationship
with Pak over the years has oscillated between
close ally and bitter foe, says, She is a major
reason why that reservoir of low-income housing still exists.
When Art Agnos ran for mayor in 1987, Pak
and the Chinese community were right beside
him. As chief of staff to Assemblyman Leo
McCarthy more than a decade earlier, Agnos
had worked with Pak to prevent the closure
of Chinese Hospital, which served the neighborhoods poorest. That made Agnos a VIP in
Chinatown. Community organizers turned out
bodies to vote, phone-bank, and canvass for him,
and Pak raised heaps of money. Shed raise and
package tens of thousands of dollars, Agnos
says. And then when [the donors] needed help
from the government, shed deliver it.
With Agnoss victory, the nonprofits again had
an ally in City Hall. Under the new mayor, Chinese Americans began snagging appointments to
Ed Lee (center, mustached) leads a housing protest at City Hall with the Asian Law Caucus in 1978.
commissions with juice: health, the port, public

utilities, and the police. (That last post went
to Pius Lee, a Rolls Roycedriving realtor who
the roots of a treethey all go back to that.
an Asian American. Gordon Chin, cofounder
had made a fortune selling houses to Chinese
North Beach patriarch Joe Alioto occupied
of the Chinatown Community Development
immigrants. He celebrated the appointment by
Room 200 during these turbulent years. In
Center (CCDC) and author of the forthcoming
supplying the cops with a horse.) And most of
1973, he appointed George Chinn, a lawyer and
memoir Building Community, Chinatown Style,
them were recommended by Pak. She pushed
former Board of Education member, as the
remembers those years fondly: It was this whole
hard, Agnos says with considerable understate-
citys first Asian-American supervisor. Chinn
upsurge of optimism, like with Obama.
ment. And she never brought me stis.
was no revolutionary, and he lost his election
The CADC, meanwhile, began vaulting can-
All the while, the Chinatown nonprofits
bid nine months later, but his appointment was
didates into lower-profile oces with regular-
continued to graduate activists into the city
a concession to the times. As former Board of
ityone year the school board, another year the
bureaucracy. The strategy was simple, Pak says:
Supervisors president Aaron Peskin puts it,
community college board. The clubs proprietary
You teach them how politics works, and then
Alioto was old-school, but he paid attention.
Chinese-surname database helped: Operatives
you push them out to the city. Ed Lee came up
Greater victories were coming. Activists
cross-checked voter lists with the 6,000-name
through this minor-league system, landing his
pushed for Chinese-language balloting and
database and precisely targeted Chinese voters,
first city jobas the investigator for the citys
sued the city over discriminatory practices,
sending out Cantonese mailers and boosting the
new whistle-blower programunder Agnos.
including height requirements, that eectively
Chinese vote. Doug Chan, who helped develop
The honeymoon ended after the Loma Prieta
excluded Chinese Americans from the police
the database, describes the increase in Chinese-
earthquake of 1989, which badly damaged the
department. With the help of activist lawyers
American power as a building by accretion.
Embarcadero Freeway. Chinatown merchants,
like Ed Lee, the tenants of Ping Yuen, at the
I N C H I N AT O W N , this accretion was due in
livelihood, were livid when Agnos announced
ing complex on Pacific, launched the first rent
no small part to the eorts of Rose Pak, who has
that he wouldnt rebuild. When Agnos ran for
strike against the S.F. Housing Authority in
loomed over the areas politics for more than 30
reelection in 1991, most of the community aban-
Chinatowns history.
years. Arriving from Hong Kong in the 1960s,
doned him. Worse, the fast-growing west-side
In 1975, George Moscone, one of the most
she worked as a reporter for the Chronicle before
Chinese-American neighborhoods turned out en
liberal members of the state assembly, ran
moving into her current role as general consultant
masse for his opponent, the more conservative
for mayor. He had the strong backing of the
to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and all-
former police chief Frank Jordan, who received
Burton machine, run by Phillip and his younger
around neighborhood fixer. She quickly got to
70 percent of the vote in some precincts.
brother, John, and most of the Chinese voting
know everyone who mattered in Chinatown, from
Jordans landslide in the avenues was no fluke.
bloc. Activists from both the nonprofits and
the old bosses to the activists to the politicians
The west side had become a force in Chinese-
the CADC walked precincts for him, worked
in City Hall and Sacramento. And she wasnt
Americanand San Franciscopolitics.
the phones, and turned out the vote. In turn,
afraid to fight. Over the years Ive stepped on
Moscone included a Chinese American, Betty
a lot of toes, made a lot of enemies, and a lot of
THIS EMERGENCE, however, had been many
Lim, in his kitchen cabinet and helped usher
people stabbed me in the back, she says.
years in the making. As whites departed the
in district elections for supervisors, which gave
Whatever the case, Pak racked up the wins.
Richmond and the Sunset for less foggy climes
minority candidates a better shot at beating well-
In 1987, she helped save 176 poor tenants in Chi-
in the 1970s, Chinese families filled the gap,
funded establishment pols. He also appointed
natowns Orangeland tenements from eviction.
trading up from Chinatown or immigrating
Gordon Lau, a lawyer active in the civil rights
The next year, she persuaded the citys Planning
from Hong Kong. Chinese-American citizens
struggle, to a supervisorial seat in 1977, and
Commission to pass the Chinatown Master
outside of Chinatown quickly came to out-
Lau won election later that yeara first for
Plan, which, among other things, prohibited
number those within
> CONTINUED ON PAGE 114
COURTESY OF THE ASIAN LAW CAUCUS
32
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SUMMIT
GUTTER CREDIT HERE
34
Lunch
with the
Lees
Talking family, politics,
and a changing Chinatown
with Mr. and Mrs. Mayor.
By Jon Steinberg
Lunch
with the
Lees
Talking family, politics,
and Chinatown with
Mr. and Mrs. Mayor.
GUTTER CREDIT HERE
By Jon Steinberg
PHOTOGRAPH BY RAMIN RAHIMIAN
April 2015 | San Francisco
35
N THE FIRST DAY
of the Year of the Ram, the First Couple of San

Franciscoand the first Chinese Americans
ever to be granted that lofty titleduck into City
View dim sum restaurant on the eastern edge of
Chinatown. Ed and Anita Lee, who met cute in a
language-exchange program in her hometown of
Hong Kong in 1974 (He didnt know Cantonese
until I taught himnow hes very good!), glide
more or less unnoticed through the crowded
dining room. Even here in Chinatownwhere
Ed Lee earned his activist stripes as a tenants
lawyer in the early 80s, and where his appointment to the mayors seat in 2011 was treated as
a community coronationthe Lees presence
barely moves the celebrity needle.
Though their profiles remain absurdly low,
2015 is shaping up to be an auspicious year for the
son of a cook and a seamstress from Guangdong
Province and his media-shy wife. The mayor is
up for reelection in November, and, thus far,
his path to a second term appears untroubled.
Anita Lee: My mom told me that no matter what, you had to graduate from college and
get a job, and dont think that you can depend on any man. She told me that when I was
five years old, and I told my own daughters that when they were five.
Ed Lee: I once had a conversation with my mom, who said, Hey, youre a lawyer, youre
successfuldont you want to continue being a lawyer instead of being a government
bureaucrat? Thats political. Up until my generation, that had been the attitude among
people from China: You dont want to do politics. Politics is either dirty or you get
blamed for everything that goes wrong. Theres a saying in Chinese: ho gang, which
means, That profession is dangerous. My mom came from a place where government
was pretty bad. People got killed over there. She felt like, We educated you. You had a
good education. Why would you go into a dangerous profession?
Mr. Mayor, right after being appointed in 2011, you spoke about the great pride you
felt in becoming the citys first Chinese-American mayor. You said that your election
was a testament to the struggle for equality that Chinese Americans have waged for
decades. Has that long battle essentially been won?
EL: I often tell people, dont automatically assume that all Chinese Americans in San
Francisco are successful just because we have a Chinese mayor. I visit often with immigrant families, people in public housing, people struggling with housing costs, with the
language barriers, with questionable immigration status. Theyre all struggling. And Im
constantly getting their input about how to make sure our kids arent growing up in little
ghettos or Chinese-only communities.
Some within the Chinese-American community here say that you have a bit of an
Obama problemthat in trying to be a leader for everyone, you havent fought hard
enough for your own people. How do you respond to that?
EL: If you look at where were spending the citys budget, Id argue that the dollars are
spent well in Asian communities. But its true that I am the mayor for everyone. If there
are expectations among leaders in Chinatown that I should take care of Asians first, Im
going to disappoint those people. I think the mayor shouldnt be looked at as a single
representative for a single ethnicity. Clearly, I understand my own background. But I
also want to be the mayor for the gay and lesbian community, the black community, the
Latino community. I actually believe that helping those communities is going to allow
Asians to prosper as well.
That seems like a tough sell to community activists like your longtime supporter
Rose Pak, who seems to want you to appoint Asian Americans exclusively.
EL: Look, I lived through the years when the Asian movement was all about building
the Asian community strong, sometimes even to the disinterest of other groups.I
think being the mayor of San Francisco is a very dierent gig from that. Id make the
point that Chinese people are no longer met with a lot of resistance when they move to
Visitacion Valley or to the Richmond, the Sunset, the Bayview, Hunters Point. So why
should Chinese leaders say only Chinese people can live in Chinatown? That doesnt
make sense. What Id like to ask is, how can African Americans live in Chinatown, and
how can both cultures embrace each other to climb out of poverty?
He faces no serious opposition, having scared
Is that something that you want: a more diverse Chinatown?
away the biggest potential threat, state senator
EL: What Im painting a picture of is, just as the Chinese should never have been
Mark Leno, last Novemberand hes raising

just-in-case money at a furious clip. Even a recent
dustup with longtime allies in Chinatown over
an unpopular Board of Supervisors appointment
seems unlikely to derail the Ed Lee Express.
So, understandably, the Lees are in a buoyant
mood on this sunny New Years Day as they share
dim sum and conversation with San Francisco
editor-in-chief Jon Steinberg. While Anita Lee
does the ordering, her husband does the talking,
expansively fielding questions about his priorities for a second term, his hopes for a diversified
Chinatown, and his sometimes-rocky relationship with an ascendant Chinese community.
36
Was political ambition something that was instilled in both of you early on?
limited to living in Chinatown, so too should other communities not be stuck in specific
neighborhoods. The Bayview should not be just for blacks; African Americans should be
successful all over the place. And Latinos shouldnt just be concentrated in the Mission;
they should be able to buy and to rent anywhere in the city. I grew up asking, Why are
we Chinese stuck only in Chinatown? Why is Chinatown housing so dilapidated? There
shouldnt be limitations just because our original roots happened to be in those areas.
A big change is coming to Chinatown soon with the Central Subway: How do you see
it impacting the neighborhood, and the city at large, when it opens in 2019?
EL: First of all, its going to be a huge connector between the north and south. I
definitely want to see a decrease in density on the 30-Stockton Muni line as a direct
result. Youre going to see more Chinese people living in the southern part of the city.
I think youll see a lot of Chinese patrons of the Warriors in their new arena; youll
see a lot of Chinatown residents servicing the incredible healthcare in Mission Bay.
Youre going to see a strengthening of Chinese businesses along corridors like Noriega,
Clement, Irving, and Third Street. I think the African-American community thats been
struggling with its small businesses is going to welcome the investment from Chinese
small businesses to go along with its restaurants and grocery stores along Third Street
in the Bayview.
You make it sound as if this one subway spurwhich some call

the train to nowhereis going to spread commerce and prosperity
throughout the entire city. Is that really how these things work?
EL: The same source of money that funded the Central Subwaythe
federal governmentasked the same questions about the Third Street
light rail. And we told them that the T line would be an economic
engine for the Bayview. And look at whats happening, with the Lennar
Corporation building thousands of homes out there, with Vis Valley at
the end of the T getting 1,700 new units coming on. That investment
would not go there unless developers saw a good transportation network
that would encourage other investors to open up grocery outlets or small
restaurants.
There was a lot of blowback within the Chinese community after you
appointed a non-Asian, Julie Christensen, to take David Chius D3 spot
on the Board of Supervisors. Id imagine that Christensen has a pretty
steep learning curve ahead of her when it comes to Chinatown.
EL: Well, I dont think its true that she has a lot to learn, except maybe
[Chinese] dialect. Julie has been a community activist for decades, shes
JAPANS
FLOATING
WORLD
THE JOHN C. WEBER
COLLECTION
been a small business owner, shes been a proponent of playgrounds

where the majority of users are Chinese. Shes been a big transportation
advocate. So she understands the things that weve been doing in Chinatown. She may not be the darling of certain leaders, but at the heart of it,
she shares our values.
But were not talking about just any old leaders: Again, were talking
about Rose Pak, historically one of your biggest backers, who came out
swinging viciously against Christensen from the get-go. How do you
get Rose back in your corner?
EL: Im hopeful that well be able to convince Rose. But if not, well, while
shes important, the community in general is just as important. If I know
anything about the Chinese community, it looks less at what you say than
at what you do. I think that when people hear about what Julie is doing
walking the blocks with the precinct captain, hearing the needs, in Mandarin and Cantonese, of the people in public housing, supporting the
widening of Stockton Street all the way from North Beach to the Stockton
Tunnel, and using her planning skills and her incredible heartpeople
will come around.
I wonder if you really relish these battles, Mr. Mayor. Youve always
seemed a bit ambivalent about being a politician.
EL: I still dont like politics sometimes. It rears its head in dierent ways,
and there are times that I think, why did I sign up for this? But Im willing
to look past those political challenges if it means getting stu done for
other people: improving the schools, making sure businesses share prosperity with a lot more people, making sure we build more housing than we
ever have before, making the city safe, bringing sports teams in that are
ASIAN ART MUSEUM

THROUGH MAY 10, 2015
willing to invest their own private money in a risky place like San Francisco. These are things that drive my level of enthusiasm.
Do you think of yourself as paving the way for the next wave of AsianAmerican leaders?
EL: Yes. Whereas once politics was not really considered an option, now
Im seeing a whole generation of Carmen Chus and Katy Tangs and David
Chius and Eric Mars and Jane Kims arising, and theyre saying, We can
handle politics. I think Asians in political life are getting a much bigger
thrust. I have to say that my being mayor has helped push that along. I
Seduction reveals the urban pleasures of Edo-period Japan (16151868) through more than 60 works of art, including paintings,
kimonos and an almost 58-foot-long handscroll vividly portraying
a visit to the YoshiwaraEdos most celebrated pleasure district.
Our concurrent exhibition, The Printers Eye: Ukiyo-e from the
Grabhorn Collection, delves further into the floating world with a
superb assemblage of Japanese woodblock prints.
See Seduction and The Printers Eye for just $5 on Thursday nights
after 5 pm, when were open until 9 pm.
dont think anyone thought there was going to be a Chinese-American

mayor for a long, long time.
Did you ever expect to be the one?

EL: No, but I never expected to see a black United States president in my
lifetime either. Hopefully I get to see the first female president. Right?
Asian Art Museum

Chong Moon-Lee Center
for Asian Art and Culture
200 Larkin Street

415.581.3500
www.asianart.org
#TheFloatingWorld
#PrintersEye
[Nudges Anita, who perks up: Right!] I think a lot of things are moving
faster than ever before. I spent 21 years in city government trying to be
a good public servant. I never looked at myself as being mayor someday.
My cultural advantage was that I was known as a hardworking kid whose
mother and father were working-class. And thats still who I am.
37
Seduction: Japans Floating World | The John C. Weber Collection was owas organized by the Asian Art Museum.
Presentation is made possible with the generous support of Hiro Ogawa, Atsuhiko and Ina Goodwin Tateuchi Foundation,
The Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation, The Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Fund for Excellence in
Exhibitions and Presentations, Anne and Timothy Kahn, and Rhoda and Richard Mesker. Media sponsors: ABC7, SF
Media Co., KQED, and San Francisco magazine. Image: Peony, from the handscroll Secret Games in the Spring Palace
(Shungu higi) (detail), approx. 17751780, by Katsukawa Shunsho (Japanese, d. 1792). Handscroll section mounted as
hanging scroll; ink, colors, and gold on silk. John C. Weber Collection. Image John Bigelow Taylor.
PLAYERS
POLITICS
FOOD
BY ELLEN LEE
Executive director
of ChinaSF, which
acts as a fixer for
Chinese businesses
looking to make hay
in San Francisco;
formerly deputy
communications
director for Mayor
Gavin Newsom.
The first AsianAmerican mayor of

San Francisco;
sitting pretty for
November reelection.
GINNY FANG
As CEO of Golden
Gate Global, helps
secure EB-5 visas
for Chinese execs
making major investments in the
city (Willie Brown is
a consultant).
San
SanFrancisco
Francisco | | April
April2015
2015
KINSON WONG
His Michelin-rated
R & G Lounge is the
place to host banquets and VIP dinners in Chinatown.
DAVID CHIU
RODNEY FONG
Former Board of Supervisors president

who leapfrogged to
the state assembly
this year, then
quickly nabbed the
no. 3 slot in the
leadership.
Manages his familys real estate in

Fishermans Wharf
(which includes the
lucrative wax museum); president of
the citys Planning
Commission.
HON SO
PHIL TING
New Asia, Sos restaurant, is popular

for its dim sumbut
infamous as a meeting spot of Leland
Yee and Raymond
Shrimp Boy Chow.
MORE GUANXI
Elected to the state

assembly in 2012,
hes made a name
for writing big-deal
legislation on gun
control and education reform.
WALTER WONG
Owns and operates

W. Wong Construction Co.; best known
as the controversial
permit expediter
who helped finance
the Run, Ed, Run
campaign.
PIUS LEE
Chairman of the
Chinatown Neighborhood Association; known for his
support of mayors
past and present
and his vehement
opposition to the
shark fin soup ban.
DOREEN
WOO HO
Former CEO and

president of United
Commercial Bank,
now serving on the
board of directors for
U.S. Bancorp;
appointed to the
San Francisco Port
Commission by
Mayor Lee.
FIONA MA
A political lifer, now

on the states Board
of Equalization; formerly the majority
whip of the state assembly and a member of the Board of
Supervisors.
KATY TANG
The 31-year-old District 4 supervisor

briefly served as
interim board president this past year
when Chiu skipped
town for Sacramento.
CECILIA
CHIANG
CARMEN CHU
Former supervisor,
now the citys
assessor-recorder,
responsible for issuing same-sex marriage licenses (yay!)
and assessing property taxes (hiss!).
JAMES K. HO
The Shanghai-born,
95-year-old grande
dame of Chinese
cooking; taught
Julia Child and Alice
Waters a thing or
two.
DAVID HO
Board president of
Chinese Hospital,
a former deputy
mayor of San
Francisco, and
married to Doreen.
Talk about a power
couple.
Officially, a community outreach manager for the

Chinatown Community Development
Center (CCDC). Unofficially, Rose Paks
right-hand man.
BETTY LOUIE
Landlord of several
Grant Avenue buildings; made headlines recently by
recruiting chef
Brandon Jew to
open a restaurant in
the former Four
Seas.
VICKY WONG
CEO of DAE, a boutique Asian-American advertising

agency thats done
work for Wells
Fargo, Southwest
Airlines, and the
Asian Art Museum.
CHRIS YING
NORMAN YEE
Editor-in-chief of
the foodie bible
Lucky Peach; has
everyone from
Anthony Bourdain to
David Chang on
speed dial.
Low-profile District
7 supervisor and
former school board
member who
focuses mainly on
education issues.
CINDY WU
MARIA SZETO
President of the
Chinatown Merchants Association;
also owns several
shops on Grant
Avenue, including
Bargain Bazaar and
Far East Flea.
EVA LEE
Producer of the
Autumn Moon Festival and sister of
Louie; helps manage the Chinatown
Merchants Association alongside
Szeto.
THE LEADERS
OF THE SIX
COMPANIES
Passed over by
Mayor Lee for the
District 3 board appointment, the
planning commissioner and CCDC
community planning manager is
nonetheless considered a rising political player.
Elders of the Chinese Consolidated

Benevolent Association; they own a
lot of land and still
wield considerable
political power.
B U S I N E S S / R E AL E S TAT E
38
38
ROSE PAK
Officially, shes a
consultant for the
Chinese Chamber of
Commerce. Unofficially, shes Chinatowns ultimate
power broker.
POLITICS
ERIC MAR
Represents the
Richmond district
on the Board of
Supervisors; most
famously led the
charge to ban toys
in McDonalds
Happy Meals.
MARTIN YAN
One of the most celebrated TV chefs of

all time; now operates M.Y. China in
Westfield San Francisco Centre.
GUTTER CREDIT HERE
The 62 mostconnected
Chinese
Americans in the
Bay Areaand
how theyre
working those
networks.
ED LEE
DARLENE CHIU
BRYANT
LESS GUANXI
* What the heck is guanxi? The termChinese for network or personal connectionsessentially encapsulates the idea that its not what you know, but whom.
** And yes, this does look like a game of Go, the traditional Chinese board game, the object of which is to gain as much territory as possible.
The GUANXI Game
**
B U S I N E S S / R E AL E S TAT E
FOOD
TECHNOLOGY
A R T S A N D C U LT U R E
JOAN CHEN
STEPHEN GONG
The executive director of the Center for

Asian American
Media, which runs
CAAMFest, the largest Asian-American
film festival in the
country.
The S.F.based actors 40-year career

includes an Oscarwinning blockbuster
(The Last Emperor)
and an Emmynominated cult
classic (Twin
Peaks). Currently,
shes on Netflixs
Marco Polo.
ALFRED LIN
As partner at
Sequoia Capital,
Lin has nabbed a
spot on Forbess
Midas List for the
past two years; also
an angel investor
in a little startup
called Uber.
JERRY YANG
The Yahoo cofounder

was instrumental in
the companys early
investment stake in
Alibaba$34 billion
of which was just
spun off the Marissa
Mayer mothership.
CLARA SHIH
PRISCILLA
CHAN
The only pediatric

resident in town
with her name on a
hospital, the UCSF
doc and her spouse,
Mark Zuckerberg,
just gave $75 million
to S.F. General.
ELLEN PAO
AMY TAN
YUAN YUAN
TAN
One of the San Francisco Ballets star

attractions, discovered at 18 and
wowing the world
for 20 years since.
COREY CHAN
ARTHUR DONG
When the Asian Art

Museum, the San
Francisco Symphony, or Google
needs a lion or
dragon dance, they
dial up Chan and the
Kei Lun Martial Arts
group.
KEVIN CHOU,
MICHAEL LI,
HOLLY LIU
The Kabam cofounders received

$120 million from
Alibaba last year
and brokered an
$18 million deal for
the naming rights
to California Memorial Stadiums football field.
GORDON CHIN
ANGIE CHANG
Before paving the

way for female venture capitalists by
founding Cowboy
Ventures, she
showed how building a business is
done at Kleiner Perkins Caufield &
Byers.
GUTTER CREDIT HERE
MABEL TENG
Has been bringing

internationally
renowned Chinese
artists to the
Chinese Culture
Center since 2009.
A R T S A N D C U LT U R E
JOSEPH LEUNG
Editor of Sing Tao

Dailys Bay Area edition, which got the
scoop on the Leland
Yee scandal last
spring.
MEI-HUEY
HUANG
Editor for the local

office of the World
Journal, one of the
premier Chineselanguage newspapers in the city.
ALEX TOM
Executive director
of the Chinese Progressive Association and the
powerhouse behind
the $4 million Yank
Sing settlement.
DAVID LEE
JEN-HSUN
HUANG
Specializes in mobilizing voters on

behalf of the Chinese American Voters Education
Committee; those
voters recently
hoisted Chiu to the
state assembly.
You may not have

heard of Nvidia, but
Huangs chips are
probably powering
your smartphone,
computer, or gaming console.
ANGELA CHAN
Miss Chinatown
1981; launched the
international Miss
Asian America
Pageant four years
later.
VINCENT PAN
Executive director
of Chinese for Affirmative Action; successfully pushed
City College of San
Francisco to build a
Chinatown campus.
President of San
Francisco State University, overseeing a
campus of 3,000
faculty and staff as
well as 30,000 students.
The lead electrical

engineer behind
Google Glass, now
working for virtual
reality company
Oculus VR.
ROSE CHUNG
SUE LEE
The now-retired
founding director of
the CCDC and longtime pal of Mayor
Lee can still flex his
political muscles.
ADRIAN WONG
Cofounded Women
2.0, firing up the
women-in-tech
movemnt; now helps
run the women-only
computer science
program Hackbright
Academy.
Leads the effort to

collect and recover
Chinese-American
art, historical
records, and previously untold stories
as executive director of the Chinese
Historical Society
of America.
Executive director
of the CCDC, which
has overseen the
construction of
1,900 affordable
housing units in the
city.
LESLIE WONG
STEVEN CHU
First, he became a
Nobel laureate for
his work in physics.
Then, he served as
the U.S. secretary
of energy. Now, hes
teaching at
Stanford.
AILEEN LEE
His debut documentary, Sewing Woman

(1982), yielded an
Oscar nomination;
his debut book, Forbidden City, USA,
explores the golden
age of Chinatown
nightclubs.
NORMAN FONG
Starbucks needed a
social media expert
to replace Sheryl
Sandberg on its
board of directors
so it turned to the
then-29-year-old
Hearsay CEO.
Blew up the Valleys
old boys network
this spring with her
blockbuster gender
discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner
Perkinsall while
serving as Reddits
interim CEO.
The Joy Luck Club,

The Bonesetters
Daughter, The
Kitchen Gods
Wifeevery one a
national bestseller.
BRENDA YEE
Chief executive officer of Chinese Hospital, which is about

to open a $150 million new building.
Former police commissioner and current policy director

of the Asian Law
Caucus, known as a
tireless advocate for
undocumented
immigrant youth.
STEVE CHEN
Thanks to this cofounder of YouTube,

we will never want
for viral cat videos.
TECHNOLOGY
ROLLAND LOWE
Served as the first

Asian-American
president of the California Medical Association; now a
respected community elder.
RITA MAH
Executive director
of the Chinese Newcomers Service
Center, which helps
the citys most
recent immigrants
get established; led
Keep Chinatown
Clean initiative.
C O M M U N I T Y / NON P R OF I T / E DUC AT ION
CHIANG: MAREN CARUSO; YING: JAMI WITEK; CHIN: FRANK JANG; CHEN: COURTESY OF NETFLIX; TANG:
KAI LIN CARLSON; FONG: FRANK JANG; TAN: ERIK TOMASSON; OTHER COURTESY OF SUBJECT
JAY XU
The first Chinese

American to run a
major American art
museum, the Asian
Art Museum head
has worked with everyone from Ai Weiwei to Larry Ellison.
C O M M U N I T Y / NON P R OF I T / E DUC AT ION
39
PRESS
Where Print Rules
Chinese-language newspapers thrive by bridging two

worlds. By Adam Brinklow
HILE MANY modern newspapers are having trouble keeping the lights
on, Chinese-language newspapers by and for immigrants are proving
more robust: Half a dozen mastheads compete for the eyes of the Bay
Areas Chinese-speaking population, circulating more than 100,000
copies daily. In these demographics, print is king, says Sandy Close,
executive editor at New America Media, an advocacy group for ethnic news
outlets. Its a remarkable sector. With Chinese immigrants, Id say 70 percent
still rely on the daily newspaper.
The vigor of Chinese-language newspapers is bolstered by advertising from
Chinese-owned businesses that target immigrant readers; small, prolific
newsrooms where staff writers may turn in a story almost every hour; and,
perhaps, revenue streams that some media outlets are rumored to receive from
political sponsors in China or the United States. But the papers are kept afloat
mainly by the culture itself. For most immigrants, picking up a copy of the
newspaper every morning is still an important value, says Shawn Liu, the San
Francisco city editor at World Journal.
The Chinese community is kind of funny, says Jean Ho, spokesperson for
Peninsula-based News for Chinese. We seem to only want to talk to other Chinese
people, eat at Chinese restaurants, shop at Chinese-owned stores. We write about
mainstream American society in Chinese to remind the community that there
are other people out there and that were all aecting each other.
As the political clout of San Franciscos Chinese population grows, so does the
influence of the immigrant press. If it werent for ethnic voters like these, wed
be living in a red state, says Close. In Californias political war of words, some of
the most important voices are speaking Mandarin or Cantonese.
BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Sing Tao Daily

Founded: 1938
Based in: Hong Kong
Local office: South San Francisco
Local staff: 100
Local circulation: 35,00050,000
Founded: 2000
Based in: New York, NY
Local office: Bayview
Local staff: 50
Local circulation: 80,000 (Chinese),
15,000 (English)
Sing Tao claims to have more readers than

every competitor in the world combined
and, between its paper and affiliated radio
stations, to serve 56 percent of all Chinese
speakers in the worlda worldwide daily circulation of 3 million. With English news you
have the wire services and national news
everywhere, but for Chinese readers, local
coverage in your language is something that
you cant get just anywhere, says Joyce
Chen, Sing Taos Bay Area assistant chief
editor.
A muckraking political paper born in the

United States, the Epoch Timeswhich is
ideologically aligned with the Falun Gong, a
spiritual sect now outlawed in Chinainsists
that other Chinese-language papers are too
easily bullied by the Chinese government.
In 1999, people wanted to take out an ad in
World Journal about Falun Gong persecution, but they couldnt, says staff writer Alex
Ma. The mainland governments budget to
control overseas media is unlimited. We saw
a need for new, more independent media.
Big story: The Leland Yee case was big for

everyone, but we knew him. We covered him
for 25 years.... We were the first to identify the
codefendants and tong members, because
we knew their Chinese names and they were
all community members.
Big story: In Hong Kong, the Yellow Umbrella

protesters [named for how they repel pepper
spray] are posting our stories on their Freedom Wall, says local director of operations
Steve Ispas. They know were incorruptible.
Not like the Hong Kong papers.
World Journal
News for Chinese
Founded: 1976
Based in: Taiwan
Local office: Millbrae
Local staff: 90
Local circulation: 60,000
Founded: 2008
Based in: Redwood City
Local staff: 8
Local circulation: 30,000 (twice monthly)
World Journal wants readers to think of it as

the moderate, agenda-free paper of record,
even abstaining from making local election endorsements (which sets it apart from
competitor Sing Tao). As an ethnic paper,
we dont want to tell people what to think
or who to vote for, says San Francisco city
editor Shawn Liu. We dont want to just be
voting for whoevers the Chinese guy simply
because hes Chinese.
Brian Ho had worked at World Journal for

almost 25 years when he left seven years
ago to found News for Chinese, the Bay
Areas only totally local Chinese-language
paper. In the new market, free regional
newspapers are going to dominate, says
Ho. Bay Area counties now have enough
Chinese-speaking readers (and advertisers) to demand and support entirely regional
publications in addition to local branches of
international juggernautsthats Hos bet,
anyway.
Big story: We spent a lot of time on the affirmative action bill, SCA 5, says Liu. Some
immigrants fear affirmative action as something that takes spots away from their kids.
Of course, there are Chinese-American
groups that support affirmative actionthey
take a lot of heat, but we wanted to cover
their side of things, too.
Big story: Look at something like the water

crisis.... At the bigger Chinese presses,
reporters have to write 5,000 words a day.
Theyre under constant pressure. We give our
guys weeks to work on things, because we
want deeper coverage.
TOP: STEPHEN M C LAREN
40
Epoch Times
We Changed Everything.
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L E A R N M O R E AT V ER I TA B L EL P.CO M
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To Shoppers,
with Love
WELCOME TO YOUR DIAMOND-STUDDED,
JASMINE-SCENTED HOME AWAY FROM HOME.
BY LAUREN MURROW
SO YOU WANT TO VISIT SAN FRANCISCO? Please, right this
way. (You may want to take a moment to compose your inaugural uncensored tweet.) Your trip begins at SFO, which just
launched the first dedicated Chinese-language airport website
in the countrymobile-compatible, of course. Its about time,
given that SFO serves more Asian destinations than any other
airport in the United States. Need a lift? Car-sharing service
Yongche.com, the Uber of China, plans to launch in San Francisco this year with a fleet of Mandarin-speaking drivers. Naturally, youll be staying at the Mandarin Oriental on Sansome
Street, which, thanks in part to a Chinese-language booking
site, saw a 50 percent bump in guests from the mainland last
year. Enjoy a ginger-infused meridian massage in the spa,
then pay your respects to the statue of Guan Yin, the Chinese
goddess of mercy and the hotels personal protector. Dim sum
may be ordered through room service.
Once you hit the streets, youll fit right inespecially because
the United States and China just began granting 10-year tourist visas. The numbers crack me up, says Caroline Beteta giddily. The chief executive ocer of Visit California, the states
travel and tourism oce, notes that the number of Chinese
visitors to California has increased by 890 percent over the past
public relations
duced a China-hosted site for all its Bay
decade. And in 2013, 379,000 of your compatriots descended
manager Luis Cortes.
Area listings, making house-hunting a
on San Francisco.
We embrace whatevers
breeze. Nearly 20 percent of the firms
Why? Well, yes, theres the pretty bridge and the crooked
trending. To that end, at Louis Vuitton,
home buyers in San Francisco are from
street. But theres also the shopping! When last years Hurun
you can text a live customer service rep
the mainland; in Palo Alto, its closer
Report took its annual survey of Chinese millionaires and bil-
from your phone. (Were assuming, of
to 30 percent. And dont worry about
lionaires (which, if youre reading this, probably includes you),
course, that youve already downloaded
the transition: Pacific Unions white-
more than half of respondents reported that shopping was
WeChat, the Chinese mobile app.) And
glove concierge programs in Shanghai
their main reason for venturing abroad. Did you know that
at Dior Homme, you can flip through
and Beijing connect Chinese clients
your brethren have been ranked the worlds top shoppers for
photos of the winter collections repeat
with services like tax and immigration
four years running, spending more than three times abroad
show in Guangzhou, featuring interna-
lawyers, financing options, and educa-
what they do locally? Its true! Its not unusual for our Chi-
tional models, Chinese mannequins,
tional advisers.
nese visitors to buy an additional suitcase for bringing home
and extra looks.
gifts, says Beteta. And its not about T-shirts and chocolates
theyre very luxury-minded.
42
When you do make the leap, whether
Considering a day trip? May we sug-
permanently or just for an Industrial-
gest Robert Mondavi in Napa, where the
ists Gone Wild weekend, youll be in
What kind of luxury? The diamond kind. The practice of
90-minute winery tour is conducted in
good company. In 2013, Visit Califor-
wearing diamond jewelry is becoming more and more popu-
Mandarin twice a week? Actually, while
nia named Beijing-born actress Gao
lar in China, says Tom Carroll, vice president of Tiffany &
youre here, you may want to consider
Yuanyuan an ocial California tour-
Co.s Pacific Northwest region. At the jewelers Post Street

boutique, youll be served traditional tea among the baubles.
Nearby, Chinese-speaking sta will welcome you to Shreve &
buying a home. San Francisco was the
ism ambassador. If you want to reach
second-most-desirable city in the world
wealthy individuals in China, its not as
for high-net-worth Chinese transplants
simple as buying a magazine ad or slap-
Co., where signage and look books are conveniently printed

in your native dialect. (Youll also find fluent staers at Tiffany
last year, according to Visas Consult-
ping a logo on your website, says Jes-
ing Group, a Shanghai-based immi-
sica Grimes Frushtick, vice president of
& Co., Marc Jacobs, the Ritz-Carlton, Dior, Prada, and Gucci.)
Over on Maiden Lane, you may soon notice red and gold
accents in the displays at Marc Jacobs. Weve been integrat-
gration services provider. (Only Los
marketing at Pacific Union. Relation-
Angeles ranked higherbut clearly you
shipsand responsivenessare critical
have better taste than that.) Luxury real
to the Chinese consumer. We concur.
ing Chinese designs in our store windows, says West Coast
estate firm Pacific Union recently intro-
Tell your friends.
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DELICACIES
S U P E R L AT I V E R E N D I T I O N S O F A U N I V E R S A L C U I S I N E
Treasures of
the Near East
New regional specialists, an
expanding crack chicken empire,
and, of course, some damn fine
dumplings: nine reasons why
San Franciscos Chinese food is
better than ever.
By Rebecca Flint Marx
PHOTOGRAPH BY
Kimberley Hasselbrink
45
taste pretty much every soup dumpling in San

Francisco proper. Although high-end restaurants
like Hakkasan, Benu, and Yank Sing peddle
fancy soup dumplings filled with things like
Dungeness crab and kurobuta pork, I wanted
to keep the playing field level, so I focused my
research on the little mom-and-pops that have
earned wide renown for their XLB. The sole
exception was the opulent new Dragon Beaux,
whose instant mega-lines piqued my curiosity.
My criteria at each establishment were perfectly
steamed dumplings with thin, supple wrappers
enclosing a tender pork meatball and a decent
amount of savory broth, served with a blackvinegar and sliced-ginger dipping sauce on the
side. Given that I made but a single visit to each
restaurant, its only fair to point out that the
quality of any particular dumpling can change by
the day. The biggest lesson I took from my odyssey? It is really, really hard to make a good XLB.
DIARY OF A DUMPLING EATER

KINGDOM OF
DUMPLING (PARKSIDE)
1. Our XLB Inspire

Obsessive Pilgrimages
Savory broth, porky filling, and the search for revelatory xiao long bao.
By Sara Deseran
NYONE who has had a well-made soup dumpling knows that the process of eating it is
magic. You swipe the delicate, neatly pleated little parcel through a bracing bit of black
vinegar and ginger and then pop the whole thing into your mouth, releasing a gush of
hot, savory broth and a tender pork meatball. At least thats the way its supposed to
play outbut it often doesnt.
1713 TARAVAL ST.
Thats because making a perfect soup dumpling, or xiao long bao, is another issue.
The XLB, as its known, is a finicky little bastard. I learned that the hard way when my husband,
Joe, and I opened Chino, our Mission restaurant featuring housemade soup dumplings. Even with our trip to
Taipei to visit Din Tai Fung, the XLB holy grail, fresh
in our mindsand despite the fact that Leo Gan, our
Shanghainese dumpling chef, had been making soup
dumplings for some 30 yearsit still took about four
months to wrangle ours into submission. In the early
days, there were a myriad of problems: The pork was too
lean, the dumpling skin too thick or too thin. And a soup
dumpling without soup is a crying shame.
XLB 101: How Does the Soup

Get In There?
Standing in line outside Shanghai Dumpling
King, I eavesdropped on a debate about how
the soup gets in the dumpling. Maybe its ice
that melts? someone asked. Another insisted
that the soup is injected. Both wrong. The truth
is that soup dumplings are generally made
with a hand-rolled wheat flour wrapper and
filled with ground, preferably good and fatty
pork thats been mixed with chopped gelatin or
aspic. When the dumplings are steamed, the
gelatin melts, and voil, the broth flows.
shoulder and belly, they have a filling that dissolves into

broth, and a thin, but not too thin, dough with the proper 18 pleats. Even so, were constantly
looking to improve them.
To that end, fortified by my newfound reverence for makers of the XLB, I went on a quest to
DUMPLING KITCHEN
(PARKSIDE)
Just down the street

from Kingdom of Dumpling, this nondescript
spot failed to provide
the traditional blackvinegar and slicedginger dipping sauce,
instead substituting
a bottle of vinegar
(though ginger is available on request). On
my visit, the dumplings
suffered from thin skins
and soggy bottoms. The
soup was there, but only
minimally, and its flavor
was muddled. 10 FOR
$7.50; 1935 TARAVAL ST.
This bright little barebones spot is one of the

citys most popular XLB
destinations; in 2013,
it spawned a second
location in Sunnyside.
Its well managed (on
the day that I visited,
a chipper guy took
advance orders from
the line of customers
standing outside), and
its dumplings are big,
though on my visit they
suffered a bit from a
thin, mushy skin and a
filling that had an oddly
sweet quality. Still, they
were among the least
expensive I sampled.
The moral here? The
nice (and cheap) guys
often win. 10 FOR $6; 3319
BALBOA ST.
SHANGHAI HOUSE
(OUTER RICHMOND)
While Shanghai Dumpling King is cheap and

cheerful, Shanghai
House is run by a notoriously gloomy woman
who air-drops chopsticks onto your table
and delivers the food
at a snails pace. When
we finally received our
dumplings, they had
a nicely done wrapper filled with a good
amount of broth, but
KIMBERLEY HASSELBRINK
Today, Im happy to report, our dumplings are good

(well, I think they are). Made with Marin Sun Farms pork
46
My favorite soup dumpling spot for years now,

the Kingdom sells
XLB frozen to go at its
commissary down the
street. On this visit, the
in-house specimens
were smaller and pointier than usual, making
for a dough-heavy top.
That said, the filling was
good and porky-savory.
Plus, the small space
has been outfitted with
cheery red-and-whitechecked tablecloths,
and the addictive
orange chili sauce is
the best in town. You
cannot judge an XLB in
a vacuum. 12 FOR $6.85;
SHANGHAI
DUMPLING KING
(OUTER RICHMOND)
XLB 101:
The MichelinStarred Soup
Dumpling
At Benu, chefowner Corey Lees
XLB is an ethereal
dumpling that harbors both lobster
meat and coral and
clarified butter.
Lobster consomm
makes up the soup
component, while
the dipping sauce
is a combination
of aged brown rice,
soy, and Banyuls
vinegars. Though
its just one taste in
the $228, 16-course
prix fixe menu, its
arguably the XLB
apotheosis. 22
HAWTHORNE ST.
the flavor was middling.

If asked to choose, Id
opt for the good time
and mediocre dumplings three blocks away
at the King. 10 FOR $6.25;
3641 BALBOA ST.
XIAO LONG BAO

(INNER RICHMOND)
Despite its name, this

place is more of a dim
sum to-go spot than a
proper XLB shrine. My
XLB were served in a
plastic container, each
one confined in a little
foil cup. The flavor of
the pork was very gingery, which I liked, but
black vinegar wasnt
served as an accompaniment, and, trapped
inside their container,
the dumplings quickly
became flaccid. 10 FOR
$3.50; 625 CLEMENT ST.
BUND SHANGHAI
(CHINATOWN)
ILLUSTRATION: J.D. SATURDAYS
Decorated with little

more than a strand
of colored Christmas
lights, this clean and
practical place delivers
a higher quality of food
than many of the other
spots I visited. Although
the endless menu isnt
focused on dumplings,
this is a Shanghainese
restaurant, so theyre
there if you look. And
I was delighted to
discover that they

were great, with a nice,
savory broth; good
pork; and pretty wrappers that had integrity
without being too thick.
Bonus: Afterward, I
got to step out into the
colorful bustle of Chinatown. 8 FOR $6.95; 640
JACKSON ST.
DIM SUM CLUB

(VAN NESS)
This off-the-radar joint

opened last year in an
odd space that functions as part of the Da
Vinci Villa Hotel. Inside,
it looks like a diner, with
an assortment of red
lanterns and a wall decorated with a scene of
China. The friendly servers, all clad in bright
orange polos, came
bearing XLB endowed
with shiny, almost taut
wrappers; savory, aromatic pork; and good
broth. In other words,
they easily tied with
Bund Shanghais as the
best soup dumplings I
ate on my journey. 6 FOR
$6.50; 2550 VAN NESS AVE.
DRAGON BEAUX
(OUTER RICHMOND)
In late February, the

people behind the
popular Daly City
restaurant Koi Palace
debuted their first San
Francisco venture. It
achieved instant popularity, so expect a wait.
The juicy dumpling
comes steamed atop
a carrot slice (used as
a nonstick surface, its
not for eating) thats
nestled in a diminutive
soup spoon. Its a pretty
little thing with really
good flavor, but during
the restaurants first
week of business (as
good an excuse as any),
it stuck to the spoon a
bit and the broth spilled
outa reminder that
the soup dumpling is a
dependably fickle mistress. 4 FOR $5.68; 5700
2. THE WOK SHOP ABIDES

Since 1972, Tane Chan has schooled (and sold) us on Chinese cooking.
By Rebecca Flint Marx
HOPPING , slicing, mincing, dicing!
that year, the Wok Shop was born.
It will do it all! exclaims Tane Chan,
In mission and appearance, the store has
gesturing toward a large cleaver. Shes
changed very little since its early days: It is
giving the sell to a customer at the Wok
arguably still the best place in the country to
Shop, the Grant Avenue store that she
not only buy a wok and various accessories, but
has owned since 1972. I ship hundreds
also learn how to use them. The correct way to
every week to Canada, Spain, Norway, she
season a wok is the biggest thingthe biggest
continues. And Im gonna show you why. They
thingthat customers ask, Chan says. She waits
stay sharp forever; its a miracle thing.
a beat. We wok em through it!
Chans store, with its wall of cleavers, towers
The most significant change to the business
of woks, and numerous low-hanging paper lan-
occurred in 1999, when Chans son convinced her
terns, is narrow in size and expansive in reach.
to take the Wok Shop online. But Chan remains
Thanks to its robust online sales, its wokswhich
its nucleus, answering phone calls, coordinating
are made in China and Haywardroutinely
FedEx shipments, and fielding customer queries.
travel to points around the globe. Even to
Her brand of service, while accommodating, has
Africa, Chan says. They cant find woks there.
a certain blunt-force quality. When a customer
The Wok Shop owes its existence in part to
asks if a steamer basket comes in a dierent
Richard Nixons historic 1972 visit to China,
size, Chan throws up her hands. I dont know,
which piqued American interest in Chinese food.
maam, she retorts. Too big, too smallChina
At the time, the only places that sold woks were
cannot make every little size!
dark little stores, Chan recalls. Customers
Given the multitudes the Wok Shop contains,
felt intimidated. So she began stocking some
you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. But
woks in the Chinatown gift shop that she owned.
its chaos is controlled, with Chan its constant
Soon customers were also asking about utensils.
gardener. You can always call, she says. Well
I said, Thats a market, Chan recalls. Later
ease your fearsyou cant ruin a wok. 718 GRANT AVE.
LOC A L W ISDOM
Belinda Leong,
chef-owner,
b. patisserie
The Richmond and Sunset are hands down the best for Chinese
food. The majority of the restaurants in Chinatown are still making
dishes based on preserved and canned ingredients, while in the
outer neighborhoods its much more fresh-veggie-based. I do like
Kam Po (801 Broadway) in Chinatown for the barbecue roast duck
and pork. Also, Capital Restaurant (839 Clay St.) is an amazing
hole-in-the-wall known for its chicken wings.
GEARY BLVD.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ADAM JOSEPH BROCHSTEIN
47
3. Regional Cuisine Goes

Way Beyond Canton
Now that immigrants from throughout China have settled in our historically
Cantonese city, its easier than ever to find a variety of regional cuisinesespecially
once you venture beyond Grant Avenue. By Luke Tsai
48
BEIJING
Like much of the countrys northern
region, Chinas capital city is famous for
its dough-based cuisine of dumplings, noodles,
buns, and pancakes. Here, try Beijing Restaurant (1801 Alemany Blvd.) for warm pots (soup
with pickled vegetables) and stir-fries featuring
spaetzle-like flour balls, or House of Pancakes
(937 Taraval St.) for hand-stretched noodles and
flaky-crisp savory pancakes filled with meat or
scrambled egg. While its tough to find a passable
version of Beijings most famous culinary export,
Peking duck, decent renditions can be found,
ironically enough, at high-end Cantonese spots
like R & G Lounge (631 Kearny St.).
PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER EARL M C COLLOUGH
HUNAN
Arguably the spiciest of the major Chinese
cuisines, Hunanese cooking is distinguished
not only by its use of fiery fresh chilies, but also by
the smoked and cured meats that have made the
Hunanese perhaps Chinas most famous producers
of charcuterie. Both Made in China (1033 Taraval
St.) and the North Beach location of Henrys Hunan
(1398 Grant Ave.) feature such Hunan specialties as a
whole fish head with chilies, Hunan-style bacon, or
smoked ham, and a version of braised pork belly that
was reputedly Mao Tse-tungs favorite dish.
SHANGHAI
Shanghai cuisine is known for light flavors,
precise cooking techniques, and gently
sweetened sauces that allow high-quality soy sauces
and rice wines to shine. Characteristic dishes include
red-cooked braised pork belly, giant lions head
meatballs, and the perennially popular soup dumpling xiao long bao. Shanghai House (3641 Balboa
St.) is a good place for xiao long bao and salty soy
milk, a savory-spicy soup spiked with chili oil, pickled
vegetables, fried Chinese doughnuts, and tiny dried
shrimp. If youre up for a splurge, snag a reservation
at Jai Yun (680 Clay St.) for a refined prix fixe meal of
banquet-style dishesthe array of tiny cold appetizers alone is one of the best Chinese eating experiences that San Francisco has to offer.
SHA ANXI
Garlic Taste Pigs Ear at

Terra Cotta Warrior.
TOP RIGHT: ALISON CHRISTIANA
Rather than being emblematic of one region,

Hakka cuisine is the rustic, home-style cooking of a group of nomadic Chinese (Hakka translates
literally to guest families), many of whom eventually settled in Guangdong. Linda Lau Anusasananan,
author of The Hakka Cookbook, describes Hakka
cooking as a kind of Chinese soul food or a country
cousin of Cantonese cuisine, in which slow-cooked
meats, offal, and salt-preserved and pickled vegetables play a starring role. The best place to sample
it is at Hakka Restaurant (4401 Cabrillo St.), where
house specialties include salt-baked chicken,
clams stir-fried with basil, and lush slices of braised
pork belly served over preserved mustard greens.
Peter Luong sells high-end tea in a

snob-free zone.
LTHOUGH Song Tea & Ceramics is first

a store, its as much an educational
center as a place of commerce. When
he opened it in late 2013, owner Peter
One of the lesser-known regional cuisines

to emerge in San Francisco in recent years,
Shaanxi cooking is famous for its wide variety of
noodles, generous amounts of lamb and pork, and
bold sour and spicy elements. For a good introduction, head to Terra Cotta Warrior (2555 Judah St.),
where a meal might start with a cold plate of garlicky
sliced pig ears and cucumber. Make sure to try one of
the rou jia mo, griddled buns filled with juicy shredded
pork or cumin-spiced lamb.
Luongs goal was to sell painstakingly sourced
SHANDONG
customers as dauntinghis rotating line of
This northern coastal region is known for

delicate soups, seafood, vinegar, raw garlic,
and a wealth of noodles, dumplings, steamed breads,
and other dough-based items. Shandong Deluxe
(1042 Taraval St.) is one of a handful of restaurants
in the city that serve boiled fish dumplings, handpulled noodles, and other characteristic Shandong
dishes. And because many of Koreas ethnic Chinese
originally came from this province, restaurants serving Korean-Chinese cuisine often have a Shandong
connectionyou can try specialties such as jjajangmyeon (noodles with black bean sauce) at Zazang
Korean Noodle (2340 Geary Blvd.) or the ever-popular San Tung (1031 Irving St.).
SZECHUAN
HAKK A
4. TEA IS GIVEN THE

COFFEE TREATMENT
Even though this southwestern province is

notorious for the sweat-inducing fire of many
of its well-known dishes, its cuisines signature ingredient isnt the chili pepper but the Szechuan peppercorn (hua jiao),a citrusy, tongue-numbing spice
that creates a deliciously addictive effect called ma
la, or numbing heat. The best Szechuan meals are
balanced and nuanced, with prominent vinegary and
garlicky flavors. In San Francisco, Z & Y Restaurant
(655 Jackson St.) and Spices 2 (291 6th Ave.) are
good bets for authentic versions of classics such as
chili oilspiked water-boiled fish and ma po tofu (a
dish best ordered only at a Szechuan establishment).
For the communal tongue-scorching of a ma la hot
pot meal, try the Inner Richmonds Grand Hot Pot
Lounge (3565 Geary Blvd.).
Chinese teas of extremely high qualityand,

he says, to do it without attitude.
So while Luongs lower Pacific Heights
store, with its clean lines and bone-white
walls, may be a minimalist reverie, Luong
takes a maximalist approach to customer
service. Concerned that a shop selling rare
and unusual (and expensive) teas might strike
25 to 30 small-batch teas includes delicacies
like Dragonwell, a handpicked green that
retails at $88 for two ouncesLuong wanted
to be as unintimidating as possible. So he
created a tasting room where customers,
regardless of level of connoisseurship, can
sip without judgmenteven if they leave
without buying anything.
Luongs approach speaks as much to his
experience in the tea businesshis family has
owned San Franciscos Red Blossom Tea for
some 30 yearsas it does to misconceptions
surrounding the beverage. A lot of tea sellers,
he explains, lack a good grasp of where tea
is coming from or how its crafted. The worst
are the ones that depend on myth and lore to
sell tea: Theres a tad of Orientalism going
on that sort of irks me.
When you go to Song, Luong will patiently
describe the distinct characters of his
green, white, red, and oolong teas, which
he researches and buys during regular trips
to China and Taiwan. Hell talk about how
cultivars are harvested and crafted. All you
have to do is listen and enjoyand maybe
buy some tea. Or not. Either way, youll leave
enlightened. 2120 SUTTER ST. R.F.M.
49
Egg custard tart (daan tat)
5. The Five Pillars

of Pastry Are Here
for the Taking
Probably Hong Kongs most famous contribution to the world of sweet pastries, daan tat
sports a flaky shell filled with eggy custard. While Golden Gate Bakery (1029 Grant Ave.)
remains San Franciscos undisputed daan tat champion, its compromised by long lines
and its owners frequent unannounced vacations. As an alternative, try Anna Bakery (715
Clay St.), where the tarts have a quivery, barely set filling, and Napoleon Super Bakery
(1049 Stockton St.), whose version boasts a perfect crust and a 70-cent price tag.
For the uninitiated, a trip to a Chinese bakery can be slightly

daunting: Youre drawn in by the intoxicating smell, only to
be greeted by indierently labeled display cases and often
limited English. But persistence has its rewards, namely
these five manifestations of sweet, doughy glory. By Luke Tsai
Barbecue pork bun (char siu bao)
Dinner roll (chan bao)
Stuffed with saucy, red-hued, slow-roasted pork, barbecue pork buns are as abundant
in San Francisco as croissants. Long-favored purveyors include Yous Dim Sum (675
Broadway) and Cafe Bakery & Restaurant (1365 Noriega St.), both of which peddle buns
notable for their heft and quantity of meat. Arguably the best in town are found in the
Outer Richmonds Lung Fung Bakery (1823 Clement St.), where the still-warm buns boast
a crisp exterior, tender, fatty pork, and sauce with just the right amount of caramelizedonion-and-hoisin sweetness.
Soft, yeasty, and faintly sweet, these buns are remarkably similar to the Parker House
rolls found at fancy farm-to-table restaurantsexcept that theyre dirt cheap and usually scattered with sesame seeds. The citys best are found at Anna Bakery, where the
35-cent wonders, sold still warm from the oven, boast a crisp, melted-buttery bottom
layer abundant with salty richness.
Big chicken bun (dai gai bao)
Chicken cookie (gai zai beng)
Sometimes called a four-treasure bun, a big chicken bun is a rib-sticking combination of

fluffy white steamed dough, chicken thigh meat, hard-boiled egg, shiitake mushrooms,
and, usually, some kind of preserved pork sausage. The most satisfying are sold by Chinatowns Wing Sing Dim Sum (1125 Stockton St.), which, like many of the citys better Chinese bakeries, also slings takeout dim sum and steam table fare. As large as a newborns
head, each bun is packed with generous chunks of chicken and juicy whole shiitakes
truly a meal in itself.
Given that no actual chicken seems to be involved, this sweet-salty treats name is a bit
of a mystery. Popular in Hong Kong and Malaysia, its flecked with sesame seeds, infused
with the savory funk of fermented bean curd, and studded with candied winter melon.
Some have the sticky-chewy quality of English toffee, but AA Bakery & Cafe (1068 Stockton St.) sells a thin, super-crispy, and very delectable version for $4 a bag. Vegetarians,
take note: Many varieties glisten with a sheen of pork fat.
50
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JASON LAM
Fort Mason Festival Pavilion

April 29 May 3, 2015
Preview benefiting
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,

comprised of the de Young and the
Legion of Honor
artmarketsf.com
6. WE HAVE ENOUGH
Dim Sum
The world of dim sum is

broad, complex, and hard
to pronounce. Heres an
alphabetized guide to
help you navigate the vast
wilderness of small dishes.
By Andrea Nguyen
TO FILL A DICTIONARY
A
Many members of the vast canon of
Asian dumplings have their basis
in the Chinese diaspora and the
widespread borrowing of Chinese
culinary ideas. In the Philippines, for
example, Shanghai-style spring rolls
became lumpia; in Vietnam, banh
chung are likely based on zongzi.
At dim sum spots like Hong Kong
Lounge (5322 Geary Blvd.) and Yank
Sing (49 Stevenson St.) you can
sense (and taste) the fluidity of the
dumpling universe.
B
sweetness of Coke, incidentally, also

pairs remarkably well with Chinese
food and cleanses the palate.
Daikon radish, or Chinese white

turnip, is referred to as turnip on
menus. Its generally grated and
showcased in pan-fried slabs of
Cantonese radish cake (lo baak gou)
or deep-fried Shanghai radish puffs.
Greenslike gai lan (Chinese broccoli), pea tips, and snap peas bring
balance to what can otherwise be an
unending parade of dim sum decadence (ask for oyster sauce on the
side to relieve the intensity). Garlic
chives lendtheir color and pungent
flavor to many dumpling fillings.
E
H
Among the most beloved of dim

sum varieties (and one of the oldest, having originated in China in the
third century), the seemingly ubiquitous bao is commonly translated
as bun on menus. Ghostly white
in color and pillowy in texture, bao
are typically filled with a panoply
of ingredients, but may be served
unstuffed or stuffed, savory or sweet,
leavened or not, and steamed,
baked, or pan- or deep-fried.
flower tea, is a caffeine-free blend

of chrysanthemum and pu-erh teas
thats good for cutting the richness
of a dim sum blowout. The fizzy
52
porridge thats great for taking the

edge off hangovers and upset stomachs; Wing Lee Bakery (503 Clement St.) serves pork and chicken
versions. Eat it plain or punched up
with scallion and an assortment of
fried and/or savory morsels. Jiaoziis
the Mandarin term for dumplings,
which may be boiled, fried, or
steamed and are eaten at any time
of day (pot stickers are part of the
jiaozi family).
K
Want to throw your own dim sum
party? Head to Kamei (525 Clement
St.), a gloriously well-stocked restaurant supply shop where you can
find all the steamers, dishware, and
assorted cooking tools youll need.
L
Sugar-dusted egg puffs are made

by deep-frying a thick batter similar
to that used for French cream puffs.
Insanely rich, theyre best (not surprisingly) straight out of the fryer.
Those served at Shanghai Dumpling King (3319 Balboa St.) are particularly tasty.
F
Chrysanthemumtea, also called
Jook, or congee, is a creamy rice
Fried dim sumincludes crunchy

delicacies like taro puffs and sesame
balls. Thoroughly examine the carts
contents before you committhe
paper beneath the fried food should
have little or no oil stainor order
from the waitstaff to get the freshest
stuff possible.
The best har gowclassic,

translucent, shrimp-filled steamed
dumplingsare not too large (as in
two bites), enclose a slightly snappy,
sweet, briny filling, and have a thin,
stretchy skin that doesnt break
when the dumpling is plucked from
the steamer basket. The har gow
found at Crystal Jade Jiang Nan
(4 Embarcadero Center) taste
like the finest shrimp, while those
at Good Mong Kok Bakery (1039
Stockton St.) are succulent and fresh.
I
Ordering ice water by its Chinese
termbing sui in Cantonese or bing
shui in Mandarinmay earn you
some respect.
Called lo mai gai in Cantonese,

fragrantlotusleaf packets contain
sticky rice, chicken, vegetables, and
other delights; the ones served at
Hong Kong Lounge are a delicious
treasure hunt. For lamb dumplings
an appropriate choice in this year
of the sheepventure to northern
Chinese spots like Kingdom of
Dumpling (1713 Taraval St.).
M
Mantou are steamed rolls made

from leavened bao dough. At Kingdom of Dumpling, try the deep-fried
Beijing-style version.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY J.D. SATURDAYS
N
Dim sum comes with plenty of etiquette no-nos. Dont, for example,
fill your teacup first: Pour for your
companions, who in turn should
silently acknowledge your hospitality by tapping their index and middle
fingers on the table. And dont hoard:
Dim sum is about sharing, so count
the number of dumplings per serving
and make sure that everyone gets to
partake. Order extra if necessary.
O
Founded in 1903 by German settlers,

it makes a crisp, lager-style brew
thats a mainstay at most Chinese
restaurants.
R
Steamed rice noodlerolls are
abundant at many dim sum spots.
While the most popular are filled
with shrimp, they may contain beef,
pork, fish, or vegetables. Best eaten
drizzled with a slightly sweet soy
sauce, they should be cut crosswise
at the table.
S
Offal dishes like chicken feet and

beef tripe appear on many a dim
sum menu. The steamed young pork
liver served at Hong Kong Lounge is
wonderfully delicate.
P
U
The unwrapped protein family of dim sum is a wondrous one:
Its members include Hakka-style
stuffed bean curd, deep-fried and
braised chicken feet, and cubes of
juicy pork sparerib steamed with ginger and fermented black beans.
V
Although most dim sum menus are
a carnivores playground, vegetarianoptions like vegetable pot stickers and boiled vegetable dumplings
occasionally make an appearance.
Outstanding examples include the
spinach dumplings at Yank Sing
and the pea sprout variety at Crystal
Jade. Order a small salad, perhaps
with chilled cucumber and garlic, to
round out your meatless meal.
W
denotes refinement and luxury. The

sauce gets its intense, sweet-savory
flavor from dried scallops and other
umami-packed ingredients, and the
dim sum that it embellishes is considered premium. The XO scallop
puff served at Hakkasan (1 Kearny
St.) has a superbly constructed flaky
crust that shatters delicately with
each bite.
Y
Yum cha (literally, drinking tea) is

the southern Chinese term for the
morning and afternoon teas enjoyed
with dim sum snacks, but it also
describes the entire meal experience
of which dim sum is a component.
While its totally acceptable to say,
Lets go for dim sum, youll likely
impress more people with Lets go
for yum cha.
Z
Siu mai are ubiquitous steamed

open-faced dumplings; the ones
served at Crystal Jade are glorious
one-bite wonders stuffed with fatty,
slightly sweet pork.
T
Wontons are served fried, in broth,

Peking duck is offered at fancy restaurants like Yank Sing and Crystal
Jade via a roast-duck carving cart
that roams the restaurant. Its also on
the menu at spots like R & G Lounge
(631 Kearny St.). Pork is easily the
most popular protein in the dim sum
universe. Its typically ground and
diced for fillings or roasted as savorysweet, mahogany-colored char siu, or
Chinese barbecue.
Q
Qingdao, the birthplace of Taoism,
is also home to Tsingtao Brewery.
Tofu is a dim sum menu mainstay. Tofu skin (yuba) rolls, whether
steamed, pan-fried, or deep-fried,
are often prepared with pork, shrimp,
and vegetables. Fried salt-andpepper tofu and pressed tofu salads
are terrific vegetarian options.Warm
tofu pudding topped with ginger
syrup, which is a little like soy panna
cotta, is loved by those looking for
something on the sweeter side. Yank
Sing is a particularly good bet for all
things tofu.
or enrobed in chili oil, as they are

at Sichuan Table (4401 Balboa St.).
And its wheat starch, not rice flour,
that makes har gow dumplings
translucent.
X
XO sauce isa condiment created

by Hong Kong chefsas with fine
cognac, the label XO (extra old)
Wrapped in bamboo or other leaves,

zongzi (joong in Cantonese) are
pyramidal or cone-shaped dumplings with a sticky rice filling that
may encase fatty pork, jujubes,
salted duck eggs, or mung bean
paste. Served sweet or savory,
boiled or steamed, theyre traditionally enjoyed during the Double Fifth
Festival, which this year falls on June
20. One delectable example is the
bean tamale at Hong Kong Lounge:
a giant, lotus leafwrapped parcel
of sticky rice studded with fatty pork
and other savory morsels.
Andrea Nguyen is a cooking teacher, a
consultant, and the author of several
cookbooks, including Asian Dumplings
and The Banh Mi Handbook.
The Dim Sum Obsessives Playbook

AS THE AUTHOR of a cookbook dedicated entirely to Asian dumplings, I consider
Sichuan Table has a Cantonese menu, the real gems, such as wontons and red
dim sum to be both my vice and my vocation. Lucky for me, San Franciscos Chi-
chili oil, are on its Szechuan menu. For a northern Chinese dumpling fix, I head to
nese community produces an enviable, and somewhat dizzying, bounty of dim
Parksides Taraval Street. Bring cash to House of Pancakes (937 Taraval St.) for the
sum. In the course of eating more than my fair share, Ive found some dependably
small sesame pancakes, beef roll pancakes, dumplings, and hand-pulled noodles.
great places to get it.
Farther west is Kingdom of Dumpling, a tiny spot with a tight menu of dumplings,
The Richmond districts Hong Kong Lounge has an endearingly unfussy, fam-
chilled salads, and other wonderful little snacks. Though Dumpling Kitchen (1935
ily-oriented atmosphere. Ordering from the menu guarantees that trickier dishes,
Taraval St.) oers similar kinds of dumplings, its larger menu includes dishes from
like taro pus and sesame balls, arrive at their crisp peak. The waitsta is helpful
Beijing, Shanghai, and Canton.
with fielding questionsas are other diners.

Nearby Clement Street oers several good takeout places. I cant resist the
When Im feeling cash-happy, I head toward Yank Sing, Crystal Jade Jiang
Nan, or Hakkasan. Yank Sing oers refinement without stuness, along with clas-
beef curry pu at Clement Restaurant (621 Clement St.), or its red bean in mochi.
sic dishes and innovations like a refreshing imperial walnut salad with cabbage
Xiao Long Bao (625 Clement St.) makes a tangerine-size turnip pu encased in
and jicama. Crystal Jade stuns me with its uncommon purity of flavors: Standouts
flaky pastry and a turnover-shaped shrimp-and-chive mini-pancake, both of which
include its intensely rich and slightly springy siu mai. And at Hakkasan, the dim sum
reheat well at home.
is eye candy, its gorgeously colored dumpling skins deftly manipulated into beautiful
Dim sum is not limited to Cantonese fare. Though the Outer Richmonds
shapesa reminder of the amazing craftsmanship at the heart of dim sum.
53
A typical night
at San Tung.
7. San Tung is
eternally crazy
and eternally good
The endless lines. The colorful matriarch. The relentlessly addictive
dry-fried chicken wings. Inside the perpetual motion machine that is San
Franciscos busiest Chinese restaurant. By Rachel Levin
TS MONDAY afternoon, 4 p.m.purgatory in restaurant timeand San Tungs 100 seats are full. AsianAmerican families sit tweezing spicy green beans and
slurping handmade noodles as pods of college kids pile
in for pot stickers and old men shue out with their
walkers, soy sauce stains on their shirts. I dont get
it, says manager Frank Chu, sipping black tea. If they

eat now, do they still eat dinner?
Given the feast that is San Tung, probably not. Anyway,
as insiders know, it pays to come o-peak to avoid the
sidewalk swarm. On Sunday nights, even takeout orders
can take two hours. The kitchen often gets so backed up
that the sta just takes the phone o the hook.
Which is why Mrs. ChuFranks mother and the owner
of the 25-year-old Chinese restauranttends to eschew the
media. Shes turned down all the big Chinese newspapers,
says Frank, who dropped out of college at 18, after his father
had a stroke, to help run the Irving Street restaurant that
his parents had opened after emigrating from Korea. We
just cant handle it. Were too busy as it is.
Mrs. Chu, who at 60 presides over the register, keeping
tabs on the till and her 17-person sta, would rather the
focus be on her son. Take his picture, not mine, she
says, nodding toward Frank, who is 39 and will inherit
54
PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER EARL M C COLLOUGH
HELGI TOMASSONS 30TH SEASON
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San Tung when and if shes ready to retire.

Last year, Mrs. Chus youngest son, Charles, opened San Tung #2
next door in an attempt to capitalize on the original restaurants overflow. Her other son operates So, in SoMa (and myriad cousins run East
Bay restaurants). Neither, however, has achieved the first San Tungs
cult status. The food is similar, but theyre fancier, says Frank, with
dim lights and stu.

Fancy, San Tung is not. Servers wear white button-downs and bow
ties, but the ambience is all fluorescent lights, worn carpeting, and
deafening din. One thousand diners a day dont come here for the
atmosphere. They come for the foodthough why, exactly, remains a
mystery to Mrs. Chu. Honestly, honestly, I dont think our food is that
good, she says. Were just lucky.
Back in San Tungs early days, the dumplings were the draw, so
much so that Mrs. Chu and her sons would work until 2 a.m. every
night making them. Wed turn on the radio, make dumplings, and
talk, she recalls. They were teenagers. They hated me.
Today, she hires other people to do the cooking. About a dozen staers
toil in the sprawling kitchen (which, Mrs. Chu says, is still too small).
Three women pinch dumplings and pull noodles, and three cooks toss
woks. And, says Mrs. Chu, one lone man fries, donning a hat, a mask,
and gloves to burn through some 700 to 800 pounds of meat a day for
San Tungs signature dry-fried chicken wings.
Yes, Ive heard they call it crack, Mrs. Chu says, smiling when
I mention the nickname for the chicken, which is crisp, sticky, and
covered in spicy-sweet sauce. Its kind of a compliment.
The sauce used to be soggier, but one night a regular complained
that it was too wet. So Mrs. Chu took out some of the water and added
sugar. The customer couldnt get enough of itand soon, neither could
anyone else. Today, Mrs. Chu hears of copycats all over town. Several
years ago, she actually caught one of her employees trying to teach her
recipe to the owner of the restaurant across the street. That employee
still works here, she says. Its OKwe all have to make a living.
After a quarter century of working almost every day, Mrs. Chu is
living what most immigrants would call the American dream. Weve
passed the money-hungry stage, she says with a smile. I think we
did all right.
Frank worries, though, about the day that his mother finally retires.
Its a lot of pressure, he admits. Its one thing to build a successful
restaurant from nothing. What if I take over, and it slows down? Mrs.
Chu shrugs. Keep doing what we do now, she says. Done. 1031 IRVING ST.
LOC A L W ISDOM
56
We canvassed the aisles of one of the citys busiest Asian

markets to ask shoppers what they were buying, and why.
By Laura Zhen
1. Sau Man Mak
2. Joanne Xie
In the cart: Beef rib steak,

golden pompano, halibut,
fermented red-bean curd
On the menu: Im going
to cut the rib steak into
pieces and pan-fry it with
peppers and onions. Ill eat
the golden pompano and
halibut with mushrooms
and the fermented redbean curd on the side.
In the cart: Coconut

shavings, peanuts
On the menu: Im making
a glutinous rice dumpling
stuffed with dried coconut
shavings and crushed
peanuts, called gok zai.
3. Fey Wong
In the cart: Dried star
anise
On the menu: For oxtail

stew, I braise the meat
with dried star anise. But
you have to be careful
the star anise with
8 points is good, but the
12-point ones, Ive heard,
are not good for your
system.
4. Sally Oh
In the cart: Pomelo, top
ILLUSTRATION: J.D. SATURDAYS
Linda Lau
Anusasananan,
author of
The Hakka
Cookbook
My favorite restaurant for most

occasions is Hakka Restaurant (4401
Cabrillo St.). Small and family-run,
its one of the few places that serve
Hakka food, a kind of Chinese soul
food. Among my favorite dishes are the
pan-fried tofu and the Chinese bacon
with preserved greens, which is pork
belly steamed in a savory sauce with
preserved mustard greens until its soft
and melting.
8. At Sunset Supermarket, you

can buy fresh old chicken. And
rau tia to. And everything else.
10
13
16
11
14
17
12
15
18
shell abalone
On the menu: The pomelo
is for decorating and eatingit brings prosperity,
good luck, and good health.
I add the abalone to chicken soup. It makes the broth
so sweetbut dont cook it
for too long.
5. William Huey
In the cart: Silken tofu
On the menu: Ma po tofu.
I fry it in a wok with garlic and hot sauce. With
minced pork, I prefer the
silken tofu over the firm
because its softer.
6. Eric Ma
LAURA ZHEN
In the cart: Brown beech

mushrooms, dried
bok choy
On the menu: Every couple
of days I make soup with
brown beech mushrooms,
white mushrooms, beef
meatballs, pork bone, and

dried bok choy.
7. John Kwan
In the cart: Fresh
old chicken
Fresh old chicken? The
fresh old chicken is $10
cheaper than the young
chicken, so I use it in soup.
8. Jennifer Lau
In the cart: Lotus root,
chicken-and-pork sausage
On the menu: The lotus
root is for soup; Im adding
it to pork bones, peanuts,
and tofu. The sausage is for
my kidsthey love it.
9. Ray Ho
In the cart: Rice wine, shiitake mushrooms
What do you do with rice
wine? Its great for marinating meats and enhancing the flavorthink of it
like sherry. Ill be using it

with garlic noodles and
shiitake mushrooms.
10. Lisa Nguyen

Buying: Naga-imo root
On the menu: My husband
likes soup with naga-imo
root added with chicken
powder and fresh shrimp.
The root gives a little
sweetness.
11. Stephen Yau

On the menu: Rau tia to
Whats that? Its a leaf
used in saladsI have it
with deep-fried chicken.
But at this market, theyve
translated it to greens.
What does that mean? This
whole section is green.
head of the scallion can be

eaten like a pickle out of
the jar or added to a cold
dish, like thousand-yearold egg. Its sweet and sour
and has a crunch to it.
13. Alice Wang

In the cart: Fermented
sweet rice
On the menu: Behind
every stove there is a
kitchen god who reports
all news to the Jade Emperor, so we make sweet
desserts during New
Years time to keep its
mouth sticky and shut.
This fermented sweet rice
is a base for glutinous desserts like sesame balls.
12. Sam Law
14. Florence and

Angela Chan
On the menu: Sugar scallions in syrup

Scallions in syrup? The
In the cart: Cassava paste,

coconut strings
On the menu: Were mak-
ing cassava cake with coconut strings, brown sugar,

and condensed milk. You
bake it at 415 degrees, let it
sit, then toast it a half hour
for a brown color and better texture. Its sweet and a
little bit sticky.
15. Mabel Ma
In the cart: Wonton wraps,
ground pork, Thai chilies,
lettuce, chives, and Persian
cucumbers
On the menu: There are
different ways of wrapping
wontons in various regions
of China, and there are lots
of things that you can stuff
inside themso tonight Im
making them with everything that you see here.
16. Sophia Chen
tonight. We have duck gizzard with salt and pepper

and lamb skewers with
cumin seed powder and
dried red pepper for spice.
17. Yong Joo

In the cart: Quail eggs
On the menu: Im making
porridge with quail eggs,
soy sauce, garlic, and
sugar.
18. Joshua Chen

In the cart: Winter melon,
herbal mix
On the menu: Im making winter melon soup
with pork bones and this
herbal mixit has dried
dioscorea, lycium leaves,
jobster seeds, and dried
dates.
In the cart: Duck gizzard

On the menu: My friends
and I are grilling meats
57
Chinatown-bar weirdness.
916 GRANT AVE.
THE BUDDHA
LOUNGE
DELIRIOUS FRONT-DOOR VIEW
OF THE OLD CHINESE TELEPHONE EXCHANGE: 88 POINTS
Neon lights the way to the

Li Po Cocktail Lounge.
9. Chinatowns Bars Are

Dependably Weird
Chinatowns decaying romance is concentratedwhere else?in its bars.
A forlorn air of noir mystery, not to mention a whi of the 30s-era golden
age of Chinatown nightlife, still clings to their garish neon signs and rundown interiors. Though some of the best are gone, other peculiar watering
holes remainand even a clientele of tourists (or, worse, hipsters) cannot
dim their strange and wondrous decrepitude. So grab your fedora, your
dark past and bleak prospects, and a beautiful woman who may be trying
to kill you, and head down to Grant Avenue. All you have to lose is $15 for
three martinis. By Gary Kamiya
CATHAY HOUSE
BAR-THAT-TIME-FORGOT FACTOR:
101 OUT OF 100 POINTS
58
718 CALIFORNIA ST.
THE LI PO
COCKTAIL LOUNGE
ABANDON-ALL-HOPE GILT CAVE
ENTRANCE: 97 POINTS
The kitsch on this venerable

78-year-old joints fake-Chinese facade is so old that it
has become authentic. Its
also a good indication of the
wonders awaiting inside,
where, in addition to a
ginormous Chinese lantern
and massive scroll-like
corbels, theres a bar with a
delicious zigzag, a closed-
off mezzanine, and a weird,

slightly sterile back room.
High above it all, a golden
Buddha gazes serenely at
the drunks. Another authentic touch of ye olde China
is the poster announcing
the Li Pos signature $9
Chinese Mai Tai, made
with three kinds of rum. I
opted for another decent
well martini, made with the
slightly more down-market
Barton for $6. The 63-yearold bartender, Daniel, who
has worked at the Li Po
for 20 years, said that he
doesnt get many Chinese
customers. Nevertheless,
except when its overrun
with hipsters or techies, the
place can be counted on
to deliver a solid frisson of
901 GRANT AVE.
BOW BOW
COCKTAIL LOUNGE
INEXPLICABLE NAME:
54 POINTS
This hole-in-the-wall has

an endearing mix of Asian
and white patrons, many
of them happily singing
to the karaoke machine
as their drinks are stirred
by the bartender-owner,
Mama Candy, a tough old
Bloody Marylike broad
with a world-weary smile,
lots of cleavage, and a big
fake flower behind her ear.
The night I was there, three
drunk white dudes, none
of whom could carry a
tune if it came with a case
REDS PLACE
WAITING-FOR-GODOT-LIKE BAR
ON AN ALLEY NAMED BECKETT:
AN ETERNALLY UNKNOWABLE
NUMBER OF POINTS
With its down-at-heel,

last-bastion vibe, this joint
looks like the only true
dive bar left in Chinatown.
But appearances can
be deceptive. As it turns
out, its run by a smart
32-year-old named Jerry
Chan, who took over after
his parents passed away
and now carries high-end
local hooch like Hangar 1
and Titos, along with Big
Daddy and Racer 5 IPA on
draft. Were the only bar in
Chinatown that has draft
beer except Grassland,
Chan boasted. Not wanting
to change my luck, I had
another martini, the usual
$6 Barton. Behind the bar
was a photo of Reds in
the early 1920s; it became
its current incarnation in
1960, Chan explained. I
want to keep it as it is, he
added. A location on a noir
alley, the hovering ghosts
of Chinatown past, and
good draft beerwhat else
do you need in a bar?
672 JACKSON ST.
LOC A L W ISDOM
George Chen,
chef-owner of
Eight Tables by
George Chen,
co-owner and
partner at
China Live
We went recently to Shai Lai

Seafood Restaurant (6255
Geary Blvd.) and got Buddha
Jumps over the Wallabalone,
sea cucumber, and dried
scallopsalong with soyabraised chicken, roast squab,
live steamed jumbo prawns,
and steamed whole fish. I
have to tell you, those dishes
were the best Ive had in San
Francisco in a long time.
ERIC LYNXWILER; ILLUSTRATION: J.D. SATURDAYS
Tucked behind a screen in a

cavernous restaurant, this
73-year-old watering hole
may be the most moribund
in San Francisco. The night
that I visited, only one guy
sat at the cool little circular
bar, and he was a waiter
from the almost-empty
restaurant. The friendly
68-year-old bartender,
Chuck, scoffed when I asked
him how business was and
said that its been terrible
for years. After divulging
that Hennessy cognac is
his drink of choice, Chuck
shared his recipe for making
it medicinal: I put a piece
of ginseng in the bottle. Let
it soak one, sometimes two

years. Makes you strong!
He also made me a very
good $5 three-ounce well
vodka martini with eminently drinkable Gilbeys.
One of the cool things

about this dark little den
is its huge mural of a
phoenix facing off against
a dragonthe bartender,
Mark, said that it has been
there since the Buddha
opened in the 1940s. As
he mixed a $5 Barton
martini, he also told me
that the clientele is now
98 percent Caucasian.
The Buddha is smaller and
maybe a little less trendy
than the Li Po; which one
you choose depends on
your feng shui drinking
requirements. Do you
prefer a small, square
room or a larger, irregularshaped one, its walls
spinning as you approach
the highest state of being:
nonconsciousness?
and a shoulder strap, were

merrily braying away to
some overblown pop love
song. Though a couple of
paper pavilions, a waving
cat, and a lacquer screen
are all present, the decor
otherwise goes easy on
the chinoiserie. If you
want to sing karaoke while
watching music videos
featuring what appear to
be unemployed softcore
actors (and who doesnt?),
the Bow Bow is the place
to go. 1155 GRANT AVE.
arrrivin
ng to
o New Zeealand on th
he bacck of a giant.
According to Maori legend, thats exactly what whale-rider

Paikea did. Discover the cultural connections between whales
and people at this new exhibit, opening April 3.
Get tickets at calacademy.org
Developed and presented by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

This exhibition was made possible through the support of the New Zealand Government.
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IDENTITIES
WHERE T WO CULTURES MEET, MIX , AND METAMORPHOSE
Its Easy to
be Chinese in
Be
San Francisco
The tiescultural, social, personal,
economicthat bind a city and a people.
By Bonnie Tsui
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
Troy Holden
61
TWELVE YEARS AGO, when I first moved to San
fused intersection of Russia Avenue
Francisco from New York, what struck me most
and Dublin Street, you can see the

viewDaly City and its surroundings, slopes dotted with colorful
housesthat inspired Malvina Reynolds to write Little Boxes in 1962.
The song was hailed as a wry critique
of suburban tract housing and American middle-class conformity. But,
of course, its all a matter of perspective. When you come from humble
immigrant origins, achieving a little
box of your own is a mighty thing.
about the Chinese Americans I met was how

American they were. Many families here are
longtime Californians. While a Chinese granny
on the subway in New York was likely to ask me
for directions in Cantonese, a Chinese granny
on the N-Judah in San Francisco is just as likely
to speak less of the language than I do.
A few years ago, I wrote a book about the
development and culture of Americas Chinatowns. By nature, Chinatowns serve as central
cultural hubs, and as way stations for dispensing
support and services to newly arrived immigrants. But each Chinatown is dierent, and
I was curious about how Chinese enclaves in
other cities were shaped by the specifics of the
environment in which they arose. New Yorks
Chinatown was dominated by the garment and
restaurant trades; Honolulus was uniquely
Here in the Excelsior, 31-year-old Rosa Wong-
on a tech-boom tear for the last several years, it
multicultural from very early on. What makes
Chie hasnt quite given up on owning a home
is being further fueled by a wave of rich urban
San Francisco dierent from other cities with
in San Francisco. As a child, she lived with
Chinese buyersfamilies and speculators from
large Chinese-American populations is that
her parents and younger sister in a cramped,
Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Shenzhen
its Chinatown isnt the only, or even the most
64-square-foot SRO apartment on Chinatowns
who are parachuting into the city every weekend
important, locus for Chinese language, food, and
Grant Avenue. Because her family had arrived
in search of investment properties and homes for
traditions. In fact, many Chinese Americans in
in 1991 in a later wave of Chinese immigrants,
their school-bound kids. Chinese-born buyers
San Francisco will argue that Chinatown is an
moving up and out of Chinatown meant relo-
comprise about half of all foreign buyers across
artifactsome even call it a museumthat no
cating not to the more desirable Sunset or
the Bay Areaand account for a sizable chunk
longer represents their communitys cultural
Richmond districts but to the relative wilds
of the $22 billion spent by Chinese nationals
center of gravity. This state of aairs might be
of Visitacion Valley, which abuts the Excelsior.
on homes across the United States from March
described as assimilation in the best sense of
Today, Wong-Chie hopes for something qui-
2013 to March 2014. As David Lee, a lecturer in
eter for her two-year-old daughter, Roxi. My
political science at San Francisco State, wrote in
husband likes to look at Redfin: Look at this
the journal Boom, the irony of this surge is that
three-bedroom, its so fancy! she says. But
working- and middle-class Chinese-American
for me, I dont want to look at houses we cant
renters are bearing the brunt of it, opting to shut-
aord. Much better to focus on the attainable:
ter their longtime businesses in characteristi-
a little box on a hillside.
cally Chinese neighborhoods like the Richmond
The trouble for Wong-Chie and her husband,
and flee in search of more affordable living
Ted Truong, and for thousands of first- and
elsewhere. What we are just learning is how
second-generation Asian Americans like them,
economics trumps race or ethnicity, Lee writes.
is that even the most modest of domiciles are
The capital city of Asian America is becoming
increasingly out of reach. Reynoldss ticky
too expensive for many Asians.
What struck me most

about the Chinese
Americans I met in
this city was how
American they were.
tacky homes now sell for $700,000 apiece from
Right now, Wong-Chie and Truong live in
the Excelsior to Daly City, and the median rent
a tidy, bougainvillea-covered stucco build-
for a one-bedroom apartment in the city has
ing owned by his parents and contribute to
surpassed $3,000 a month. In spite of this, the
the mortgage every month. Its the house that
flow of immigrants into the city remains robust.
Truong grew up in; his aunt and uncle still
According to a 2012 report by the Center for
live downstairs. As was their parents hope,
the wordits not that Chineseness has been
the Study of Immigrant Integration at the Uni-
the couple arent tied down by language (both
erased, but that Chineseness is everywhere.
versity of Southern California, 22 percent of
are bilingual) or geography (both have good
There are other American cities that are argu-
the roughly 283,000 immigrants living in San
jobs in downtown San Francisco). They could
ably more Chineselike Monterey Park in South-
Francisco between 2008 and 2010 had arrived
easily aord a home in a cheaper precinct of
ern California, which in 1990 became the first
in the previous decade, and 28 percent hailed
the Bay Area. But something tethers them to
city with an Asian majority in the continental
from one nation: China. The Migration Policy
this city, and its more than just family. Wong-
United States. But that city essentially sprang
Institute reports that the greater San Francisco
Chie puts it simply: Its easy to be Chinese in
fully formed from the head of a developer named
metropolitan area (which includes Oakland
San Francisco. What makes the city special
Frederic Hsieh, who wanted to build a Chinese
and Fremont) now has the nations highest
in her eyes is the same thing thats drawn her
Beverly Hills. By contrast, San Francisco has
concentration of immigrants born in China:
people here for more than a century and a
the weight of history and the honor, dubious
5.2 percent of the areas population.
half: the chance to seize opportunity without
or not, of having taken the long, slow road to
sacrificing identity.
becoming the Chinese capital of the United
While the citys real estate market has been

62
P NEAR THE geographically con-
0

Legion of Honor
Lincoln Park legionofhonor.org
This exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Presidents Circle: The Estate of Merrill and Hedy Thruston. Conservators Circle: The Diana Dollar Knowles Fund. Benefactors Circle: The Lisa and Douglas
Goldman Fund, the Estate of Harriet E. Lang, and Robert and Carole McNeil. Patrons Circle: Mr. and Mrs. William Hamilton, Mrs. James K. McWilliams, and Jim and
'"$*""!+$!)!%$"(*&&%')&'%+!) '%* &'%('%# ')%( !%$*$,- %,$*$ %$!!)"(!$-!""'%.!%$'%
Media Sponsors
Charles James, Tree ball gown, 1955. Silk taffeta and tulle. Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks Jr., 1981. Image The Metropolitan Museum of Art
States. The Chinese came with the first word

of the 1848 gold rush, chipping away at Gold
Mountain along with dozens of other foreign
tribes. The city, the railroad that served it, the
farms that fed itall of it was built in part by
generations of Chinese labor. And while the
Chinese faced despicable racism, segregation,
and exploitation of all kinds, they stuck it outto
the point that their longevity has its own kind
of currency now. There are no people more San
Franciscan than the Chinese.
That exceptionalism has led to assertions,
over the years, that San Franciscos Chinese
are culturally insular. For Wong-Chie, however,
the citys appeal is something purer: a feeling
of commonality, of knowing that you are part
of the norm. Sometimes, this can lead Chinese
San Franciscans to take their multicultural heritage for granted. One of my friends who grew
up in Chinatown and North Beach just moved
with her family to Portland, because its more
aordable, Wong-Chie tells me. But she has
culture shockeveryone there is white! She just
didnt realize it until she got there.
For me, she continues, if I walk out to
Chinatown, or to Leland Avenue in Visitacion,
Im exposed to the language right away, and the
between her parents and the worldthough
food that Im comfortable with. You see people
she served in that capacity often enough, at
who look like you. Thats a huge deal. We all

want to fit in. In San Francisco, its easy to fit in.
WHAT IS CULTURE? It is what we choose to eat
three times a day, which language we speak
to our grandparents and to our children, and,
critically, what everyone else around us is
doingand for how long. For better or worse,
San Franciscans have always placed a premium
on who came first. The Chinese community
Longevity has its

own currency: There
are no people more
San Franciscan than
the Chinese.
of the child she was. At the other end of the

spectrum, San Francisco is also a place where
second, third, and fourth generations can find
their way back to their ancestral language and
culture. These days, when Wong-Chie wants
to read Chinese, shell practice by perusing
the Chinese section of an ocial documenta
somewhat absurd reversal of her childhood
experiences as translator.
is significant for a two-pronged robustness:
For 63-year-old Steven Owyang, whose family
Its people have been here forever, and their
history in San Francisco goes back to the 1870s,
numbers grow by the hundredsif not thousandsevery year.
part of his allegiance to this place is rooted in

though, the draw of San Francisco is much more
changes that have come in his own lifetime: from
These two populations, of course, have been
basic: the availability, and density, of services.
the de facto exclusion of Asian Americans from
shaped by different circumstances. As John
When Wong-Chie and her parents first arrived
city institutions to the election of a mayor, Ed
Wong puts it, You cant just lump all the Chi-
in San Francisco, by way of Colombia, the safety
Lee, whos the son of working-class immigrants
nese into the same group. Born in Shanghai,
net of Chinatown caught them. The commu-
from southern Chinas Guangdong Province.
Wong grew up in 1960s Chinatown and has lived
nity oered help with jobs, with housing, with
Owyang, who became a lawyer and an adminis-
all over the Bay Area, observing the spread of
immigration status and other legal issues, with
trative law judge for the state of California, began
the diaspora over the decades. Youve got the
arrangements for schools, day care, language
his career in Chinatown, working for Chinese
people whove been here for generations, and
instruction, and so on. It understood them and
for Armative Action. He lives in the Diamond
youve got recent arrivals, he says. They all have
treated them like family. Today, organizations
Heights home that his parents bought in 1965.
their own ways of fitting in. The Taiwanese will
like the Chinatown Community Development
Nowadays, he says, its unremarkable to be
hang out together, the mainlanders will hang
Center, Chinese for Armative Action, Cameron
Chinese in San Franciscowhich is remarkable.
out together. Recent waves of immigration have
House, and NICOS Chinese Health Coalition
There are other parts of the country where you
brought thousands of educated, professional
continue to support monolingual immigrants.
definitely feel like a minority. Not that youre
Chinese who have not had to suer the humili-
The school forms that Wong-Chie brought
necessarily being discriminated against, but
ations and hardships of previous generations
home when she was younger were trilingual,
(at least not in this country). Taiwanese and
in Chinese, Spanish, and English; in that, her
Though Owyang grew up hearing the southern
mainland money has established malls and
family benefited from the work of groups like Chi-
Chinese dialects of Cantonese and Taishanese,
restaurants all over the Bayin San Jose, Palo
nese for Armative Action, which for years has
he is not a native speaker (his parents, who were
Alto, Cupertino, and beyondall of which serve
advocated for the adequate translation of written
born and raised in the United States, were fully
as hubs and gathering places.
communications in city schools. It helped that
bilingual). I decided that I wanted to speak the
she didnt have to be a constant intermediary
language passably,
youre still dierent.
STEPHEN M C LAREN
For the newest working-class immigrants,

64
least some of the time she got to play the role
KITCHEN INTERIOR DESIGN
SieMatic San Francisco

235 1st Street Suite 160 Tel: 415.442.0255
www.siematic.us/BA2
HEIRLOOMS
Yuan Yuans World

THE COLLECTED TREASURES OF A 20-YEAR DANCE CAREER,
FROM CHINESE ART TO FRENCH WINE. BY LAUREN MURROW
5
WHEN STAGE AND STYLE ICON YUAN YUAN TAN moved from Shanghai to San
Francisco in 1995 as a 17-year-old soloist for the San Francisco Ballet, it was her first
time in the United States. I was desperately homesick that year, she remembers. She
threw herself into her training, going on to become the youngest principal dancer in
the history of the S.F. Ballet and the first Chinese-born principal in any international
company. Now celebrating two decades with the S.F. Ballet, Tannicknamed Y.Y. by
friendsis a rarity in the dance world: a performer who melds the classical technique
of the West with the artistry of the East. My Chinese side comes out in my dancing, she says. Theres a certain in-the-moment sentimentality, an appreciation for
the smallest details. But Tan, who has graced the pages of Vogue and Esquire, is no
ballet-bound ascetic: The writer Joyce Maynard describes her as Audrey Hepburn
on pointe. She cops to a fondness for expensive heels and a great glass of wine; she
collects both rare Chinese antiques and blingy cell phones. I work hard; I deserve it,
she says. Here, Tan shares her most cherished possessionsold tutus, lucky totems,
and unworn heels among themfrom her Westwood Park home.
66
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALANNA HALE
1) The tree in my backyard has hundreds of

lemons on it right nowthis is the lemon year.
I slice them and coat them in honey.
2) I like collecting cell phones, like this stainless
steel and leather Vertu. Its sleek and chic and
feels good in my hands.
3) The first time that I traveled to Russia, I
bought this hand-painted jewelry box that
depicts the story of the Firebirdthis mythical
creature. I later danced the role of the Firebird in
Yuri Possokhovs ballet.
4) I love wine tasting in Napa. I dont have a
huge collection, but the bottles I do have are
special. I received this 1976 Chteau Haut-Brion
for my birthday three years ago. I dont think Ill
ever be able to bring myself to drink it.
12
5) My mother knitted this cashmere sweater

more than 10 years ago. Its a staple for chilly
San Francisco nights. Im often wearing it
whenever Im not in dance clothes.
6) Annie Leibovitz took this photo of me and
my partner for a 2003 issue of VogueI think it
was the body image issue. I went straight to the
shoot off a red-eye flight.
7) I wore this tutu when I won the gold medal at
the Paris International Dance Competition when
I was 16. Its very simple and very old, but I keep
it as a souvenir.
8) I love to watch old movies when I get time
off. I own the complete DVD set of all the Audrey
Hepburn movies ever made.
13
9) My friend Edward H. Lim is a contemporary

painter in Shanghai. He recently gave me this
piece, in which he painted over my photo.
10) This oil painting was a gift from the famous
Chinese artist Guan Zeju. These were the pointe
shoes from my first full-length performance of
Swan Lake.
11) I have quite a collection of heels by
Louboutin and Valentino, but I never get to
wear them. Since I spend my days in pointe
shoes, my feet always hurt.
10
GUTTER CREDIT HERE
12) I have a huge jewelry collection. My auntie

gave me this ring more than 10 years ago
I wear it every day. Its engraved with a Tibetan
chant. I consider it lucky.
13) I keep 20 years worth of ballet programs
and old ballet tapes on my bookshelf. At this
point, its getting pretty full.
11
14
14) One of my friends gave me this traditional

rooftop corner from a Chinese house, which
I display on my fireplace mantel. I used to go
antique hunting all the time in the East Bay.
67
CONFESSIONS
At age five, having seen the Condors indecorous sign in North Beach, I was convinced that
all white women had red lightbulbs for nipples.
When we went to family banquets in Chinatown,
the drive home would sometimes take us down
Polk Street, where sex workers stood alone on
dimly lit sidewalks. Id sometimes catch an
actual solicitation, and my father would bark
from the drivers seat, Aiyah! Prostitutes! Dont
look, Kristina!
When we had a lesson on sexual reproduction
in the seventh grade, I devoured the information
like a starving peasant. My fellow ChineseAmerican 12-year-olds (of which there were
many at Herbert Hoover Middle School) were
as freaked out as I was, gagging, squealing,
and screaming in disbelief. I was not the only
one whod thought that procreation consisted
of two stomachs rubbing together, followed
nine months later by a stork carrying a baby.
The process of sexual intercourse seemed so
unbelievable: Why would you want a penis to
squirt living sperm inside of you? How has our
global population managed to grow through
such a horrifying process?
But I was a moth to a flame. In anticipation
of the crimson wave that would mark my bodys
dark passage to grownup-hood, I covertly collected menstrual products for years before my
first period at 14. My collection was organized
meticulously inside a nondescript box that was
hidden inside another nondescript box under
my bed, as if it held government secrets. Wings,
overnight pads, no-applicator tampons, panty
liners with baking powderI was armed and
ready to go. The way that women today stalk
pictures of their ex on Facebook, I would open
My So-Flawed Life
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A TIGER MOTHERS WORST NIGHTMARE.
BY KRISTINA WONG
this box of pads each night and run my finger

over the layers of virgin cotton. I was peering into
the future, imagining a wilderness of puberty
that I had no compass to navigate.
ALL OF THESE THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS were, of
course, forbidden. Chinese people, I was taught
from early on, dont see therapists because we
never get depressed. We never come out of the
closet because theres no such thing as being
gay. We dont go to jail because we never do
exemplar of three generations of advancement in
anything illegal. And, most important, we dont
grandparents to America was actually the May-
San Francisco. My parents, both working profes-
date before marriage (even when said marriage
flower. To me, the Puritans witch trials, scarlet
sionals who held respectable nine-to-five desk
is to a bilingual Chinese doctor) becausewell,
letters, and rampant paranoia seemed none too
jobs, were not interested in any repeat of their
just because. I was made to believe that I was
dierent from growing up Chinese-American in
immigrant parents blue-collar struggles. I was
conceived as all Chinese people are conceived
the Inner Sunset. There was not a social infrac-
not to be seduced by the clandestine advances
via immaculate conception. Likewise, that was
tion minor enough that it couldnt bring down
of Western trash culture. I was not to daydream
how my children, also future doctors, would be
the Wong family name. Messy hair, asking for
about sex, worry about puberty, or set my sights
brought into this world: with zero human-on-
spending money (even for the essentials, like
on anything lower than the Ivy Leagues (or, at
human contact.
scrunchies), or speaking in public about anything
the very least, UC Berkeley). The objectives
My familys extreme sensitivity to all the
less impressive than academic achievementany
were simple: Do your homework, get straight
non-horror horrors of the world often made
one of these could single-handedly, inexplicably,
As, marry a bilingual Chinese doctor.
me wonder: How the hell have they lived their
disgrace our family.

As a Chinese-American teenager, I was
expected to be a perfectly behaved scholar, the
68
The trouble is, San Francisco was full of the
whole lives in this city and not collapsed in
very temptations that Id been taught to believe
shock? Didnt my family run from commu-
did not exist. And I wasnt blind to them.
nism? Escape poverty? Work in backbreaking
COURTESY OF KRISTINA WONG
I OFTEN SAY THAT THE BOAT that brought my
conditions for hours a day while raising
teenage girl to catfish the saddest, loneliest men
oer. At 15, Id take the 6-Parnassus to Haight
children? Face overt racism for the last 70
in San Francisco.
Street, dressed in my version of grunge cool: a
years? Why are they so convinced that the
That call ended up being the most explicit sex
flannel shirt over a thermal shirt and a Fimo-
whole world is scrutinizing their every boring
education that my friends and I ever received. We
bead necklace. I would peruse the binders at
breath behind closed doors?
awkwardly passed the phone around, giggling,
tattoo parlors, pretending to be in the market
What little I did know of my familys his-
mostly horrified, as the men, between grunts,
for some ink. Then, at home in the bathroom,
tory concerned neither bravery nor heroic
described their anatomy and we tried as hard as
I would draw on myself in ballpoint the tribal
survival, but merely our hardscrabble begin-
possible to keep up our sexy phone personas. A
arm cu or ankle dolphins that I planned to get
nings. My paternal grandfather came to San
few years ago, I found a script that Id written for
on my 18th birthday. I was still too much of a
Francisco at age 19 on a boat, in 1938, and
one of these avatars: I am a blonde cheerleader
good Chinese girl to go through with it, though.
worked in laundries before opening his own
with size triple-D breasts. I want to ride you like
laundry business in the Richmond district.
a bucking bronco inside a camping tent under
EVENTUALLY, I grew to resent my parents
He said that he learned basic English from
the moonlight until you moan in delight. Eat
standards. I became disenchanted with the idea
his customers. My grandmother, whom he had
your heart out, E.L. James.
that all my hard work would be redeemed in the
wed in an arranged marriage before leaving
future, when a good job and financial success
China, followed 10 years later, also on a boat.
LET ME SHARE the most devastating news that
would equate to adult happiness. I wanted to be
She never learned English, except for random
a Chinese-American kid in San Francisco can
a happy teenager like the ones Id see traipsing
blurts like Get a Chinese boyfriend! and Ice
share publicly: I didnt get into Lowell High
around the city, who spent their weekends at
cream! To my eternal shame, I was never able
School. To understand what a big deal this
raves and partied into the night. But the idea of
to have a coherent conversation with her in
was to my family, just imagine the public high
disappointing my family crippled me.
her Taishanese dialect, despite many tortur-
schools in San Francisco in the 1990s as the
because acting meant that I didnt have to be
class. Several subsequent attempts to learn
any of the people that the world wanted me to
Mandarin as an adult didnt take either. All I

have left today is a stray collection of Chinese
characters, not enough to put together more
than a few basic sentences. They hang on for
dear life in my cerebral cortex, swimming in
a vast pool of monolingual guilt.
CHINESE PEOPLE TAUGHT ME that growing up
was about structure, Costco on Saturdays, and
living for retirement. San Francisco taught
me that growing up would be filled with
drugs, immodesty, and gratuitous sexuality.
As a teenager, navigating the two filled me
with anxiety. I wanted to express myself and
explore my curiositiesbut I didnt want to
Imagine the public

high schools as the
Kardashians. Now
imagine Lowell High
as Kims ass. It was
the moneymaker.
And I didnt get in.
be disowned.
be. I finally grew into rebellion by the end of

high school, often arguing with my folks and
letting an inch of midri showa transgression
basically akin to pole dancing. I was frequently
called into the deans oce for passive-aggressive
performances that I gave at our high school
assemblies. But I was also my schools star student, who maintained a perfect GPA and had a
cabinet of speech trophies to boot. So while the
administrators gave me detention occasionally,
they would also boast of my accomplishments
to incoming freshmen.
Now I live in Los Angeles, where I have
become every tiger moms worst nightmare:
a performance artist, comedian, and writer.
I have supported myself as a working artist
In spite of being raised to become an unques-
70
I found solace performing in school plays,
ous years of after-school Cantonese language
in the fringiest corner of our economy for 10
tioning academic machine, I did many things
Kardashiansand imagine Lowell High School
years now. I have toured original one-woman
that typical Chinese kids (whatever the hell that
as Kims ass. It was the moneymaker. I was made
theater shows around the world, addressing
is) didnt do. I bullied white kids at my middle
to believe that if my test scores didnt get me
everything from the high rates of depression
school. I aggressively prank-called strange boys
into the citys premier public magnet school, I
and suicide among Asian-American women to
(bless the era before caller ID!). I wasnt playing
was destined for a life of destitution.
the Wests framing of Africa. Ive given a com-
first violin in the school orchestraI was play-
Not getting into Lowelland instead going to
mencement speech at my alma mater, UCLA.
ing Miss Adelaide, the sluttily dressed showgirl
Mercy High, an all-girls Catholic schoolwas a
Ive crashed the Miss Chinatown pageant as a
in Guys and Dolls. I was a regular Asian Anne
great source of shame and defeat. I was suddenly
cigar-smoking contestant. Ive done stand-up
Hathawayif Anne Hathaway had had cystic
stupid, a failure. I cried for months, terrified
dressed as a giant vagina. And my parents?
acne, popped caeine pills to study late into the
that my life had been broken forever. And I
Theyve been supportive of my work, though
night, and been pursued by no one except the
hadnt just humiliated my familynot getting
they joke that they need to wear paper bags
occasional gangly white boy with a penchant
into Lowell had also lowered me in the eyes of
over their heads at my shows.
for Asian women.
boys at my middle school: Mercy? they would
My liberation has come after a dierent kind
My first performances werent onstage, though,
jeer. You will become a lesbian! Or Mercy?
of pilgrimage from the one my grandparents
but at sleepovers. One night, a girl from my
You will become pregnant! (Never Mercy? You
made: a journey that has taken me from the land
middle school suggested that we call the Night
will become a pregnant lesbian!)
of repression to the land of oversharing. When
Exchangea number that shed found in the
I wish I could say that this Lowell rejection
I habitually tell strangers about all the things
back of SF Weekly. Back then, before Internet
bred the spirit of rebellion within me, but instead
that I was taught to keep to myself, its like Ive
porn or right-swiping for hookups, men and
it created a chip on my shoulder that I carried
landed on my own Plymouth Rock.
women age 18 and over (there was no actual
throughout the rest of my teenage years. My
age verification) could anonymously call this
inferiority complex found solace in retreating
Kristina Wongs newest show, The Wong
phone service and chat live with other singles.
inward, and I continued my independent study
It was free for women to call, thus allowing any
of all the darkness that San Francisco had to
Street Journal, world-premieres at Z Below

in the Mission, June 1721.
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BENTLEY SAN FRANCISCO
MUSES
The Shoulders
I Stand On
THREE LOCAL CREATORS SHARE THE

CHINESE-AMERICAN ARTISTS AND WORKS
THAT INSPIRE THEM. ANNIE TITTIGER
The Bonesetters
Daughter
The actor: Brian Yang
Martin Wongs
In the Money,
1986
The Bay Area native plays

a lab tech on Hawaii Five-O
and was one of the producers
behind 2013s Linsanity, the
breakout documentary that followed
The artist: Barry McGee

One of the founding fathers of
Jeremy Lin on his path to NBA stardom.
the Mission School art movement,
HIS RECS
McGee, who is half Chinese, made

Archie Kao
Archie, an actor who

grew up in Virginia,
went to China several
years ago to discover
his rootsand in the
process fell in love
with and married
one of Chinas biggest stars, Zhou Xun.
Today, he is uniquely
positioned to help the
entertainment industries in China and
America work together
and create authentic
stories that appeal to
both markets.
The writer: Kathryn Ma

The San Franciscobased authors debut
novel, The Year She Left Us, earned critical plaudits for its tender depiction of an
adopted Chinese teenager grappling with
her identity. Mas earlier collection of short stories,
All That Work and Still No Boys, won the Iowa
Short Fiction Award.
HER RECS
The Bonesetters
Daughter (the
opera)
72
Reminiscences,
by Huie Kin
This is the memoir

of my greatgrandfather the
Reverend Huie Kin.
He left his parents
in China for America in 1868at
the age of 14. His
account exemplifies the courage
and resourcefulness of immigrants during that
time and shines
light on the issues
that immigrants
still face today.
Fifth Chinese
Daughter, by
Jade Snow Wong
My younger self
dismissed this
1950 memoir as
quaint and out
of touch, but Ive
come to see that
Wongs account
of life in San Franciscos Chinatown
from the 20s
through the 40s
was an act of independence, even
defiance. Anyone
who loves San
Francisco should
know this history.
distant as the Venice Biennale.

HIS RECS
Martin Wong
During my San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) days, I

found myself at a Martin Wong lecture about how his
everyday life had been influenced by New York City
graffitihes amassed one of the greatest collections of graffiti writers blackbooks of the 90s. I benefited from Martins generous and giving spirit during
the cutthroat NYC blue-chip artist era.
The Shanghai
Restoration
Project
To me, in the realm

of music, no one
is defining the
Chinese-American
experience better
than David Liang
and his outfit,
SRP, which fuses
sounds from the
East with beats
from the West.
The band tours
North America
and China often,
bringing the blend
to the masses on
both sides.
Michael Jang
I met Michael, a portrait photographer with a penchant for documenting subcultures, for the first time a
couple of years ago, but I feel as if
he has been part of my family my
entire life.
Al Wong
Shanghai Calling
Filmmaker Daniel Hsia does

a great job of telling the
modern-day story of a ChineseAmerican expat who goes back
to China, only to find out what
a misfit he really is. Ive been
in China a lot in the last eight
years, and the movies nuance
and humor is spot-on.
In theearly 90s,
I ended up in one
of video artist Al
Wongscourses on
performance and new
genres at SFAI. He
opened my mind to
the endless possibilitiesof what art can be
and how it can be
presented.
IMAGES COURTESY OF ARTISTS OR THEIR REPRESENTATIVES
In the opening
scene of the opera
based on Amy
Tans novel of the
same name (score
by Stewart Wallace, libretto by
Tan), protagonist
Ruth navigates
a family dinner
with her Chinese
mother and her
Jewish in-laws
its a pitch-perfect
look at modern
Chinese-American
life thats worthy
of Snapchat:
fast, funny, and
revealing.
his mark on the streets of San

Francisco but has shown works at venues as
Now the pet-friendliest city ever.

Pets Unlimited has merged with
DARNDEST THINGS
hit it o with two bilingual Chinese kids.
Our biggest worry had been, how is Nicolas
going to find his best friends? Will he be able
to find them in those four or five kids who
speak English? Social concerns allayed, they
decided to take a leap of faith. They also
decided not to mention the Chinese thing to
their son. The first day of kindergarten, says
Goumas, he came home and said, Mom! My
teacher didnt speak any English!
Six years later, Goumass son (now in fifth
grade) and daughter (in third, and about as
tall as her Chinese teachers) are fully proficient in Cantonese; De Avila is one of the
most sought-after public elementary schools
in the city; and Goumas is throwing Chinese
banquets out of her lower Pacific Heights
homedespite the fact that she herself cant
understand a lick of the language. Sending
my kids to De Avila has been a transformational experience, she says. She marvels
as her nine-year-old chats up Cantonese
speakers all over town, from the fiftysomething women fondling fabric at Britex to the
waiters at Chinese restaurants. She says, We
feel connected to our community in a way
we never would have.
In 1981, the first Mandarin immersion
school in the countrythe private Chinese
American International School (CAIS)
So You Want Your Kid

to Speak Mandarin?
opened on Oak Street in San Francisco. West
More and more parents are choosing Chinese immersion

schools. Most love thembut some are getting more
than they bargained for.
the language spoken by 1.2 billion people.
By Rachel Levin
school levels. Half are Cantonese, half Man-
Portal Elementary followed three years later,

becoming the nations first public elementary school to offer a Chinese immersion
program. Since then, as Chinas role in the
world economy has grown, so has the number
of non-Chinese parents (and second-, third-,
fourth-, and fifth-generation Chinese-American parents) who want their kids to learn
THIS FALL, San Francisco will have a total of

14 Chinese immersion programs. Eleven are
public, most at the elementary and middle
darinand all are in high demand. Some
operate as a separate language program
within an otherwise conventional school;
ELIZABETH GOUMASS TOP criterion in choosing an elementary school for her

kindergarten-bound son, back in 2009, was that it be within walking distance of her
private K8 Mandarin school launched in 2012,

are full immersion. All in all, roughly 2,700
house. If there were an earthquake, I wanted to know that I could get there, she
students are enrolled in Chinese immersion
says, half joking. School leadership, diversity, and a supportive community were
programs in the city.
all close seconds. What wasnt a priority, whatsoever, was a language immersion
program. My husband and I had totally ruled out immersion, says Goumas, a
blond, blue-eyed former software sales executive. We thought it was too complex,
too much to take on. Chinese immersion wasnt even on her radar.
And more are coming. Alameda County got

its first Chinese public immersion school, Yu
Ming Charter, in 2011; it receives four applications for every available spot. Next year a
public school in Redwood City is introduc-
As it often goes, though, with the San Francisco public school lottery, the Goumas family didnt
ing Mandarin immersion, and parents are
get anything on their wish list. Instead, they were assigned to De Avila, a closed school in the Haight
clamoring for Mandarin immersion schools
that was due to reopen as a Chinese immersion K5 elementary. It was also across from a head shop
in Menlo Park and San Jose. In total, there
and kitty-corner to the free clinic, says Goumas, laughing. We were like, oh no.
are about 50 Chinese immersion schools in
But then they joined a summer playdate with other newly accepted families and saw their son
74
others, like De Avila and Presidio Knolls, a
California, most of them in the Bay Area.
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A majority of their students, not surprisingly, are Chinese-American or have

one Chinese parent. While these schools are international and multicultural in
obvious ways, they are not exactly bastions of diversity. At De Avila, 63 percent
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of students identify as Asian, 18 percent as white, 4 percent as Hispanic, and 1

percent as African-American. The demographic breakdown is similar at CAIS,
where 38 percent of students are Asian-American and 41 percent multiethnic,
19 percent Caucasian, 1 percent black, and 1 percent Hispanic. The student
body at a public K8 immersion school, Alice Fong Yu, is 66 percent Asian
and just 5 percent white. (Because they speak the language, some Caucasian
students actually self-identify as Chinese.)
What is Asian anymore, anyway? asks Beth Weise, a former parent at Starr
King Elementary and the author
Ive never heard

of a Chinese
immersion school
where it isnt
considered cool to
be smart.
of A Parents Guide to Mandarin

Immersion, published in 2014. My
daughters dad is Asian, so they are
half Chinese, but they are being
raised by two white lesbian moms.
Je Bissell, head of school at CAIS,
agrees, pointing to the number of
mixed-race couples in the area.
San Francisco is a wonderful
mishmash, he says. The term
Caucasian is becoming less and
less relevant.
Semantics aside, interest in Chinese immersion education is on the rise, say

administrators like Bissell and De Avila principal Rosina Tong. Parents are
drawn to it because they want to stimulate their kids brains (being multilingual
has cognitive benefits, studies show) and prepare them for the working world.
Not surprisingly, a big draw is the traditional Asian emphasis on academics.
Chinese immersion schools are invariably high-performing, which makes them
attractive. Take a closed or under-enrolled school and make it Mandarin,
and test scores go up, enrollment goes up. You get a socioeconomic mix, and
you attract parents who might otherwise go private. Waitlists form, explains
Weise. Its a win-win for everyone, the district and the families. She adds,
Ive never heard of a Chinese immersion school where it isnt considered
cool to be smart.
Its also become cool to be global. Linda Vann-Adibe, admissions director
and parent at CAIS, says that whats attracting parents today is the hope of
creating global citizens in an increasingly globalized worldand the desire to
give their children a competitive edge. Those goals, she says, were less evident
13 years ago, when she was a kindergarten parentor even 6 years ago, when
she started working in the admissions oce. Parents are more sophisticated
now. They used to think: Im not Chinese; why would I learn Chinese? The new
parent thinks: It doesnt matter whether I speak Chinese. This is the future.
PATTI HUANG , a Taiwanese American who is married to a white man, says

that she chose Starr King to prepare her kindergarten-age daughter for the
competition that she will eventually face from the billion-plus Mandarin
Unbelievable. Go see Ailey.

Its change-your-life good.
speakers around the world. Huang also wanted to spark in her daughter a
general love of languages. The heritage thing is a perk, she says. And theres
an element of wanting to make grandparents proud.
NBCs Today Show
The desire to connect with their cultural heritage continues to be a major

factor for many multiethnic and Chinese-American parents. I have always
wanted immersion, says Kim Wong, who is also married to a white man.
Their six-year-old son attends a traditional public school and takes Saturday
Mandarin classes because he didnt get into an immersion program. I regret
April 2126
ZELLERBACH HALL
not knowing how to speak Chinese, Wong says, and theres a loss of heritage.
Glenn Allen Sims
Photo by Andrew Eccles
I want my son to at least be able to talk to my grandma if I cant!

For Weise, its also about creating opportunity. Im not telling my girls,
I want you to become biotech moguls in Singapore or software engineers
in Shanghai, she says. Im just giving them tools. Maybe theyll decide to
calperformances.org
510.642.9988
become potters or open a restaurant. Learning Mandarin is about options.

Its also about rote memorizationand ridiculously dicult. To be considered
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76
cityguide
A PUBLICATION OF
2015
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EAST BAY
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CH O I CE . E M POWE R M E NT . TR AN SF OR M AT I O N
literate, one must learn about 3,000 Chinese characters. And when it comes to
learning those characters, the younger the better. Prime time is kindergarten
and first grade, when childrens brains are like sponges and everything is
newwashing hands, tying laces. Why not tack on Cantonese, too?
And these assimilated days, no one has a leg up. Most kids in the immersion
programs, whether Chinese-American, multiethnic, or Caucasian, are starting from scratch. Some may have attended Mandarin preschool, but about 90
percent of families who choose Chinese immersion education, Weise estimates,
dont speak the language at home. Families who do tend to be more concerned
that their children master English, so they choose all-English programs. And
newer immigrants may not even be aware that immersion programs exist.
Income levels skew somewhat higher at Chinese immersion schools, Weise
adds. In 2012, for instance, the number of Chinese-immersion students who
qualified for reduced-fee or free lunch was around 34 percent, versus the
district-wide 61 percentat De Avila, it was only 17 percent. But thats by no
means universal, says Weise. And for parents who view private school as the
pinnacle, getting into a Chinese immersion program is a golden ticketthey
get an academically strong school without having to pony up $25,000 in tuition.
THATS NOT to say that everyones a happy customer. Some white parents just
want a more multicultural experience for their kidsand then are shocked
by what being a minority in middle school can actually mean. Back in 2003,
long before Mandarin was trending, therapist Samantha Smithstein and
her husband purposely sought out immersionany immersion. Spanish,
French, Korean, Chinese...we really didnt care which one. They ended up

Six Client Maximum
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at Alice Fong Yu (AFY). The first few years were wonderful, says Smithstein.
The kindergarten and first-grade teachers were warm and good at gestural
communicationmy kids loved it. They just soaked up the language.
But the honeymoon didnt last.
By middle school, Smithsteins twin
Many of the
teachers were
harsh. Some would
publicly humiliate
students, make
them cry. It was
scary for my kids.
daughters were miserable. Many

of the teachers were harsh. Some
would publicly humiliate students,
make them cry, says Smithstein. It
was scary for my kids. Her twins
have since graduated, and her son,
now in the seventh grade, is doing
better than her daughters did. Still,
she struggles to make sense of the
experience. I dont know whether
its the school or the principal or just
a cultural dierence. Id heard stories about schools in China that are
intense, and Id think, is this the price I pay for sending them to a Chinese school?
Sophie Wallace, a white French woman married to a white American man,
has kids in the fifth and eighth grades at AFY. She raves about their experience,
academically and socially. The great plus is that the kids learn early on that
they are not a majority, so they cant be cocky, she says.
But for Smithstein, AFYs social structure was a definite minus. Many children have a tough time at that age, but her twins were outcasts. There was
a kind of racism at the school that was not addressed, she says. By eighth
grade it became clear that the in groups were the Chinese and mixed kids,
and the out group was the non-Chinese. By eighth grade most of the out
group had dropped outmaybe only five or six non-Chinese kids were left.
William J. Hanna, Psy.D.

Clinical Director
Louise McCallion
Executive Director
My kids told me it was the low point of their lives.

Still, Smithstein doesnt regret her choice. When I step back, I know that
it was a really cool experience. I feel good about the academics; they were
exposed to a dierent culture; they are unafraid to plunge into new experiences; they traveled to China. They are two tall Jewish white girls who speak
Chineseso many positive things came out of it.
One of the biggest positives? We cannot help with homework, says
1.800.611.7316

Mikhal Bouganim, a founding parent at Presidio Knolls. And I love, love,

love it.
78
SCENES FROM
SEDUCTION AT THE
ASIAN ART MUSEUM
Asian Art Museum
February 19, 2015
The Asian Art Museum brought
the art of Seduction to life with a
boldly bawdy event centered on
the intersection of art and desire.
Interdisciplinary artist Midori and
a frisky cast of characters enacted
scenes from the exhibitions
centerpiecea 58-foot-long scroll
depicting a visit to the
Yoshiwarawhile revelers
perused erotic haiku, danced, and
sipped on sake flights.
Photography by Jay Jao
and Quincy Stamper
PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHEN M C LAREN
under
chinatowns skin
PLUS: A WORKPLACE REVOLT (PAGE 86) GANGSTERS PARADISE (PAGE 94) DEATH OF AN EMPRESS (PAGE 100)
WHATS IT LIKE TO LIVE IN AN SRO? HOW DO YOU CONDUCT A

PROPER FUNERAL? WHAT DIALECT ARE PEOPLE SPEAKING?
IS THE 30-STOCKTON REALLY THE WORST BUS IN THE CITY?
A CUBIST PORTRAIT OF CHINATOWN IN 21 PARTS.
81
Whats going on at Portsmouth

Square?
IT ISNT JUST CHINATOWNS LIVING ROOM, SAYS TAN CHOW, A COMMUNITY
ORGANIZER WITH THE CHINATOWN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CENTER. ITS
AN EVERYTHING ROOM. HERES HOW TO MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME.
PRACTICE TAI CHI OR EXERCISE By first light, Chinatown

residents have begun gathering here to do their morning tai chi
routines. The more physically demanding sessions start later,
complete with bubbly instructors and high-energy music played
from boom boxes. The classes are quite informalpeople just show
up and start sweating.
PRACTICE THE FAN DANCE This new fad, which originated

in China and has only recently arrived here, is a group dance
performed by women withno surprisefans. One fan group
practices in the evenings at Portsmouth Square; two more get
together at nearby Washington Square Park in North Beach.
For those not big on fans, Portsmouth Square also hosts other
kinds of dancing.
PLAY A GAME OF CHANCE Around midmorning, youll find retired

women congregated on the squares upper level and men on the
lower, sitting on milk crates that they brought in and playing card
games or xiangqi for nickels and dimes (its less about the money
than about the socializing). Xiangqi, sometimes called Chinese
chess, is similar to Western chess, but the red and black pieces
are placed on the intersections of the board, not the spaces.
STAGE A RALLY In 1846, an American flag was first raised in

Portsmouth Square, which has served ever since as a political
rallying ground. Today, the Falun Gong pass out literature a stones
throw away from a replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue
that was erected by protesters in Tiananmen Square.
USE THE TOILET Portsmouth Squares new bathrooms were

supposed to be ready by the New Year parade. They werent, and
Rose Pak gave the mayor hell for it. She had good reason: They are
some of San Franciscos most used public facilitieswhich makes
sense, because the park is one of the citys busiest.
POP A GNARLY TAILSLIDE The bridge that connects the Hilton

to Portsmouth Square, known to skateboarders as China Banks,
was made legendary by an 80s Tony Hawk film called The Search
for Animal Chin. A video of the bridge that was passed along by
Thrasher magazine shows a dude making a jump from one ledge
to another, through open air, 35 feet off the groundits sick, but
we dont recommend trying it. SCOTT LUCAS
ILLUSTRATION BY SERGE SEIDLITZ
WHAT LANGUAGE IS EVERYONE SPEAKING?

Even people who speak Chinese can find Chinatowns languages hard to navigate.
Thats because what the West calls the Chinese language is in fact a group of 13
main dialects, each of which encompasses many subdialects. Pegging Chinese
as a single language is the equivalent of defining everything spoken from Lisbon to
Moscow as European and expecting a Portuguese to converse with a Russian.
The main dialect spoken in San Franciscos Chinatown is Taishanese, a part of
the Siyi dialect group, which itself is a subgroup of the Yue family. Taishanese is the
language that was spoken by San Franciscos first groups of immigrants, who hailed
from Guangdong Province in the southern part of China. Two other variants of Yue,
one from elsewhere in Guangdong and the other from Hong Kong, are also spoken
in Chinatown. (Point of confusion: These two dialects, although very different, are
sometimes lumped together as Cantonese.)
Guangdong
Yue dialect
Hong Kong
As if that werent enough, most of the immigrants whove come to Chinatown since
the immigration reform of 1965 speak Mandarin. That makes even the simple greeting
of Happy New Year a tough task: In Mandarin its Gong Xi Fa Cai; in Hong Kong
Cantonese, its Gong Hey Fat Choy; and in Taishanese, its Lhen Nn Fai Lk. As
a consequence, says Adina Staicov, a PhD student in linguistics at the University of
Zurich who has studied Chinese speakers in San Francisco, more and more people
in Chinatown have some level of competence in Mandarin.
That said, Taishanese is still the dominant dialect in Chinatown. For now. S.L.
IS THAT
VOLLEYBALL?
MONASTERY: JANA AENBRENNEROV; NINE-MAN: COURTESY OF URSULA LIANG
NO, IT'S NINE-MAN.
Is there really a monastery

on top of the Bank of America?
There sure is. While movies might have you believe that
Buddhist monasteries exist only on mountaintops, the
Gold Mountain Monastery proves otherwise: It sits on the
corner of Grant Avenue and Sacramento Street, smack on
top of a BofA (it moved there in 1987 from its first home, a
former mattress factory in the Mission). The location was
chosen in part because of whats just outside the front
door: a bus stop, which makes it easy for the vehicle-less
to bow before the altar in the shrine room. The location
also brings in a lot of tourists, who are welcomed if theyre
dressed modestly and remove their shoes. For those interested in a more woodsy retreat, Gold Mountains founder,
the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua, a Chan Buddhist monk,
has transformed an empty state hospital in Ukiah into the
Sagely City of 10,000 Buddhas. ELISE CRAIG
Those guys at Willie Woo Woo

Wong Park may look like theyre
playing volleyball, but look again
one team just hit the ball four
times. And nobody is rotating positions. And there are nine guys on
a side. Its not volleyball at allits
nine-man. The Chinatown game is
a relative of volleyball, sure, but its
rulesand its traditionsare all
its own. Every Labor Day weekend,
teams from Chinatowns across
North America compete in a nineman tournament thats been going
on since 1944. People look forward
to it all year, says Ursula Liang,
director of a documentary on the
sport. Young men play, and old
men on the sidelines relive their
glory days. The game originated
as a way for Chinese men to express their athleticism. To protect
that heritage, todays tournament
rules require two-thirds of each
teams players to be 100 percent
Chinese and the remainder to have
at least some ties to a Chinese heritage. Its a connection to a Chinese America that many people
dont know, says Liang. Its not
just all lawyers and doctors, but
athletes with swagger. S.L.
Why do some buildings

fly the mainlands flag
while others fly Taiwans?
Exile politics are often impenetrable to
those not enmeshed in them, but one
way to unpack how Chinatown feels
about China is to look skyward. For the
last 15 or 20 years, says Wilma Pang,
head of A Better Chinatown Tomorrow,
Chinatown has been engulfed in a war of
flags. Until the turn of the century, she
explains, almost every association in
Chinatown flew the flag of the Kuomingtong, the nationalist party that fled to
Taiwan in 1949 as a consequence of the
civil war. But as immigration patterns
shifted and a political rapprochement
developed between China and Taiwan,
Chinatowns flags began changing. An
unscientific count of the flags flying at
the moment indicates that the red-andyellow banners of the Communist-run
PRC hold a slight majoritybut getting
there wasnt easy. In 2004, Daniel Hom,
the then-recently inaugurated president of the Six Companies, was the first
to refuse to sing the Taiwanese national anthem and swear an oath under the
Taiwanese flag, setting off a feud within
the Companies that still smolders today. But no matter what, every building
that displays a Chinese flag also flies
Americas. S.L.
83
WHY IS
EVERYONE
PUSHING
ME?
ITS NOT
PERSONAL.
Part of the reason that

crowds in Chinatown are so
densely packed is cultural
living among 1.35 billion
compatriots, as Chinese
immigrants once did, teaches
you to make do with a small
zone of personal space. But
another part has to do with
infrastructure: Stockton
Streets sidewalks are simply
too narrow. At least, thats the
opinion of Pius Lee, a longtime
civic leader who chairs the
Chinatown Neighborhood
Association. The sidewalks
on Stockton are 15 feet wide
all the way from the bay to
Chinatown, he says, but
from Broadway Street to the
Stockton Street Tunnel, the
sidewalk is only 10 feet wide.
Lee thinks thats too narrow
for the citys most densely
populated neighborhood, so
he is campaigning to eliminate
one of Stockton Streets
three vehicle lanes in order
to broaden the sidewalk.
The idea has drawn cautious
interest from city planners
and new district supervisor
Julie Christensen, but no firm
commitments. S.L.
THE NUMBERS
HOWS THE ECONOMY?

MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME:
$33,845 (S.F.: $71,420)
UNEMPLOYED (IN 2013): 11%
(S.F.: 6.4%)
BELOW POVERTY LEVEL: 23%
(S.F.: 12%)
SOURCE: INVESTSF
Who needs a
supermarket
when you have
Stockton Street?
A PRIMER ON THE MAIN DRAGS CHAOTIC
AND DELICIOUS FOOD SHOPS.
Where does the produce come
from? While much of Chinatowns
produce used to be grown in
Salinas, these days more comes
from Central Valley growers who
work through distributors or sell
directly to stores. Mrs. Li, who runs
the New United Supermarket with
her husband, says that they get
their fruits and vegetables from
farms in Gilroy, delivered six times
a week. Freshness is key: If the
leaves are yellow, she says, we
refuse to take it.
What are the big sellers? People
are looking for everyday produce,
says Chinatown native Calvin
Leong, who runs VegiWorks, a
produce distribution company
that supplies restaurants and
caterers. That means foods
familiar to Western shoppers, like
Napa cabbage, spinach, celery,
oranges, Red Delicious apples,
and garlic, as well as fruits and
vegetables rarely seen outside of
Asian-American neighborhoods,
such as bitter melon, fuzzy melon,
Chinese eggplant, ginkgo nuts,
water chestnuts, and lychee.
And the preferred protein? The
Hang Seng Meat Market sells
the big three: lamb shanks for
making soup, flank steaks, and,
prominently, the other white meat.
The shops owner says that pork
is his biggest seller, especially to
new immigrants: The newcomers
always buy pork. They dont even
know how to cook beef.
How much does everything cost?
Chinatown offers some of the best
prices in townand even those
can go lower. Prices are posted,
but as Francis Chan, of the city
Office of Economic and Workforce

Development, says, Everything
can be negotiated. A worker at
City Super recommends shopping
at around 4 p.m. to get the best
buys: Thats discount time.
But be careful buying ginger and
green onionstheir prices have
shot up recently as demand has
exceeded supply.
Hows the parking? The worst
and sometimes even worse than
that. The butcher across the
street from Chinese Hospital
says that construction has made
it hard for his customers to find
parkingso hard, in fact, that
theyve resorted to calling in their
order ahead of time so that he can
run it out to their car.
Are all these shops really
independent? Actually, no. Many
of the markets are owned by the
same people, mostly members
of long-established families.
Though they look like competitors,
they work together, says Chan:
For instance, theyll call each
other with a heads-up when city
officials are writing tickets for
blocking the sidewalk.
How often do people in
Chinatown shop? For seniors,
a trip to the produce market is a
daily ritual. They might get two
apples for the day, says Chan.
How much is rent? A good
question, and a hard one to answer.
Much of the business between
landlords and tenants is based on
guanxipersonal connections
rather than a written contract.
Lets just say its hard to pin down.
S.L.
PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHEN M C LAREN
85
86
ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL CHO
The Dim Sum
REVOLUTION
HOW A BRIGADE OF KITCHEN WORKERS GOT BACK WHAT HAD
BEEN STOLEN FROM THEM, AND THEN SOME. BY VANESSA HUA
VEN AFTER ZHEN LI
leads a rousing chantWorkers
organize, everybody wins!no one else wants to step up to the

microphone. Tiny and bespectacled, her hair in a jet-black bob,
Li has the look of a Chinatown matron, one of those tenacious
hagglers who elbows her way through the crowds on Stockton
Street to purchase jade-green gai lan and silvery carp. Wearing
jeans, sturdy black shoes, and a puy striped jacket, she exhorts
her fellow proletariats to join her up front and holds out the mic to a nearby
woman. The woman tries to beg o, pleading, Im sickmy throat hurts,
but cheers draw her to her feet, and she sheepishly echoes Lis rallying cry.
On this rainy evening in early December at the Chinese Cultural Center,
Li and dozens of workersmostly women, mostly middle-aged and older
are celebrating with greasy takeout, cake, a slideshow, and speeches. While
some are clearly shy about speaking in public, they are no longer scared.
Theyve already achieved the impossible: Their solidarity has won them an
astonishing sum$4 millionfrom a powerful employer that had systematically
undercut their wages, pocketed their tips, and forced them to work under
brutal conditions. And it wasnt just any business that Li and her comrades
had taken on: It was Yank Sing, San Franciscos most lucrative and popular
purveyor of dim sum, those small plates of har gow, siu mai, and other dollsize delicacies that the restaurant serves to more than 1,200 customers a day
(and thats a slow day).
The journey to restitution for Li and her coworkers began two years ago,
when Li discovered that she wasnt alone in feeling abused and underpaid. Her
ocial work hours were 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., but often, she says, her bosses
forced her to stay, unpaid, an hour or two longer to prepare food and take care
of her station. Unbeknownst to Li, a few coworkers had been meeting with
the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA)a scrappy and strategic advocacy
group thats been organizing low-income laborers for decadesin an eort
to bring change to Yank Sing. One of her coworkers approached her, saying,
We need your help. When Li discussed the idea

with her husband, he tried to stop her from joining
the nascent campaign. What if you dont win? What
if you lose your job? he asked. Your employer is so
wealthy, so powerful.
Despite his resistance, Li persisted. I was pretty
scared. It was just a few of us going to meetings, she
tells me, speaking in Cantonese through a translator.
But with all the support and encouragement, I started
to have more courage. Before long, she would prove
her mettle, becoming one of the insurgent groups
most stalwart leaders.
BORN IN THE years after the Communist Party

took over China, Li is no stranger to social and political
turmoil. As a child, she worked in the fields, planting
seeds and pulling weeds in Taishan, a county west
of Hong Kong. In middle school, she donned an
armband and a red-star military cap and served as a
Red Guard in the Cultural Revolution, the cataclysmic
movement that followed Chairman Maos call for
class struggle against intellectuals and capitalists.
Although countless victims of the Red Guard were
beaten, sent to labor camps, and killed, Li maintains
that she was never involved in violencewhen clashes
erupted in the streets, she says, her parents kept
her home. A fervent believer nevertheless, she sang
songs praising the revolutions leaders and shared
the writings of Mao.
After graduating from high school and getting
married, Li turned to domestic pursuits, devoting
to-go counter is jammed with dim sum aficionados.
herself to her son and daughter and taking work
An Asian man murmurs to a friend that he takes
wherever she could find itin garment and glass
all his clients to Yank Sing. They say that the price
factories, at restaurants, and in construction,

mostly in the county capital, Taishan City. The
people of Taishan have been coming to America
and to San Francisco, in particularsince the
mid-19th century, working on railroads and sugar
plantations or opening shops and restaurants to
support their families left behind. In 2000, Li, her
husband, and their children joined the exodus,
arriving on an immigration visa sponsored by
her sister.
The family moved into a cramped apartment
in Glen Park, and Li worked at a vegetable market
and then a garment factory. Back in Taishan,
her friends and family marveled at her earnings:
$1,000 a month. When the factory moved to Daly
City, Li sought work in Chinatown dives and
is high and that we should go to Chinatown, he

says. But I like the food here better.
Yet even as Yank Sing stockpiled accolades
including a 2009 James Beard Award that named
it an American classicdiscontent was growing
among its workers. In the spring of 2013, Dixon Law,
a boyish former driver at Yank Sing, was convinced
to contact the CPA by his wife, Sandy, who had
picked up a booklet about workers rights and
labor laws (the cover asked, Is getting mistreated
making you unhappy?). The Laws and others
shared with CPA organizers stories of alleged
abuse at the hands of supervisors: Some bosses,
they said, screamed at employees so viciously
that they were forced to retreat to the walk-in
freezer to cry. If they suered cuts, burns, or other
found employment in the kitchen of King Tin, a
injuries, they were ordered back to work without
restaurant that stied its workers on wages and
being given medical care. Workers in the high-
forced some of them to toil as long as 17 hours a day.

In 2004, with the help of the CPA, Li and some of
the cooks, waiters, dishwashers, and janitors began
complaining to labor agencies. Shortly thereafter,
the restaurant closed and filed for bankruptcy, a
crisis that drove the workers to further actionthey
realized that if they didnt press their case, theyd
miss the chance to recover any wages. A year later,
City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the owners
of King Tin for violating the city law setting the
minimum wage at $8.50 an hour. Eventually, Li
and six workers recovered $85,000 in back pay.
In 2008, two years after the lawsuit was settled,
Li landed a job as a fryer at Yank Sing in the Rincon
Center. She was elated. It was so beautiful, she
pressure kitchen weren't given breaks. In the front

attracting a following.
of the house, managers snatched tips. Employees
In time, Henry Chan persuaded his mother to
occasionally complained to management, says
move Yank Sing to Stevenson Street in downtown
Shaw San Liu, the CPAs lead organizer, but the
San Francisco. There, he told the San Francisco
problems didnt abate.
Chronicle, they could leave behind Chinatowns
When we first started, we didnt know if we
cutthroat competition and attract a middle-class
could get back wages, but we thought we needed
American clientele. A second location on Battery
to fight for worker rights, recalls Sandy Law, a
Street followed in 1981. Not long after, Alice Chan
janitor on the night shift. After being convinced
passed away, and Henry and his wife took the
to join the cause, Li answered her husbands
reins. In 1999, Yank Sing opened in the Rincon
doubts by reminding him of the earlier suit against
Center on Spear Street, and in 2001, the Battery
King Tin: It worked before. We can do it again.
Street location closed. Currently, the Chans run
That victory, and a second one at the Golden
their restaurants alongside their only child, Vera,
Dragon, another Chinatown minimum wage
and her husband, Nathan Waller.
violator, bolstered the workers confidence in
The Yank Sing one enters today has a bustling
the legal process. In secret, the rebels contacted
and that I would be treated better.
vibe, but without the frenzied, teetering-into-chaos
other workers by phone and met at their homes.
commotion of other dim sum palaces, where curt
WITH ITS etched-glass partitions, black and
We talked about it hush-hush if we ran into
hostesses squawk out numbers and long lines
them on the street, says Li. They began to sell
form for dodgy bathrooms. At the Rincon Center
others on joining the campaigntelling them that
Yank Sing, the atrium is flooded with light that
they werent alone in coming forward, that the
illuminates tables encircling a dramatic waterfall.
discussions were confidential, and that organizers
High above, murals in pastel blue and dusky pink,
wouldnt do anything without their permission.
added during an expansion of the complex in
The new recruits contacted still more workers,
the 80s, feature scientists in a lab, grapes on the
who shared their frustrations over tea and sweet
vine, a BART train, and other wonders of the
rice cakes.
remembers. I thought the benefits would be better
cream carpets, and white tablecloths, Yank Sing is

an elegant if not trendy restaurant, charging premium prices that reflect a level of customer service
and quality of ingredients generally unmatched in
Chinatown. Between its two locations, Yank Sing
generates $10 million annually on sales of flaky
onion pancakes, shrimp mousse croquettes with a
delicate golden crumb, and crunchy spring rollsall
the handiwork of kitchen staers like Li. I worked
California economy. On a Sunday afternoon, an
Their numbers swelled rapidly, from 10 to 40
overflow crowd spills into the atrium, while the
to 96 workers, all willing to file claims with state
really hard, she says, because the standards were
and local labor agencies. These workers were
so high. She explains her approach to making the
starting from scratch, and the campaign grew so
prized fried snacks: See that the oil is clear and
quickly and so big, says Winnie Kao, litigation
control the flame just right, and when you fry, it

will be nice.
Yank Sings lofty standards were set by the
restaurants revered founder, Alice Chan, whose
misty portrait hangs in both locations with the
inscription From whose love of life and food all
else flowed. After emigrating from Hong Kong
in the early 1950s, Chan found work making dim
sum in Chinatown. Her young son, Henry, helped
out after school and on weekends, and in 1958, she
opened her own restaurant in Chinatown, quickly
88
When Li landed a
job as a fryer at
Yank Sing, she was
elated. It was so
beautiful. I thought
that I would be
treated better.
THE NUMBERS
director of the Asian Law Caucus, a legal aid
MISTREATMENT IN THE KITCHEN
organization that joined the fight at the request of
A survey of 433 Chinatown workers showed

that many are overworked, underpaid, and
injured on the job.
the CPA. Ive never been a part of anything like

this, of this size and strength. The courage that
RECEIVE NO WORK BREAKS: 40%

INCURRED A BURN AT WORK: 48%
EARN NO PAID VACATION TIME: 81%
HAD PAY DEDUCTED WHEN SICK: 42%
ARE NOT PAID FOR OVERTIME: 76%
SOURCE: CHINESE PROGRESSIVE ASSOCIATION, 9/10
the workers showed was inspiring.

That courage had to overcome the workers
fears of retaliation and getting firedfears that
Shuang Li (no relation to Zhen) understood. Before
becoming an organizer at the CPA, she had worked
at restaurants too, and, like the Yank Sing workers,
had faced intense pressure from her family to
keep her head down. Her parents used to ask,

Why are you making trouble? Why do you have
free time to cause trouble? Her husband told her,
We might get investigated, and the triads might
try to kidnap the children.
Bubbly, with a smoky voice, her long hair worn
loose and flowing, Li tried to put the Yank Sing
workersand their familiesat ease. Some of
the relatives were so anxious at first, she says,
that they would pretend they werent related,
even though they were living together. Zhen Li
hid her involvement from her adult children, who
were mystified by her sudden habit of coming home
late to their shared apartment. At the time that I
interviewed him, Dixon Law still hadnt told his
parents about his work on the campaign. I dont
want them to worry, the 31-year-old said. They
would ask so many questions.
That May and June, labor inspectors from
the state and city began an investigation in
secret, interviewing workers and conducting
surveillance inside and outside the restaurant.
As the investigation moved into the open, the
inspectors made surprise visits to management
and subpoenaed payroll records. Ultimately, they
found that 280 Yank Sing employees had not been
paid for all hours worked, that most had been paid
the states minimum wage of $8 per hour instead
of San Franciscos higher rate (which had risen to
$10.55 by 2013), and that management had kept or
misdirected $1 million in tips.
The legal process was far from over, however
now the workers had to keep up the fight while
management knew what they were up to. Imagine
if you just filed a claim against your employer
and went back to work, says the CPAs Liu.
Thats scary. She encouraged the workers to
stick together, to stay motivated, and not to lose
hope as the battle ground on. They had to keep
the pressure up, to let their employer know that
they were serious. It was time, they decided, to
march on Yank Sing.
THE PROBLEM OF
wage theft is not
confined to any one industry, ethnicity, size of

business, or corporate structure, says Labor
Commissioner Julie Su. Each year, California loses
FROM TOP: CARSON LANCASTER; COURTESY OF ET AL GALLERY
approximately $8 billion in tax revenues to wage

theft, and Sus oce has investigated millions of
dollars worth of violations committed by, among
others, a hospital, assisted living providers, and a
construction project. But restaurants in Chinatown
are particularly egregious offenders: A 2010
report by the CPA found that half of Chinatown
restaurant workers have had their wages undercut,
payments withheld, or tips stolen. A survey of
low-wage workers in Chicago, New York, and Los
Angeles, performed by the National Employment
Labor Project, reveals that close to 85 percent of
foreign-born Asians, 78.8 percent of women, and
nearly 85 percent of undocumented workers have
experienced overtime violations.
Among the most likely
WHY IS THAT ART GALLERY

UNDER A DRY CLEANERS?
FINDING CULTURE IN THREE VERY STRANGE PLACES.
BENEATH A LAUNDRY
To find Et Al, a 450-squarefoot gallery, walk into the dry
cleaners at 620 Kearny Street,
wave to the people pressing
shirts, head back through
a long hallway, and walk
down a flight of stairs. There,
stunningly, youll find works
by Kate Bonner, Anthony
Discenza, Aaron Finnis, and
other local artists who are not
yet in a museum, says gallery
cofounder Jackie Im, but
soon will be. 620 KEARNY ST.
ON THE THIRD FLOOR

OF THE HILTON
On the third floor of the
Hilton, just off a banquet
hall, youll find the
Chinese Culture Center's
3,000-square-foot gallery,
which will host Shanghaibased artist Lu Chuntaos
first stateside solo
exhibition of his inks this
spring. 750 KEARNY ST.
IN A 100-SQUAREFOOT NOOK
Its new, tiny, and open
only five hours a week (on
Saturdays from noon to
5 p.m.), but there is art
everywhere in Capital
Gallery. And it has big
ambitions: to showcase
contemporary work
mostly by artists outside
of the Bay Area, including
Washington States Rainen
Knecht, whose oil-oncanvas paintings are on
display through April 18. 716
SACRAMENTO ST. S.L.
What is it like to
live in an SRO?
CHARTER SCHOOL PRINCIPAL JEFFREY KWONG
GREW UP IN ONE, LEFTAND THEN CAME BACK.
ere's how it works in Chinatown: You
graduate school, and then came back.
immigrate, move into an SRO, save up
Now, I live with 10 other people in these five
your money for 15 years, and then move
rooms. Im not related to any of them, but we all have
out. Thats what my family didmoved
to like each otherwe wash our clothes in the same
to Russian Hill when I was 18. But I
sink. My room isnt much dierent from how I lived
came back to Chinatown, and now I live
in graduate schoolI still have all my books from my
in the same flat that I grew up in. Very
statistics classes. Friends who come in are surprised
few people do that, obviously, but I feel connected to
by the shift between how it looks in the hallway and
the community. (Im also a school principal, so where
how it looks in my room. When they walk in here, its
else am I going to survive in the city?) Im one of the
like, Ah, back to the First World.
only people my age who thinks this way, though
For me, too, there was a culture clash in moving
even Chinese Americans have a psychological barrier
back, especially with the parents shouting at their
to living in Chinatown.
kids. They scream that theyll beat the kids to
Growing up, I lived with my parents and brother,
death if they dont finish their rice. Thats how my
my uncles family, and my grandparents. My father
grandmother talks to me stilldeath threats. You get
worked in constructionstill does, actuallyand my
into an argument with her, and shell say youll die
mother was a seamstress. My uncle used to own the
alone. Thats just how we communicate.
Li Po bar. He died of a heart attack in the room that
Chinatown is changing. Today, one of the
I live in now. Altogether, we were 13 people in five
apartments in this building is going for $4,000 on
bedrooms, one kitchen, and one bathroom. Thats
Craigslist. There are now two units of white people
the layout of number 42.
who moved in during the last year or two. They
Theres very little privacy here. People wash
might be doing Airbnb or workforce housing, I
their laundry at all hours. You hear the click of the
dont knowI say hi, but thats it. Chinese people
bathroom door, and you have to rush in or it will be
keep to themselves. My grandmother says, dont
occupied again. If you use the shower, you have to
get involved. Were rent-controlled, and since I was
leave the door unlocked so that people can use the
raised here (and the landlords are my cousins), Im
toilet. Growing up, my grandmother would be taking
essentially on the lease. I pay $800-something for my
a dump while I was showering. If I leave my rooms
two rooms.
door unlocked now, the kids will run in. Thats part
of the funyou have to share.
All in all, its a nice building. There are gradations

of SROs, and this is a good one. The building
My family hardly ever left Chinatown except on the
was reinforced for earthquakes when I was a kid,
weekends, when we had a routine: dim sum at Harbor
supposedly. This whole room is tilted, though
Village or, after it closed, some other god-awful place,
my bookcases are angled five degrees. Theres
then shopping at Costco, and then back home. That
something that looks like a radiator in the kitchen,
was it. I never went to the Mission or saw the beach.
but it doesnt work. We dont have recycling bins
I visited the zoo with school once. I never traveled to
either. We keep all our junk. Chinese people are the
the East Bay, except once when we went to Oaklands
original hipsterswe invented reusing Mason jars.
Chinatown for New Years. Then I left for college and
As told to Scott Lucas
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANRONG XU
91
IS THE 30 REALLY THE

WORST BUS IN TOWN?
NOT EVEN CLOSE.
On a cold, rainy morning, packed
into the Dirty 30 like dried shrimp in
a barrel, you might easily conclude
that the bus that crosses Chinatown on its way to and from Market
Street and the Marina is the slowest in town. But youd be wrong,
says Muniin fact, the 30s ontime record is actually better than
average. According to the SFMTAs
number crunching, 65 percent of
30-Stockton buses over the last 12
months arrived at stops between
one minute ahead of and four minutes after schedulewhich is what
Muni defines as on time. Given that
the system-wide on-time average
was just 58 percent, the 30-Stockton is doing pretty well. (To be fair,
Do all fortune cookies come from the fortune cookie factory?

Alas, no. Although the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory churns out thousands of
cookies a day, almost all of them walk out the door in the hands of tourists. Most Chinese
restaurants get their cookies wholesale from other Bay Area bakeries. LAUREN SEWARD
HOW CAN YOU TELL IF AN

ERHU PLAYER IS ANY GOOD?
If youve ever walked through Chinatown, youve undoubtedly heard buskers playing (some would say scratching)
the traditional two-stringed instrument known as the erhu.
A cousin of the fiddle, its common in both classical and
popular Chinese music, but it can sound a tad discordant to
Western ears. In America, there is a huge misconception
that the erhu is a simple folk instrument, says UC Berkeley student Eric Jung, who studied at the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing. But modern compositions in China
call for musicians to play extremely fluidly, with the technique of a violin. According to Jung, listeners should attend to the tone of the music and observe the players technique: Is the song slow only? Is heavy vibrato being used?
Are the strokes smooth? Is there variation in the music? Is
the player moving around, not sitting still? Does the musician look stiff? If the answers are no, yes, yes, yes, yes, and
no, then you've lucked onto some pretty nifty erhu! S.L.
THE NUMBERS
IS EVERYONE HERE ASIAN?
SOURCE: US CENSUS
92
said, the 30 sure is crowded. S.L.
How could this

possibly be legal?
UH, ITS NOT.

ASK A COP.
FIREWORKS According to SFPD captain David Lazar, who runs

Chinatowns Central Station, illegal street sales of fireworks have
declined in response to an explosion (his pun, not ours) in online
sales. But the department is still doing its best to regulate sales
on the street. Last year a business sold to an undercover officer,
Lazar says, and we were able to link back to a place where they
stored fireworks. Police found the explosives packed into a hidden
room; their owners landed in jail.
IVORY Outside of China, San Franciscos Chinatown is one of the
busiest markets for ivory in the world. A California law enacted in
1977 bans the sale of ivory collected after that year, but accurately
identifying scofflaws would require expensive carbon-dating
equipment. And, as it happens, the entity charged with enforcing
the ban is not the SFPD but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Servicewhich
does not have an office in San Francisco.
MAH-JONGG PARLORS Mah-jongg is a form of recreation, so Lazar
keeps an eye on the parlors mostly to protect them from being
robbed. Because the parlors host players who gamble large sums of
money (albeit not as large as in Vegas), they are always at risk for a
heist: Recently, Lazar notes, three masked men robbed a parlor
that had left its door unlocked. SARAH STODDER
ILLUSTRATIONS BY SERGE SEIDLITZ
ANDRIA LO
ASIAN AMERICAN: 61% (S.F.: 33%)

WHITE: 33% (S.F.: 48%)
BLACK: 2% (S.F.: 6%)
HISPANIC: 5% (S.F.: 15.3%)
the voter-mandated goal for the

system is 85 percent, a figure that
Muni has never met.) The 45-Union/
Stockton, which traces a similar
route, does even better, posting a
71 percent on-time rate. That being
Whats it like to be Miss Chinatown?

THE MOMENT I SET FOOT ON STAGE, I PULLED A BEYONC: I AM CRYSTAL, HEAR ME ROAR!
ANRONG XU
Since 1958, San Francisco has played host

to the Miss Chinatown U.S.A. pageant,
which draws dozens of young women from
Chinatowns across the country. Here, 2010
winner Crystal Lee (who was then earning
a bachelors degree from Stanford and now
works for Google) describes how it feels to
win the competition.
What was it like to compete? Its a two-week adventure. The first week is preparing, getting to know each
other, and doing dinners with the community. Then,
on Saturday, theres the competition. The following
week, the queen and court make appearances around
Chinatown. The week ends with a coronation ball and
the parade.
How did it feel when the red cape was draped over
your shoulders after your victory? Oh my gosh, it
was so exciting! Its the original cape from when the
pageant started, and its only brought out three times
a yearfor the pageant, coronation, and parade.
Being a silly Chinese daughter, I felt proud that I had
made my father proud, and that was enough after the

grief I gave him as a teenager.
In the talent portion of the contest, what did you
do? Classical Chinese dance with tai chi impressionsmartial arts is badass, and I wanted to prove
that I wasnt just this dainty girl. There are lots of
jumps, leaps, and split legs in the air. Its not a
pretty dance.
What question were you asked onstage? Whats
your favorite book? I said The Joy Luck Club,
which I was reading at Stanford. That fit well with
the audience.
Were you self-conscious about wearing a swimsuit? I was during rehearsals, but the moment I set
foot onstage, I pulled a Beyonc: I am Crystal, hear
me roar! Youre only young once.
How did you do your makeup? Your features need
to stand out, so you use heavy-duty stage powder
and winged eyeliner pulled way out. Good makeup
remover is essential. Your photos hang on the wall for
hundreds of years, so you have to look good. I dont
wear makeup on a daily basis, so I broke out like crazy
the second week.
Did you make the rounds in Chinatown? We did,

especially to the family associationstheyre on the
second and third floors of buildings in Chinatown,
in a part of town that not many get to witness. On
several of the walls are photos of Miss Chinatown
contestantsa lot of the hair, outfits, and shoes
havent changed since the 1950s. Id never interacted
with my family organization, the Lee Association.
They gave us a traditional gum pai, a necklace with
a crest of Chinese characters engraved in pure gold.
What other gifts did you receive? Little red envelopes with money are the typical Chinese honorarium,
but every time you make a visit, you get a product
skin cream, ginseng tea, lots of jewelry. Someone
gave me a voucher for discounted life insurance.
What was your most surprising takeaway from
the pageant? I didnt expect to feel so proud to be
Chinese. Right after the parade, a little girl from the
mainland asked me in Chinese, Are you Chinese, or
are you American? That was poignant, because Id
never been asked before. There are people outside of
the United States who would be confused by a person
like me. INTERVIEW BY A.K. CARROLL
93
IN
1875, A MAN named Low Sing

fell in love with a call girl known as
the Golden Peach and aspired to buy
out her contract. When another of
her patrons, Ming Long, learned of
Sings plan, he ambushed Sing outside
the brothel where the Peach worked.
Sing, who managed to escape with his
life, reported Longs knife attack to
his fellow members of the Suey Sing
Tong, one of Chinatowns numerous community organizations.

Angered by the oense, the tongs leadership posted a public
notice demanding restitution from the Kwong Duck Tong,
where Long was a member. The demand was refused, and
WHERE
HAVE
ALL THE
GANGSTERS
GONE?
CHINATOWNS VIOLENT
PAST IS LEGENDARY,
BUT NOW ITS STREETS
ARE QUIET. ARE THE
CRIMINALS GONE, OR
JUST HIDING?
so, diplomatic avenues exhausted, the two tongs agreed to

meet at midnight in a Chinatown alley and settle the score.
As the appointed hour approached, nearly 50 tong members
wielding guns, hatchets, and knives poured into the alley and
engaged in battle. The cops swarmed in and broke it up only
minutes later, but not before one Suey Sing and three Kwong
Ducks had been killed and another 12 combatants wounded.
Declared the victors, the Suey Sing Tong demanded a written
apology and a $10,000 settlement, split between the tong
and Low Sing.
One hundred and forty years later, Chinatowns streets are
quiet. The days of pitched battles over the love of a call girl
have passed. Violent turf wars over the traditional rackets
prostitution, gambling, extortion, and drugsand the riches
that came with them havent raged here in nearly two decades.
Except for a few high-profile outliers, Chinatowns reputation
for crime has evaporated. But after more than a century, what
finally brought peace to the neighborhood? Were Chinatowns
criminals pushed out of San Francisco? Or did organized crime
find a quieter way to operate?
OFFICER DAVID ON, a fortysomething Chinatown

beat cop who lives with his wife and two children on San
Franciscos west side, was brought up in the neighborhood.
The streets that he walks today, he says, are dierent than they
were when he was growing up. On remembers the gangsters
who used to hang around Chinatown smoking cigarettes. I
went to private school, he says, and [the gangsters] were
much older than I wasI would see them around. But its not
like that anymore. There arent gang members just hanging
around on the corners.
Nowadays, in fact, Chinatowns problems are much like
those of the rest of San Francisco. Violent crime is down, but
robbery continues, and homelessness is an ongoing problem.
Walking along bustling Stockton Street, On explains that
Chinatowns population density makes it a fruitful environment
for pickpockets: Just look at the way they shop, with their
purses exposed like that, he says, gesturing toward the
elderly women and men parsing the vendors that line the
street. Drug dealing crops up too: A shopkeeper on the
neighborhoods outskirts reports that he knows of at least
a couple of midlevel dealers who rent one of Chinatowns
ubiquitous SRO apartments.
But gangs, and the criminal activity they used to engage in,
BY MAX CHERNEY
are nowhere to be seen. Illegal fireworks sales, once a mainstay

of gang revenue, are increasingly rare. Once in a while Ill find
some people doing it, On says, especially around the Fourth
of July. He hasnt encountered an extortion case in years,
which could suggest that the problem has nearly disappeared.
94
In terms of numbers, Asian gang-related crime
But starting in the 1960s, a wave of immigration
have been auent, says Sheldon X. Zhang, a
is down, although Chinatown is not completely
brought a new generation of criminals to
sociologist at San Diego State University who
safe, cautions Portia Li, who has covered crime
Chinatown who established a robust underworld
has studied Chinese organized crime in America,
in Chinatown for nearly 30 years at the Chinese-
order. Younger criminals formed new groups:
including street gangs.
language World Journal. All the crime has gone
A street gang called the Wah Ching appeared
The new kids are closely watched by their
underground; its not really very obvious. I think
around 1964, originally serving as enforcers for
parents, Zhang says, and the large infusion
theyre making their own money, doing business
the Hop Sing Tong. When the gang struck out on
[of wealthier immigrants] disrupted the old-
here and there and not really threatening the
its own, Chinatowns underworld was thrown
world arrangements. There are just not enough
publics lives.
into turmoil.
younger people to feed into [organized crime],
As the overt violence of years past has subsided,
The bloody power struggle that followed peaked
since recent immigrants from China tend to be
law enforcement has responded with a certain
in 1977, when a group called the Joe Boys stormed
wealthy enough to send their children to private
level of tolerance. Strolling down Spoord Street,
the Golden Dragon restaurant in the middle of
school, dont want to live in Chinatown, and often
On points out the mah-jongg games, which have
the night in an attempt to assassinate the Wah
speak English.
historically been gambling hubs. But he doesnt
Ching leadership. Three masked gunmen opened
In the past, Zhang adds, newcomers to China-
seem to be interested in investigating them: Every
fire, leaving 5 civilians dead and 11 wounded.
town hailed primarily from Hong Kong and Guang-
few minutes a head pops out of a Gamblers Alley
Among the suspected targets was then-17-year-old
dong Provinceboth Cantonese-speaking regions
door, the person smiling and wavingand On
Raymond Shrimp Boy Chow (the same Chow
(though many longtime residents speak a related
returns the greeting.
who was snared in 2014 along with more than
dialect called Taishanese). But todays immigrants
two dozen others in a sprawling FBI probe into
come from regions of China, like Fujian Province
organized crime and political corruptiona rare
and Shanghai, where Mandarin is spoken. Because
underworld is buried inside the mah-jongg
public display of alleged old-time gangsterism).
criminal networks at every level, Zhang argues,
parlors, under the awnings of the tiny shops
After what came to be called the Golden Dragon
require a common means of communication,
that line the streets, and behind the painted
Massacre, law enforcement broke up the Joe Boys.
Chinatowns increasing cultural and language
facades of the tongs headquarters. But if you
That left the Wah Ching in control of Chinatowns
diversity makes it less suited to the formation of
know where to look, you can still find evidence
underworld until the early 1990s. Then, a Hong
street gangs. For delinquencies to emerge, he
of the violent past.
Kongbased syndicate called the Wo Hop To,
says, you need to have a tight gang, and they al-
On Waverly Place, the Hop Sing Tong, painted
under the leadership of Peter Chong and Chow,
most always have to speak the same dialect.
lime-green, stands out against the naked brick
attempted to unite the citys Asian mob under
On the other side of the generational coin,
buildings on either side. Just to the left of the
one flag. The leader of the Wah Ching, Danny
the original gangsters are oldand the few
entrance, under the tongs name in gold paint, a
Wong, resisted and was murdered in 1991. A year
who remain active have had to become more
filled-in bullet hole mars the door frame. In March
later, Chow was indicted for gun tracking, a
imaginative in their handling of problems. Where
2005, shots were fired at the tong, scarring the
charge that was later rolled into a racketeering
once they relied on threats and violence, Zhang
facade. A year later, on February 27, 2006, Allen
indictment that named 19 other defendants.
says, now there are fewer and fewer gangs that do.
Leung, a community leader with connections
Chong fled the country. By 1996, Chow had been
Its not like [the old days] anymore, and everyones
to the Ghee Kung and Hop Sing tongs, was
convicted and sent to federal prison, along with
been forced to change. The law and the whole
killed in his import-export businesss Jackson
most of the 19 other defendants. (Chow, now 55,
society, the environment and the culture, have
Street office by an unknown assassin. Word
got out in 2002 after snitching on Chong, who was
shifted. The younger generation, according to
around Chinatown was that his murder was
extradited in 2000 and imprisoned until 2008.)
Zhang, have professional ambitions: They aim
tied to organized crime. It would be one of the
By 2002, crime in Chinatown had settled down.
to be doctors or lawyers; they want single-family
last times that a violent crime was linked to the
Leungs 2006 murder was one last eruption of
homes with the proverbial lawn and white picket
tongs, marking the end of an association that
rumored gangland violence in the neighborhood.
fence. Theyre American. And, like Americans,
THESE DAYS, the history of Chinatowns
began long ago.
when they have a dispute, they sue.
Starting with the gold rush, the tongs helped
EARLIER CHINATOWN GANGS,
forge San Franciscos reputation for vice, but
like the Wah Ching and the Joe Boys, were made
says Linzi Cui, who covers crime for the Chinese-
also filled the void left by a government and a
up of young Chinese immigrants with ties to
language Sing Tao Daily. The community used
police force largely uninterested in the Chinese
the tongs who acted as muscle to protect the
to be very small, but its not like that anymore....
community. In addition to controlling black
gambling parlors and other illegal operations.
The tong leaders are getting old, and the next
markets, opium joints, and brothels and taking
Not anymore. From the mid-1990s onwarda
generation doesnt use the same mechanisms to
money from small businesses and gambling dens
lot more Chinese immigrants have arrived who
resolve disputes, and many have already moved
in exchange for protection, the tongs played a
out of Chinatown.
more benevolent role: They helped new arrivals
OF COURSE, all is not completely quiet.
find jobs and acted as arbiters in disputeswhich,

as demonstrated by the fight over the Golden
Peach, sometimes led to violent confrontations
in the streets.
The Golden Peach conf lict was one of the
earliest sparks in San Franciscos Tong Wars, a
conflict that marked the beginning of more than
a century of on-and-o violence in Chinatown.
The fighting in the neighborhood died down in
the 1920s, and afterward Chinatown calmed
somewhat, in large part because the gangsters got
old. Prostitution, opium use, and gambling waned.
Theyll hire attorneys to handle the issues,
THE NUMBERS
QUIETER STREETS
Crime in Chinatowns District 3
vs. the city at large.
2013 CRIME RATE: 87 CRIMES PER
1,000 PEOPLE (S.F.: 66)
2013 HOMICIDES: 1 (S.F.: 48)
2013 ROBBERIES: 351 (S.F.: 4,000)
2013 BURGLARY THEFTS FROM VEHICLES:
1,923 (S.F.: 16,600)
SOURCE: SAN FRANCISCO POLICE DEPARTMENT
Following Leungs murder in 2006, Hop Sing

Tong member and alleged gang boss Chow took
over leadership of the Ghee Kung Tong, one of
the oldest tongs in the countryand allegedly
pursued Chinatowns criminal tradition with
vigor. In a March 2014 indictment related to
the ongoing cases against Chow and 27 other
defendants (including former state senator Leland
Yee), the feds claimed that a pyramidal criminal
structure continues to thrive in Chinatown.
Fe dera l pro s e c utor

95
6
8
1
5
2
4
3
9
10
15
14
13
20
25
24
23
21
22
96
26
Whats worth
buying on
Grant Avenue?
TWENTY-NINE USEFUL, PLAYFUL FINDS
THAT GO BEYOND THE SCHLOCK.
11
BY LAUREN MURROW
12
1. PAPER LANTERN, $5
11. GREEN ELECTRIC
21. MATCHA POCKY
AT BUTTERFLYS GIFT
SPARKLERS, $1.50 FOR
BISCUIT STICKS,
SHOP, 412 GRANT AVE.
EIGHT AT ASIAN IMAGE,
$2.25 AT NAM HAI
800 GRANT AVE.
CORPORATION, 919
GRANT AVE.
2. OSMANTHUS
16
BLOSSOM FLOWERING
12. BIRD KITE, $15 AT
TEA, $3 FOR TWO
CHINATOWN KITE SHOP,
22. DISH TOWELS, $3.95
BLOSSOMS AT TEN REN
717 GRANT AVE.
FOR THREE AT THE WOK

SHOP, 718 GRANT AVE.
TEA, 949 GRANT AVE.
17
13. TIGER BALM PAIN3. JADE RINGS, $4 EACH
RELIEVING OINTMENT,
23. SOUP SPOONS, $1
AT CHEN XIAO MEI LIN
$2 AT CANTON BAZAAR,
TO $2.50 AT CANTON
WEN, 1051 GRANT AVE.
616 GRANT AVE.
BAZAAR, 616 GRANT AVE.
4. LINEN NAPKIN, $8.99
14. SLINGSHOT, $5
24. MAO CLOCK, $14.95
AT BRAYDEN FASHION,
AT HOLLYWOOD
AT OLD SHANGHAI,
564 GRANT AVE.
LEATHER & LUGGAGE,
645 GRANT AVE.
627 GRANT AVE.

25. DUMPLING MOLD,
5. RING DISPLAY, $19.50
18
AT OLD SHANGHAI,
15. CALLIGRAPHY
$4.95 AT THE WOK SHOP,
645 GRANT AVE.
PAINTBRUSH, $13 AT
718 GRANT AVE.
TIAN YU COMPANY, 904

6. KAMJOVE TEA PRESS,
GRANT AVE.
29
LEATHER & LUGGAGE,
16. DOUBLE FISH TABLE
TEA, $3 FOR TWO
627 GRANT AVE.
TENNIS BALLS, $3 FOR
BLOSSOMS AT TEN REN
SIX AT SUN SING CENTER,
TEA, 949 GRANT AVE.
7. WHITE RABBIT
1027 GRANT AVE.

27. KIDS CHOPSTICKS,
CREAMY CANDY,
27
26. JASMINE FAIRY

MAIDEN FLOWERING
$10 AT HOLLYWOOD
19
$2.49 PER PAIR AT
$2.25 AT NAM HAI
17. MOTHERWOODS
CORPORATION,
WOODEN COMB, $10
CANTON BAZAAR,
919 GRANT AVE.
AT LINDA BOUTIQUE,
616 GRANT AVE.
952 GRANT AVE.

28. MULTICOLOR
8. XINHANG GLITTER
28
SPARKLERS, $1 FOR
SPONGES, $1.50 FOR
18. FIREWORK TANK,
THREE AT THE WOK SHOP,
$1.50 AT ASIAN IMAGE,
SIX AT ASIAN IMAGE,
718 GRANT AVE.
800 GRANT AVE.
800 GRANT AVE.
9. TOUGEI CERAMIC
19. MARIES OIL COLORS,
29. OLD XIE XING LONG
BOWL, $5.95 AT CANTON
$2 AT TIAN YU COMPANY,
ADVERTISEMENTS
BAZAAR, 616 GRANT AVE.
904 GRANT AVE.
POSTCARD SET, $7.95
10. TIN TEA CANISTER,
20. WOODEN RECORDER,
$12.95 AT OLD SHANGHAI,
$6.95 AT OLD SHANGHAI,
645 GRANT AVE.
645 GRANT AVE.
AT OLD SHANGHAI, 645
PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIC HELGAS
GRANT AVE.
What are you

doing to my body?
TECHNIQUES TO TREAT EVERYTHING FROM WRINKLES TO BACK
PAIN TO SINUS ISSUESJUST BE READY FOR SOME BRUISING. E.C.
ACUPUNCTURE
CUPPING
WHATS GOING ON
UNDER THAT LION HEAD?
Lion dancing takes a certain level of finesse. The physical
demands are risky and, some would say, dangerous,
admits Corey Chan, director of Kei Lun Martial Arts, a group
that carries on the tradition, which is used to celebrate the
New Year, weddings, funerals, business meetings, store
balance and superb coordination. To test aspiring dancers,

Chan challenges them to tell a story in movement while
navigating a maze in his studiobut hes looking for more
than just dexterity: He needs charisma. They must have
attitude. Im an animal. Im part of this creature. They
also need to watch their lion manners: Lifting a leg, biting
another lions tail, or even blinking in front of another lion
may be interpreted as a sign of disrespect. In the old
days, Chan says, if a rival group tried to muscle in on
somebodys territory or their lion had bad manners, there
A therapeutic form of Chinese massage, tui na employs rhythmic compression techniques to restore
qi and reduce pain. Therapists use it to treat everything from migraines and
tendinitis to postpartum
issues. Ballpark price:
$20$60
REFLEXOLOGY
Practitioners apply
pressure to parts
of the feet or hands
that they believe are
linked to organs and
other systems in the
body. Much more
than a foot massage, reflexology is
even used to treat
diabetes and asthma. Ballpark price:
$24$36
could be a gigantic fight. ANNIE TITTIGER
How does a blessing scam work?
Acupressure is similar in
theory to acupuncture,
but employs pressure applied directly to the body
no needles involved. Ballpark price: $55$225
MOXIBUSTION
Sometimes used in tandem with acupuncture,
moxibustion involves
burning bundles of mugwort or wormwood over
parts of the body. The
burning material may be
applied directly to the skin,
which can cause burning and scarring. Ballpark
price: $55$225
GUA SHA
A practitioner scrapes the patients body with spoons or similar instruments to treat ailments
ranging from sore muscles to respiratory problems. Be prepared
to see some welts and bruising
in the aftermath. Ballpark price:
$55$225
THE NEFARIOUS AND ALL-TOO-COMMON

CON, IN FOUR STEPS
The mark is told that to ward off the predicted misfortune, she must put
money or valuables into a special bag, over which Partner 3 prays.
STEP 4: During the prayer, the bag is switched with an identical one that
is empty. Partner 3 then tells the mark not to open the bag for a long time,
and shows her the door. By the time that the victim realizes the bag is
empty, the con artistsand the valuablesare long gone. S.L .
ILLUSTRATIONS BY SERGE SEIDLITZ
DANE POLLAK
STEP 1: Partner 1 strikes up a conversation with a mark (usually an elderly

woman), casually telling her about a fortune-teller.
STEP 2: Partner 2 pretends to overhear the conversation and then vouches for said fortune-teller. Both partners convince the mark to go see the
oracle, who is in fact Partner 3.
STEP 3: Partner 3 pretends to read the marks fortune, faking an ill omen.
98
ACUPRESSURE
TUI NA
openings, birthdays, exorcismsthe works. Lion dancers

must be proficient jumpers and acrobats with exceptional
The strategic placement

of small needles along the
12 energy-carrying meridian points on the body addresses everything from
headaches to chronic
pain to infertility. These
days, people are even
turning to it for something
a little more cosmetic
reducing fine lines and
wrinkles. Ballpark price:
$55$225
During cupping, a
practitioner heats
the air inside a glass
cup and applies it to
inflamed or painful
parts of the body. The
heated air creates
a vacuum, drawing
blood to the area and
reputedly stimulating
the bodys qi, or natural energy. It also can
result in some fairly
gnarly bruising. Ballpark price: $20$40
EAST
VS
WEST
Are those DVDs bootlegs?

No. In fact, there is a whole
universe of Hong Kong cinema
FUTURE X-COPS (2010)
for Cantonese and Mandarin

speakers on sale in Chinatown
and much is subbed or dubbed
in English. We asked the store
managers at Asiastar Fantasy
back in time from the year 2080
and Fortune Star Trading to

recommend their top sellers.
GRAHAM HACIA
In this kung fu flick, a cop travels

to foil a team of cyborg assassins
whove been hired by futuristic oil
tycoons to murder the Father of
Solar Energy.
FLIRTING IN THE AIR (2014)
When airplane pilot Captain Cool flies
through a thunderstorm, a wormhole
transports him, his copilots, and his
MEN SUDDENLY IN BLACK 2 (2006)
crew of sexy stewardesses back to
In this battle of the sexes, four
the Ming dynasty.
couples seek to save their marriages
RED TROUSERS: THE LIFE OF THE
through sexcapades called fool-
HONG KONG STUNTMEN (2003)
around missions. Gigolos, illicit
Following some of the worlds greatest
tapes, antics, and men in black ensue.
stuntmen (including Mortal Kombat
LOVE IN TIME (2012)
star Robin Shou), this documentary
In a case of forbidden love, ice cream
explores the high-stakes profession
truck driver Cho falls for his distant
of film daredevils.
cousin and new roommate, Tina.
WHAT HAPPENS DURING A

CHINATOWN FUNERAL?
IS THE ARCHITECTURE
EAST OR WESTOR BOTH?
After the 1906 quake and fire, Chinatown was
rebuilt by white architects who created an
Oriental never-never land. As Philip Choy
writes in San Francisco Chinatown: A Guide
to Its History and Architecture, American architects at the turn of the 20th century were
trained in the Beaux Arts tradition; they knew
little and cared even less about the architecture of Asia. Their exposure was limited to images of pagodas and temples with massive
curved roofs with eaves curled at corners,
forms and expressions already centuries old.
The result was buildings with an architectural
blend that Chin calls neither East nor West
but decidedly San Francisco. S.L.
THE NUMBERS
HOW CROWDED IS IT?

POPULATION DENSITY: 70 PEOPLE PER ACRE
(S.F.: 27 PEOPLE PER ACRE)
HOUSING UNITS PER ACRE: 40 (S.F.: 12)
SOURCE: INVESTSF
If you need a funeral in Chinatown, theres only one place to go: Green
Street Mortuary. Originally serving Italian Catholics, today it is patronized
almost exclusively by Chinese Americans. The mortuarys general
manager, Bob Yount, explains some of his guests unique rituals.
The Buddhist chanting Observant Buddhist families bring
monks to the funeral to chant hymns. Its not a sing-along,
Yount says, but an opportunity for reflection that is often
paired with eulogies and services.
The creature comforts At the grave, members of the funeral party sometimes burn paper figurines to symbolically gift
items like houses, cars, servants, and even flat-screen TVs to
the deceased. The items represented by the burned paper are
believed to have been transmitted for use in the afterlife.
The sweeteners At the end of the funeral, two family members pass out a white envelope and a red one to each guest.
The red, like those given on the Lunar New Year, holds a small
amount of money (with larger denominations for particularly
honored mourners). The white one contains a quarter, which
must be spent during the same day, and a piece of lucky candy, giving guests something sweet to balance out the sadness.
The marching band The best-known element of a Chinatown
funeral is the procession along Stockton Street, in which the
coffin is preceded by a 10-piece brass band playing Christian
hymns like Amazing Grace. Yount follows the band in a car
that prominently displays a picture of the deceaseda variation on the Chinese tradition of parading through the village
with a large scroll bearing his or her name. Then comes the
hearse and the mourners, who, once the procession is over, go
to the cemeteryusually in Colma, which has six Chinese-language cemeteries. S.L.
99
LONG
LIVE THE
EMPRESS
MIGHT THE PASSING OF A CULINARY
GRANDE DAME PAVE THE WAY FOR
A YOUNGER, SEXIER CHINATOWN?
dOLPhINs
BY The
ANDREW
LEONARD PHOTOGRAPHS BY CARSON LANCASTER
100
April
December
2015 | 2014
San Francisco
| San Francisco
101
101
fending o foreign imperialism, or the Mission

is of stopping Google buses. Chinatown has
been in its current location since the dawn of
the city, surviving earthquakes, immigration
quotas and systemic racism, economic boom
and bust. Whatever happens to the Empress
building, Chinatown is likely to endure, much as
it always hasthe bones of the neighborhood
are strong.
And yet, the still undetermined fate of the
The
Empress building highlights what many believe

to be a crucial paradox: Chinatowns resistance
to change isnt necessarily in the best interests
of Chinatown, which, many longtime residents
CLOSURE OF THE EMPRESS
and community observers will tell you, has

been in a state of economic stasis or outright
of China restaurant on New Years Day
decline for a long time. With its tired decor,
of 2015 sent pangs of sadness through
grati, and declining patronage, the Empress
San Franciscos Chinatown. But it
oers an uncomfortably apt metaphor for the
was the sales brochure that got people
entire neighborhood: The buildingand all of
hopping mad.
Chinatownneeds fresh ideas, fresh investment,
The confidential oering memoran-
fresh blood. Enough with the tired restaurants
dum describes a unique opportunity
and the souvenir shops selling cheap trinkets to
to acquire 838 Grant Avenueaka the
the tourist trade: Lets think bigger!
Empress of China buildingin the florid
And indeed, some bigger thinking is in the
language that youd expect from a real
works. The Empress may be gone, but at least
estate brokerage pushing a hot listing. The property, declares the memo, is an iconic building
two ambitious new projects that aim to halt the
coming to market for the very first time and oering investors a rare, value-add opportunity
downward spiral are under way. Just a block from
in the heart of Chinatown in downtown San Francisco. The buildings excellent bones, the
the Empress building, hot chef Brandon Jew is
memo gushes on, oer an ideal space to cater to creative/technology tenants. Moreover, the
pursuing plans to start a new restaurant that will
18-foot ceilings on the fifth floor showcase outstanding bay and city views, giving the building
fuse state-of-the-art Bay Area foodie values with
the potential to become some of the finest creative oce space in San Francisco.
classic Chinese cuisine in one of Grant Avenues
Accompanying this fulsome text is an illustration depicting several dozen twentysomething
most historic buildings. Farther down the street,
oce workers sitting in Herman Miller look-alike chairs, staring intently into their monitors.
where Grant Avenue dead-ends into Broadway,
One young man is leaning half out of his chair and beckoning to a tail-wagging dachshund, a
a consortium led by veteran restaurateur George
signifier of millennial-friendly Silicon Valley oce life if ever there was one. Were it not for the
Chen is about to open China Live, a sprawling
magnificent view of Coit Tower through the windows to the north, the scene could be set about
high-end food court and retail outlet that the
two miles southwest, in Twitters mid-Market headquarters.
blogs have christened Chinatowns Eataly, and
In a city constantly on edge about the invasion of a voracious, neighborhood-squashing

tech industry, this imagerynot just anticipating but inviting a tech takeover of a cherished
community landmarkwas bound to raise hackles. And so it did.
Thats eng ridiculous, one third-generation Chinese American told me when I showed
her the brochure.
The Toms [the buildings longtime owners] have lost their ties to the community, said
another veteran Chinatown player.
Bullshit, said a third. This is just bullshit. Wow.
that Chen casually describes as a platform for

exploring Chinese cuisine.
But heres where it gets tricky: The success
of both projects will depend on attracting
customers from outside Chinatown who
can afford high-end cuisine and shopping
experiences. For those who want to break the
stasis, thats a highly desirable outcome. But
others fear that it could be just one more form
FOR NEARLY 50 YEARS, the Empress of China occupied the top two stories of 838
102
of gentrification, another potential thin end of

the displacement wedge.
Grant (whose actual name is the China Trade Center), serving as a key nexus of Chinese-American
The fact is, not everyone in Chinatown
social life. That fifth floor with the great views and 18-foot ceilings? That was the Empresss
buys into the narrative that the neighborhood
Grand Ballroom, capable of seating 450 guests and for decades the most sought-after venue in
is declining and needs to change. Theres an
Chinatown for wedding banquets and family association end-of-year celebrations. Anyone with a
opposing view, which holds that Chinatown is
meaningful connection to Chinatown had been to a banquet in that hall, had savored the crispy
actually doing an excellent job of serving the
chicken stued with sweet rice and reveled in the restaurants over-the-top imperial glamor.
interests of the people who currently live in the
To contemplate that beloved space being transformed into a tech oce kindled emotions like
neighborhood, a demographic considerably
those of a Qing dynasty ocial watching British gunboats sail up the Pearl River Delta on the
poorer, older, and more dominated by recent
eve of the Opium Wars. The heart of Chinatown was under assault! As local real estate agent
immigrants than the rest of the city. From this
Anton Qiu says with a shake of his head, the sale of the Empress buildingfor an asking price
perspective, Chinatown, rather than seeking to
rumored to be as much as $25 millionwould mean the end of an era.
rekindle the glory of the Empress of China or
As with any story of gentrification, the tech economy, and San Francisco, however, the
otherwise pump up the glitz, should be looking
story of what that sale might mean for Chinatown is complicated. For starters, Chinatown is
for ways to better serve those residents and keep
far more capable of defending itself against unwanted change than the Qing dynasty was of
their rents the lowest by far in San Francisco.
THE EMPRESS OF CHINA arrived on

the scene in 1966, complete with Chinese opera
singers and fireworks. The buildings opening
marked the ascendance not merely of the Tom
family, which oversaw a mercantile and real
estate empire founded by patriarch Do Hing
Tom, but also of Chinatown itself. By the 1960s,
after decades of battling discriminatory laws
and virulent prejudice, Chinatown was flexing
its muscles, confident in the grandeur of its
cultural history and the unlimited possibilities
of its future. Glamorous nightclubs and bustling
restaurants lined Grant Avenue. Movie stars and
politicians were frequent visitors. The Empresss
Grand Ballroom was so popular for big Chinatown
events that it had to be booked at least a yearor
even twoin advance. Weddings, anniversaries,
family association gatherings, red egg and
ginger parties to mark the one-month birthday
of a new child, funeralsin the Chinatown of
that era, every stage of life could be, and was,
celebrated by a banquet at the Empress.
But the glory days didnt last. The relaxation
in the 60s of racially biased laws that severely
limited Chinese immigration, combined with the
outward migration from Chinatown of secondand third-generation Chinese Americans, created
an explosive diaspora of Chinese communities in
the Bay Area and beyond. Suddenly, Chinatown
no longer had a monopoly on Chinese culture.
By the 1990s, the Empress and the other big
banquet-throwing restaurants in Chinatown
were struggling against forces outside their
control. The Empress, says cookbook author
and San Francisco native Grace Young, was
battered by a double whammy: increasing
competition from venues outside Chinatown
and less interest in cultural rituals on the part of
younger generations. Today, a fourth-generation
Chinese-American bride, suggests Young, is
more inclined to book her wedding reception
at a Napa winery than at a dowdy Chinatown
The closer you look at Chinatown through
banquet hall. Banquets are out of vogue, she
the prism of the Empress building, the more
declares. You will never again see the glory
refracted and contradictory the picture gets.

How much gentrification is the right amount?
What should the neighborhoods priorities be?
And what, ultimately, should be done with the
Empress building? These are all questions that
do not resolve into any neat consensus.
But despite the gloom about the closure of the
Empress, the current moment is surprisingly
fertile. This food-crazed town would love
nothing better than for Chinatown to reassert
itself as an epicenter of one of the worlds greatest
cuisines. The debut of the Central Subway (in
2019, if all goes as planned) will make it easier
to get to Chinatown than it has been since the
Embarcadero Freeway was torn down. And the
neighborhoods unique characteristics are likely
to ensure that outside economic forces dont
The Empress offers

an uncomfortably
apt metaphor for the
entire neighborhood:
The building needs
fresh ideas, fresh
investment, fresh
blood.
days of restaurants thriving the way they did.

Whats more, the restaurants most favored by
Chinese customers arent located in Chinatown
anymore. You go to Millbrae, and there are, like,
150 restaurants, says realtor Qiu. And, frankly
speaking, the restaurants there are far better.
According to Betty Louie, a prominent landlord
on Grant Avenue who is spearheading a campaign
to revitalize Chinatown (she owns the building
that will house Jews new restaurant), Chinatown
is the last place to go for food.
Those assertions are bolstered by a simple
eye testjust walk the streets of Chinatown:
Youll find that they dont look much dierent
today than they did 25 years ago. Here and there,
to be sure, restaurants old and new are doing
strong business and getting good reviews. The
fundamentally change its DNA. Chinatowns
Z & Y Restaurant on Jackson Street has lines out
crisis is also Chinatowns opportunity.
the door, the R & G Lounge on Kearny Street is

103
always packed, and House of Nanking has been printing money for years. Even so, very few
constantly refreshed by new immigrants, the
ambitious new restaurants or, for that matter, innovative businesses of any kind have opened
family associations, says Fong, are relatively
in Chinatown in decades.
immune to the damaging pressures exerted
Ask people in Chinatown why this is, and they tick o a laundry list of reasons. The removal
by generational change. Combine that with
of the Embarcadero Freeway after the Loma Prieta earthquake deprived Chinatown of one
strict zoning laws, height limits, and a wealth
of its main gateways, the Washington Street exit. Theres a congenital lack of parking. The
of cramped $500-a-month SRO rooms in which
rise of prosperous suburban Chinatowns with nicer amenities sucked away the best and the
only poor immigrants are willing to live, and
brightest, who in turn were replaced by a new generation of much poorer immigrants. Theres
you end up with a neighborhood that has more
even a theory that in recent decades non-Chinese have dramatically raised their standards
safeguards against change than just about any
regarding the quality of Chinese cuisine that they are willing to accept, and that Chinatown
other part of the city.
simply hasnt kept up.

But you will also hear, if you ask the right people, quite a dierent story: an argument that
104
Chinatowns economy is actually fine or, more to the point, that its doing exactly what it
INTO THIS MORASS of contradictions
should be doing. Cindy Wu, planning manager for the Chinatown Community Development
steps the Tom family, who are dealing not only
Center (CCDC), is quick to cite a city report showing that sales tax revenue in Chinatown has
with Chinatowns murky politics, but also with
been growing at a healthy clip since 2010. (This reverses a trend observed in a 2009 report
the problems faced by most family-run firms (or
commissioned by the citys Oce of Economic and Workforce Development, which stated that
Chinese dynasties) after a charismatic founder
retail sales tax revenues had been in steady decline since at least the 1990s.) And in a city
passes from the scene. Do Hing Tom died in
where displacement is a dirty word, the CCDC regards the fact that low-income immigrant
1963, three years before the building with his
families and elderly residents can aord to live and shop in Chinatown as a very good thing:
name on it was completed. He had 12 children
The business needs of the current residents, says Wu, are being met. Left unspoken, but
and numerous grandchildren, some of whom
certainly suggested, is that catering to outsiders looking for cutting-edge cuisine or specialty
sit on the board of Chong Investments, the
imported soy sauce might not be the neighborhoods highest priority.
company that runs the familys real estate
Chinatowns vast stock of extremely low-cost housing, far larger than in any other city
business. Alfred Tom, Do Hings 45-year-old
neighborhood except the Tenderloin, is responsible for one of the areas salient characteristics:
grandson and the unocial public face of Chong
a built-in resistance to gentrification. According to the CCDCs executive director, Norman
Investments, isnt sure exactly how many cousins
Fong, Chinatowns ability to fend o surging rents is ensured by the fact that about 35 percent
he has, but he does know that few have much
of its housing stock is owned by nonprofits or family associations. With their membership ranks
experience running restaurants. I dont think,
he says carefully, that my family would be able
Chong Investments refused to extend its lease
to reinvent the building in a way that gives
beyond month-t0-month.)
Chinatown the best chance to improve itself.
Tom says that because of zoning restrictions,
Alfred is a perfect example of Chinatowns
there was never any chance that the building
generational upward mobility. Descended from a
would be converted, wholesale, to tech oces.
great-great-grandfather who came to California
Chinatown is one of the places in the city that
as part of the gold rush, he is a miner in the
hasnt changed, he continues. We have the
gold rush of today: After attending MIT for
best opportunity to do that. We have the largest
undergraduate studies, he received a masters
building in the most strategic four blocks of
degree in electrical engineering from Stanford
Chinatown. Were going to be really careful
and worked at an advanced technology lab
about who we are selling to. We want to know
for General Motors in Palo Alto. When I first
who is taking it on, what kind of vision they
interviewed him in November, he was working
have, what kinds of ideas they have.
for Syntertainment, a stealth startup based in
Several months after news that the building
Berkeley that was cofounded by SimCity creator
was for sale started circulating, and three months
Will Wright. (By December, he had left and was
after the closure of the Empress of China, were
looking at a number of startup options.) I have
no closer to knowing what future holds for 838
a pretty unique perspective: I am both a tech
Grant. Still, there are some subtle hints. When
worker and a resident of Chinatown, he says.
I first interviewed Tom in November, he was
I guess you could say I am a personification at
vague about what an ideal outcome would look
ground zero of whats happening in Chinatown.
like. But by late February, new possibilities were
Tom also sits on the board of Chinese
on the table, including turning the building
Restaurant Associates, which owned the Empress
into an adjunct to the new Chinese Hospital, a
of China before its demise, leasing the top two
few blocks away. The proposal was particularly
floors of 838 Grant from Chong Investments.
intriguing because just a week earlier, the
This makes him, oddly, both landlord and
CCDCs Wu had speculated that a connection
tenantand puts him right in the middle of
with Chinese Hospital was the kind of solution
the conversation about Chinatowns future. Hes
that the community would support.
heard the complaints that his family doesnt care
Of course, a building oering social services
about anything except themselves. Hes heard
is not likely to command the $25 million that
the rumor going around town that after several
the Tom family is rumored to be seeking. All
months on the market, the Empress building has
the same, something might be under discussion
received zero oers. Hes heard people question
behind the scenes. When Mayor Ed Lee, himself
why he chose a huge international real estate
a former housing activist in Chinatown, was
company, CBRE, to oer the property, rather
asked by San Francisco about the Empress, he
than someone familiar with the obscure power
made it clear that if the owner-developers want
relationships that define Chinatown.
smooth sailing, they will have to work with the
Tom denies the rumor that there have been
community. It cannot be a tech company that
no oers for the buildingas of late February,
just wants to take over the space and doesnt
he claims, the family is sifting through multiple
understand the community that theyre in
oers. Hes also clearly stung by the accusations
and how they can complement it, Lee says.
that his family has somehow abandoned
Theres a way forward thatll lead to success for
Chinatown. One of his uncles, he says, was so
everyone involved, and that means recognizing
pissed o by the scuttlebutt that he compiled
the strength of the small businesses that are
a list of favors that the Toms have done for
already in there, the cultural ties the building
Chinatown, including, but not limited to, helping
has to Chinatown. If you understand all that,
fund the construction of the original Chinese
youre going to get much more instantaneous
Hospital, starting the Chinese Culture Center
support for the permits you seek. If you dont,
of San Francisco and the Chinese Chamber of
youre going to see a lot of resistance.
Commerce, and founding the Miss Chinatown

U.S.A. Pageant. The family, Tom notes, even
At press time, Tom said that a sale might be

imminent.
donated an entire building on Washington Street

to a local service group, Self-Help for the Elderly.
Tom is doing his best to assuage fears that
STANDING BY TO SEIZE the culinary
the entire Empress building will be transformed
scepter from the fallen Empressand, perhaps,
into a tech company oce. Right now, it houses
to give Chinatown a welcome joltare two
a mix of retail, small businessesoptometrists,
acclaimed chefs, Brandon Jew and George Chen.
accountantsand the closed restaurant. (The
Jew says that he has wanted to open a Chinese
retail operations and the small businesses are
restaurant in San Francisco for years, but never
still operating on month-to-month leases. The
thought that it would be in Chinatownuntil
restaurant had to close, says former president
Betty Louie gave him a walk-through of the Four
of the board of Chinese Restaurant Associates
Seas building. Once I got into the building, he
Pearl Tom [unrelated to Alfred Tom], because
says, I didnt feel I could walk away from this
IS THE FUTURE A
MEGAFOOD HALL?
O BIG or go home, says George

Chen, neatly summing up China
Live, the huge four-story Chinese
marketplace, food court, restau-
rant, and event space that hes

planning to open later this year on Broadway, just a few blocks from the Empress
of China building. The project, which was
announced last February, will debut in
stages: The first three floors are on track
for a September launch, and the fourth-floor
rooftop will open by the end of the year.
Although some have described the
first floors marketplace and food court
as a Chinese Eataly (after New York Citys
giant Italian market hall), it will be more
experiential than that, says Chen. A lot of
people are intimidated by Asian products,
so our attempt is to really educate them
and demystify Chinese cuisine. To that end,
there will be demonstration areas where
staffers will explain how to use, say, the 30
to 40 peppercorn varieties that China Live
will stock. You will see stuff generally never
seen in this country, Chen promises. There
will also be an open kitchen outfitted with
stations for barbecue, vegetables, dumplings, noodles, pastry, and fresh seafood,
along with a central bar area, a teahouse,
and a coffee shop. When people ask him if
China Live will focus on a specific region,
Chen says, No, its just going to do great
Chinese food.
The second floor will house Eight Tables
by George Chen, a restaurant with, yes,
eight tables, plus a chefs counter in the
kitchen. There will be two eight-course
prix fixe menus, one showcasing classic
ingredients and the other more exotic.
Chen has hired one chef from Taiwan and
another from Shanghai, and he himself
will be the full-time executive chefso
far, hes planned more than 500 dishes.
Our attempt, to be blunt, he says, is to
be one of the best Chinese restaurants in
the world.
The third floor will be a 6,000-squarefoot event space with a banquet kitchen
and room for 200 people. The complex
will be crowned by a 3,000-square-foot
rooftop. Chen is tinkering with the idea
of making it into a club lounge reminiscent
of the late and legendary Andy Wongs
Chinese Sky Room. It would be late-night
entertainment done right, he says. Its not
going to be raunchy. REBECCA FLINT MARX
105
opportunity. I felt like I couldnt watch Chinatown continue to decline.

At a hipster caf in the Tenderloin, Jew sketches out his strategy to raise
Chinatowns culinary game with the new restaurant, to be called Mister
Jius. The first step, he says, is to return to the basics he was taught by his
family: quality ingredients, subtle flavors, simplicity and purity. He hopes
that Mister Jius will eventually become a hub for a larger ecology of equally
foodie-minded Chinese entrepreneurs. I really want this restaurant to be a
statement of what San Francisco Chinese food is, he tells me. I want to be
able to teach the next generation of cooks to do things like make our own tofu,
distill our own rice vinegar, and make oyster sauce from natural oysters.
Jews bona fides are ironclad: On his mothers side he traces his ancestry
back to the small county in Guangdong Province, Taishan, that was home
to many of Chinatowns first residents. I am as sensitive to gentrification,
he says, as any San Franciscan. And few people have a deeper relationship
with Chinatown than his new landlord, Louie, whose parents helped make
Grant Street what it is today.
But the other big project that aims to shake up Chinatown, George Chens
China Live, is very much coming from the outside. Chen, whose family hails
from the Chinese province of Hubei, is a Mandarin speaker who grew up in
Southern California. He carries himself with the confident assurance that
you would expect from someone whose grandfather was a provincial governor
and army general and whose father served as a career diplomat. In contrast
to Jew, whose roots trace directly back to the insular Cantonese culture of
Chinatown, Chen is heir to the bigger, bright world of Greater China. Even
as he shepherds China Live into existence, he jets to China on a monthly
basis to keep tabs on his Shanghai restaurant, the Roosevelt Steakhouse.
China is a big deal in the globalized economy, and Chen wants some of
that reflected power and auence to shine through China Live. To that end,
he has infused the enterprise with a lot of razzle-dazzle. Shopping at the
retail outlet, which will feature imported high-end spices, oils, and porcelain
flatware, is intended to feel like visiting an Apple store. A Shanghai-themed
cocktail bar will share space with two places to eat: a first-floor food court
and a much more exclusive second-floor fine dining experience called Eight
Tables, featuring cuisine that looks more like abstract art than typical
Chinese restaurant faresharply cut squares of bitter melon with lotus buds,
ginkgo nuts with prawns, salted duck with egg custard and cucumber. We
are planning, I dare say, says Chen, what we hope will be some of the best
Chinese cuisine in the world. Even so, he is quick to add, we dont want to
be perceived as a gentrified product.
It is instructive that both Chen and Jew brought up the issue of gentrification
on their own. A quick look at the boarded-up storefronts on Broadway or the
cut-rate souvenir shops on Grant Avenue makes it clear that these two projects
are, in their own way, just as much a threat to the status quo of Chinatown as
a tech startup in the Empress building. In conversations with people involved
with Chinatown, you can sense disquiet in the background. What happens if
one or the other actually takes o? As anyone in San Franciscos mid-Market
area can tell you, it doesnt take much to get the gentrification tidal wave
rolling. Success breeds success. If Mister Jius blows up and starts spinning
o artisanal side projects, the blood, so to speak, will be in the water. Before
you know it, techies will be pushing out the tourists, the SRO apartments
will be listed on Airbnb, and old Chinatown will be endangered anew.
But, as Louie, Jew, Chen, Alfred Tom, Mayor Lee, and many others will
tell you, revitalization does not have to mean gentrification. Its possible
to imagine the Empress building with a diverse collection of new tenants,
including some startups, and a restaurant on the sixth floor that inaugurates
a new tradition of glamour, great food, and fun. Its possible to imagine
vibrant stores featuring artisanal tofu and oyster sauce next to the T-shirt
shops, the jade stores, and the produce markets. Its possible to imagine a
Chinatown that Alfred Toms grandfather would have recognized, and that
his grandchildren will want to hang out in. All of this could come to pass.
The old Empress is gone, but anyone familiar with Chinese history knows
that there is always a new dynasty waiting to emerge from the ashes of the old.
106
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The Dim Sum Revolution

> CONTINUED FROM PAGE 89
victims of wage theft are nonunion workers, people who dont speak English,
and immigrants who lack an understanding of their rights. Not all of the
workers involved in the Yank Sing campaign fell into these categories, but
many still felt vulnerable. If they went public too soon, if they picketed the
sidewalk or stormed the dining room or publicized their story in the media,
they risked turning management against them and losing their livelihood
and many of them wanted to keep working for Yank Sing. Their situation
was unusual: According to Kao of the Asian Law Caucus, three-quarters
of the wage claims received by the organizations free legal clinic in San
Francisco are filed by workers who have already left their job. People who
are still employed, notes Victor Narro, project director at the UCLA Labor
Center, typically dont risk such actions without the protection of a union
contract. The Yank Sing workers, however, were inclined to stand pat in
part because finding a comparable job wouldnt be easy. They knew that
similarly bad conditions were rampant in the restaurant industry. There
was simply no guarantee that theyd find a better situation.
One day in June 2013after lunch, when no customers were around
workers presented a letter to management with their complaints. In August,
a contingent of 80 workers and supporters marched on the restaurantagain
after hours and out of sight of customers. The following month, alternating
groups of workers walked out through the back door of the kitchen at noon,
at the height of the weekend lunch rush, for 10-minute breaks.
Realizing that it had a serious problem on its hands, management began
scheduling rest periods, raised some workers wages, revised tipping practices,
and retrained managers to prevent abuses from continuing. But the workers
had many more demands. Along with back wages, they wanted better working
conditions: time and a half if they worked on a holiday; a progressive discipline
policy with verbal and written warnings; paid healthcare; additional paid
vacation time; protected unpaid leave; and training for a variety of kitchen
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duties to prevent repetitive stress injuries.

In October 2013, faced with a prolonged insurrection, Yank Sing hired
Jonathan Glick, a lawyer by training and a political consultant by trade, as
director of operations and spokesman. For years, Glick had had two dreams:
to work in a Republican White House and to run his own boutique hotel and
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restaurant. After serving as an operative on several political campaigns,
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he meet with the Chans, who were longtime family friends. Initially, Glick
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he was ready for a career change; his father, an attorney, suggested that
claims, the Yank Sing owners were in shock and totally unaware that they
had issues. Its a family business that was doing things the same way for
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years, and it grew up too fast.
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the Asian Law Caucus. Often, they chanted together before entering. Glick
Workers began meeting with management at the oces of the CPA or at
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solidarity of the Yank Sing workers startled and impressed him. Generally
the Yank Sing workers pushed to be included in the meetings, sometimes
listening via headset to translations in Cantonese.
The more often that the workers met with management, the more confident
they became. Theyre proud of the work they do, of the food they painstakingly
make, says Kao. They made it clear that they had common goals with their
employer, which was reassuring for the employer to hear. In March of last
year, the meetings culminated in mediation. In a conference room at Two
Embarcadero Center, backed by a stunning view of the bay, the rebels unfurled
a bright-red, 12-foot-long banner, signed by each worker, that proclaimed,
Yank Sing Workers United to Defend Our Rights!
3490 Sacramento St. | San Francisco, CA 94118

415.359.0198
Li was both excited and afraid to sit across from her bosses, who had studied
the bannerand the signatures: My name was right in the center, she says,
under Workers! At times, the discussions were tense, with people growing
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frustrated and upset, says Kao, though she declines to disclose details. The
marathon session lasted 16 hours, but by 1 a.m., a tentative agreement had
been reached, including the total amount owed to the workers: a whopping
$4 million.
Yank Sing agreed to begin oering fully paid health and dental care to
its 90 full-time employees. (Another 60, who work part-time, participate in
the citys universal healthcare program.) Workers would soon check in with
their thumbs on a biometric time clock before donning their uniform and
after changing into their street clothes, reclaiming those lost minutes at the
beginning and end of each shift. Yank Sing would dismiss some managers
and retrain those who remained, transfer its payroll from a mom-and-pop
shop to outsourcing giant Paychex, and hire Vine Solutions, a financial
accounting and operations consultant. After years of skirting the rules,
Yank Sing would become an exemplar of good behavior in the industry.
ONE DAY IN DECEMBER, i walk with glick to the back of Yank Sing,
the kitchens fragrant with ginger and garlic. A cook hacks apart a chicken, his
cleaver flashing, while a woman slices scallions. Moments before, they had
returned from their meal breakanother right that they can now exercise.
A month later, Li and I meet at the oces of the CPAstudents are making
signs for a rally, and the air is pungent with the odor of Sharpies. I ask Li if
her activism at Yank Sing reminds her at all of her life as a revolutionary Red
Guard in China decades ago. Its totally dierent, she answers. Back then,
it was a historical moment. We were really happy that society relied on young
people to carry out work, to bring information to peasants. You cant compare
it to a workplace campaign. But when she tells me that she was selected to
lead and organize her unit of rural peasants, I can see the young revolutionary
still glinting in her. Ive always had an interest in participating in things for
society and spreading the word, she says.
Today, Glick reports, turnover among Yank Sing sta remains low. The
workers seem happier and more productive than they once were. Every quarter,
management meets with Li and other workers on a compliance committee,
and, so far, Yank Sing seems to be living up to its end of the bargain. Total
redress to each of the 280 workers ranges from several hundred to tens of
thousands of dollars. The first checks were mailed in November.
Where Have All the

Gangsters Gone?
William Frentzen, drawing on a multiyear investigation that included more
than a dozen undercover agents, aerial surveillance, and dozens of wiretaps,
has alleged that, as part of a network tied to the Ghee Kung Tong, Chow and
his cohorts engaged in drugs and weapons tracking and money laundering.
Chow is one of the few authorities on the neighborhoods criminal past
who remain alive. His involvement with Chinatown crime stretches back to
the 1970s, when he moved to the United States from Hong Kong and joined
a gang. He has spent nearly 20 years in state and federal prisonsand has
a tattoo of an enormous dragon stretching across his shoulders and torso to
prove it. But he continues to proclaim his innocence, vigorously disputing
the FBIs allegations that his tong secretly ruled the Chinese underworld
while hiding behind a pretense of benefiting the community.
Chow points out that in the past, the Chinese cultural tradition of mahjongg was vigorously policed for its connection to gangs and gambling. But
over time, many of the mah-jongg parlors were supplanted by out-of-town
casinos (just down the street from Chows tong, in fact, a travel agency is
advertising casino-bound shuttles). As the gamblers went elsewhere, the
gangs moved on as well, and law enforcements attitude toward mah-jongg
eventually relaxed. Other criminal activities have declined as well: Brothels
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mostly disappeared when prostitution became a largely online operation

conducted by independent contractors, illegal lotteries have been replaced
by the state-run system, and opium is no longer in demand (though other
drugs linked to Chinese gangs still are).
Now, Chow says, tongs make their money from the management of their
historic land holdings. Each tong owns dierent buildings; they make
money from renting out their building[s], says Cui, the Sing Tao Daily
reporter. Some are apartments, others are for business use, and the tongs
use the money for the communityevents for the seniors, for the Chinese
people living in Chinatown.
Months ago, when I first spoke with Chow (for a profile in San Franciscos
December 2014 issue), he told me, A lot of things have changed about
organized crimeit died out after 9/11. When that happened, the whole
thing changed. Computers, technology, wiretapsits so easy to catch up
with people. Now, sitting across the glass from me in San Franciscos county
jail, he has agreed to speak out againthis time, he says, to help people
understand the Chinatown of today and the tongs role in the community.
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These days, says Chow, crime isnt organized like it used to be back in
the day.... [The criminals] needed the tong to back them up in the community.
But most of those tong members have died out.... Tongs have opened up and
are legitimate. Cui agrees, pointing out that while some tong members may
be engaged in illegal activity, the organizations themselves arent criminal.
Still, although Chinatowns sensational crimes have faded away, less
obvious criminal activity may be percolating below the surface.
ONE OF THE THINGS to understand about ethnic gangs, no matter

who they are, is that the absence of violence does not mean there is no gang
activity, writes historian and former San Francisco police ocer Kevin J.
Mullen in Chinatown Squad, his 2008 history of law enforcement in San
Franciscos Chinatown. What it does mean is that turf and revenue sources
are apportioned out among criminal participants to everyones satisfaction.
In Chinatown today, the absence of openly contending factions has brought
a sort of peace, but that peace is misleading. Mullen writes, White-collar
crimes [in Chinatown]like credit card fraud, insurance scams, and identity
thefthave gone a long way toward replacing the more traditional, openly
violent methods of revenue acquisition. In short, they oer more reward
with less risk than gunfights or power struggles.
Now, if youre going to do crime, its going to be sophisticated, like credit
HILARY HAHN, violin

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card fraud or property crime, says Commander Garret Tom, who for two
Saturday, April 18 | 7:30pm | SFJAZZ Center

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dicult to pin down. Even the federal case against Chow and his alleged
years served as captain of the police district that includes Chinatown. Its
a lot dierent, sentencing-wise.
While rumors of organized criminal activity continue to swirl, theyre
associates isnt straightforward: The government now claims that there
were, in fact, two separate conspiraciesone surrounding Yee and the
other involving Chowand many of those who were originally indicted are
charged in neither.
So yes, Chinatowns streets are quieter, but whether thats because organized
crime has disappeared or because its simply better hidden depends on whom
you ask. No longtime merchant or resident in Chinatown would speak on the
record about the issue, although it was clear that most believe that organized
crime has not disappeared altogether. Increased international trade has
made it easier to smuggle illegal goods, and the Internet has enabled buyers
and sellers to conduct business free of the need to meet in person. The black
markets that used to be inseparable from Chinatowns character no longer
exist on its backstreets. Chow and the few others like him who are still left
alive after years of on-and-o gang warfare are relics. Like so much else in
San Francisco, organized crime has moved onlineand credit card swindles
DUBRAVKA TOMSIC,
and scams of the elderly have replaced midnight battles in Chinatowns alleys.
piano
used to come up at the station all the time, but not anymore.
Sunday, April 19 | 7pm | SFJAZZ Center

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sfperformances.org
I dont think theres anything thats really outward, says Tom. You dont
see the gangsters running the gambling parlors anymore. The same names
415.392.2545
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ittoday, there are about 64,000 Asian Americans in the Richmond and
L U N C H E O N
the Sunset, compared with some 12,000 in Chinatown. As the years passed,
some activists remained loyal to the Burton machine. Others, like Harold
Yee, began building their own.
A suer-no-fools civil rights veteran from East Los Angeles, Yee was the
JVS believes a job is the best way out of poverty.

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founder of scores of nonprofits. Sometimes his eorts intersected with those
Join us for lunch and see how work transforms lives.
Chinese-American faces at City Hall. Over the years, though, Yee came to
EVENT CO-CHAIRS
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MAY 7, 2015
of his counterparts in Chinatowneverybody, after all, wanted to see more

believe that Chinese Americans could do better by charting a course inde-
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pendent of the Burtons, Pak, and her Chinatown allies. All too often, Yee
said in 1987, we have allowed political brokers, yes, even from our very own
communities, to fraudulently sell their candidates to Asian-American com-
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munities without any return or accountability.

As Yee and his compatriots saw it, the existing political players didnt pay
enough attention to the issues that got west-side pulses racing: armative
action quotas that, ironically, shut
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tics. The new ethnic politics had a moderate, homeowner-centric twist that
dierentiated the growing Chinese voting bloc (east and west) from its allies
in the progressive community and the Democratic machine. Chinese identity
was front and center, but so were taxes. Naturally enough, west-side political
organizations began to reflect this more conservative orientation.
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Supervisors in the 1990s, supporting pro-landlord legislation as well as police

actions to clear the homeless out of Golden Gate Park. As an aggrieved 1998
Bay Guardian piece put it, Teng played both sides of the fence.
constituents in the Chinese community began voting in greater numbers.

1980s, played down her activist bona fides during her tenure on the Board of
currents. Most of them started out progressive but tacked right when their
Mabel Teng, a community organizer who worked with Jesse Jackson in the
An Evening of Food and Drink,

featuring some of San Francisco's best restaurants and bars
only know me by my Chinese name. (For the record, its , or Dng Yul.)
E V E N T UA L LY T H E C A D C S P L I N T E R E D, and other groups emerged.
arent paying for anyone else. Its dicult to overstate the value of Chinese-
By then a new cohort of leaders was on the rise, drafting o the west-side
Pier 70
buy, former CADC president Doug Chan says. It is very cost-eectivewe
hes recognized in public, its almost always by a Chinese speaker who might
targeted audience of Chinese-American voters.
language media. Phil Ting, a state assemblymember since 2012, says that when
stations like KTSF allowed candidates to get their message out to a precisely
Right in the middle of that Cantonese newscast, Im gonna do my media
Chinese. Cable TV proved especially useful: Advertising on Chinese-language
the Anglo media, they focused on the growing number of Chinese-language

outletsthe principal news source for 80 percent of the citys foreign-born
BUNCHes
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Using the CADCs Chinese-surname database, west-side activists registered voters and targeted them with direct mail. Instead of trying to win over
Most prominent among the new leaders was Leland Yee, a psychologist
from the Sunset who for more than two decades won every race he entered,
from the school board to the Board of Supervisors to the assembly and state
senate. Yee goes to trial on racketeering and weapons tracking charges
this year, so nobody is eager to claim him now. But before his downfall, he
was the embodiment of a local boy made good, the first Chinese American
114
to win a state legislative post on the west side.

Demographic trends and voter-registration rates, meanwhile, more or less
ensured that once Chinese Americans started getting elected out west, they
would continue to do so like clockwork. According to David Lee, executive
director of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee and a political
science professor at San Francisco State, it was largely the same voters who
elected Yee to supervisor who went on to put him in the assembly and then
the state senate. Fiona Ma, now a member of the Board of Equalization, followed in Yees electoral footsteps (with support from the Burton machine). In
due time, Ting assumed Mas seat. My opportunities dont come from me,
Ting admits. So many folks have built the foundations.
Those foundations have proved remarkably durable despite the dubious
merits of certain individual players. Indeed, the west side has seen more
than its share of crooks and liars. Besides Yee, whose legal trouble surprised
exactly zero political insiders, there was Ed Jew, the supervisor and former
Yee volunteer who did nearly five years after getting busted for shaking down
Sunset bubble tea shops in 2007. There was also Julie Lee, the housewife
turned power broker who, at the height of her influence in the late 1990s,
commanded the allegiance of thousands of west-side homeowners. In 2008,
Lee was convicted of witness tampering and mail fraud, and was sentenced
to a year in prison.
The scandals came and went, but the west-siders had built a system that
they could rely on to raise money, recruit voters, and get them to the pollsa
system, in other words, much like the one built by the Chinatown activists.
The Chinese political infrastructure had gone citywide.
V I E W E D T H R O U G H T H AT L E N S , the following years assume an air

of inevitability. Willie Brown, a longtime Pak ally, won the mayors race in
1995 with the full backing of Paks Chinatown apparatus. Once in oce, he
more than repaid that debt, appointing more Asian Americans to city jobs
and commissions than any previous mayor. Some of those jobs were big ones,
too, such as Fred Laus appointment as police chief. Brown threw his weight
behind new aordable housing projects in Chinatown and changed the way
that city contracts were awarded, breaking the largest ones down so that
smaller, minority-owned businesses stood a chance.
Brown also reached out to the west side, which had been suspicious of
both his liberalism and his ties to Pak during his first run. By the time his
reelection bid rolled around, Brown had convinced one of his noisiest critics, the aforementioned Julie Lee, to support him. She became one of his
biggest fundraisers, and Brown won easily on the west side. In return, Brown
appointed her to the Housing Authoritys Board of Commissioners and proclaimed October 13, 2001, Julie Lee Day. Identifying community leaders and
leveraging their support is fundamental to any politicians success, but as
political consultant David Latterman says, Willie did it better than anybody.
After that, the Chinese share of the voting public continued to grow, providing Browns successor, Gavin Newsom, with his margin of victory in 2003.
Newsom would prove less solicitous of the Chinese community than Brown,
but by then it hardly mattered. The wheels were turning faster. The return
to district elections in 2000 (replacing at-large elections, which had been in
place since the 1978 assassinations of Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk)
yielded a bumper crop of Chinese-American supervisors within the decade.
And, of course, when Newsom ascended to Sacramento, he helped engineer
the installation of Ed Lee as interim mayorthe new, extravagantly mustachioed face of the establishment.
Today, there are few parts of San Francisco where politicos can ignore the
Chinese-American vote. Ten years ago, people didnt care about translating
their campaign materials, let alone sending out Chinese mailers or doing
ads targeted at bilingual voters, says David Ho, a former CCDC community
organizer who has run field campaigns for Ed Lee, Supervisor Jane Kim, and
Assemblymember David Chiu. Now the first thing you talk about is, Whats
your budget for the Chinese community?
The next step for the Chinese-American political community, many say, is
to reach the point that ethnicity matters less than ideology. There are signs
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that this is beginning to happen. Chiu became the first Asian American to
win the east-side assembly seat by presenting himself as a techie as well as a Chinese
American.
Its more and more true that being Chinese isnt enough, says David Lee.
You have to align with the issues, like with any other group.
That said, ethnicity still matters. Look at District 7 supervisor Norman Yee,
who, despite being slightly more liberal than his constituents, narrowly beat
out a slate of white candidates in 2012. (Some pollsters even suggested that
name confusion with Leland Yee gave Norman the leg up.) Or take Ed Lee
himself. The onetime progressive lawyer has governed as a business-friendly
moderate and remains relatively popular citywideso much so that hes
unlikely to face any real opposition in his reelection run this fall.
In January, though, Lee appointed Julie Christensen, a white moderate with
ties to the development community, to replace Chiu as District 3 supervisor.
In doing so he snubbed Cindy Wu, the progressive Chinese-American city
planner from the CCDC. The reaction in Chinatown was equal parts rage
and astonishment. Pak, the mayors friend and booster, has been especially
vocal. It took us 160 years to elect a Chinese American from this district,
and he gives it away! she fumes. Hes afraid that people said hes for the
Chinese. So he has to bend backward to show hes not for the Chinese. For
his part, Lee emphasizes that putting a Chinese American into oce wasnt
his highest priority (see Lunch with the Lees, on page 36).
These questions of ethnicity and ideology seem set to play out in wholly
unpredictable ways this fall as
Christensen tries to hold her
The scandals came and

went, but they had built
a system they could
rely on to raise money,
recruit voters, and get
them to the polls.
seat during a general election. If

Wu runs, she will have the support of Pak and the Chinatown
nonprofits. If Wu declines to run
and former progressive supervisor
Aaron Peskin jumps into the race,
he may get Paks backing despite
his recent history as Ed Lees most
persistent and quotable critic.
Peskin, Pak, and David Ho met
in January for a long, exploratory
lunch to discuss the possibilities, but as of press time, nothing was definite.
How Chinatown voters will break is anyones guess, but Pak seems to
relish the prospect of a showdown with the mayor. He thought wed just
grumble and then go away and support his candidate, she says, then laughs.
Aint gonna happen. (Nevertheless, in January, Pak organized a reelection
fundraiser for the mayor that raised $250,000.)
Beyond the Sturm und Drang, Vincent Pan of Chinese for Armative Action
wonders exactly what the rise of all these Chinese-American politicians will
amount to. Will it be business as usual, just with more Chinese faces? Or will
they transform the old system? It begs the question not so much of whether
demographics are destiny, he says, but what does that destiny look like?
BAC K AT T H E WA R R I O R S E V E N T in Chinatown, everybodys focused

on a simpler, feel-good brand of politics. The mayor is asked how the uniforms
make him feel as a Chinese American.
I have to say, I have an immediate sense of pride, he says. To be able to
come out and have the community very much respected and regarded in this
way is truly, truly changing. When photo-op time comes, the crowd jockeys
for position around the Warriors players. Grinning madly, the mayor poses
between Barnes and Green. Afterward, Barnes lopes over to one of the baskets
and starts playfully swatting kids jump shots out of the air. The mayor moves
slowly toward the exit, dutifully gripping and grinning but probably wishing
that he could stay and shoot with Barnes.
O to one side of the stage, a reporter for KTSF, the local Chinese-language
TV station, does her stand-up next to a mannequin draped in the new Warriors merch. Later that night, her viewers will get another measure of just how
influential they have become.
116
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about these schools:
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CONVENT AND STUART HALL
THE CREEKSIDE SCHOOL
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HEAD-ROYCE SCHOOL
JEWISH COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL OF THE BAY
JUSTIN-SIENA HIGH SCHOOL
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THE SHALOM SCHOOL
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Michelle Balance at
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WEEKLY FEAST
The Bay Area, consumed.
Arriving every Monday.
Its Easy to Be Chinese in San Francisco

he says. It was important to meits part of living what I consider to be a
Chinese-American life. He took Mandarin and Cantonese classes at UC
Berkeley as an undergrad; later, he found Mandarin tutors, took classes at
City College, and hung out with Cantonese speakers.
Sign up now for The Weekly Feast,

our editors e-roundup of the Bay Areas tastiest
food, coolest restaurants and best recipes.
These days, Chinese-language schools are having an outsize impact on

mainstream culture as well, attracting non-Chinese parents who have global
ambitions for their children (see So You Want Your Kid to Speak Mandarin, page 74). There are Mandarin immersion preschools, charter schools,
and public schools, and endless iterations of Chinese-language classes and
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camps. There are cultural centers, like the Chinese Culture Foundations
and the Chinese Historical Society of America. And there are popular programs like Friends of Roots, which connects Chinese Americans with their
ancestral villages.
As part of Friends of Roots, Owyang chaperones small groups back to China
for two weeks every summer. He also directs a spring lecture series that leads
up to the organizations annual trip, covering Chinese geography and history
with a focus on Guangdong Province, a region from which many Chinese
Americans have historically migrated. We talk about the Chinese-American
community, he says, Chinese politics, overseas Chinese involvement in
China. His students tour Chinatown and visit Angel Island, where, at the
height of anti-Chinese sentiment, between 1910 and 1940, Chinese immigrants
were interrogated and held in barracks at the detention station, sometimes
for years. At the end of every years program, Owyang says, someone always
Marcie Franich Photography
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gets the bug and ends up going back to China to study language, or becomes
more deeply involved in community organizations in San Francisco. This
connection to ones roots is more than learning about your personal history,
he says. Its about how we fit into the bigger picture.
THE CHALLENGE OF FINDING AN AFFORDABLE family home in San Francisco today is not a uniquely Chinese one. But for Wong-Chie, buying a
home here is connected to lessons she gleaned in her youth: Being able to
work and buy a house in San Francisco was a great mark of success for her
parentsits what allowed them to feel truly American. Its important to us,
too, Wong-Chie says. She and her husband are saving to purchase a threebedroom house for under $800,000. Their plan is to cohabit with Truongs
parents, but even then, the mortgage would be an uncomfortable stretch.
As it is, the pie of their earnings each month is eaten up by their current
mortgage contribution, insurance, utilities, food, transportation, and day
care for Roxi; soon enough, preschool costs will figure in. A jigsaw puzzle
is how Wong-Chie describes it.
The familys desire to stay in overpriced San Francisco is inseparable
from Wong-Chies love of, and ties to, her Chinese identity. With all of Roxis
grandparents nearbyWong-Chies mother still lives around the corner, in
Visitacion Valleythe little girl hears a constant stream of Cantonese, Taishanese, and English, not to mention the Vietnamese spoken by some members of
her fathers family. Next year, Roxi may attend a Spanish-speaking preschool
in the neighborhood, with Mandarin immersion school to follow somewhere
down the line. Im realisticthe world is going toward Mandarin; theres
nothing we can change about that, Wong-Chie laughs. But Ill try to make
sure she knows her Cantonese, one way or another.
In the house that the family lives in now, the upstairs rooms overflow with
the cartoon-themed stu of childhood. In the den, the stately black leather
massage chair that once occupied a place of honor in front of the television
has been relegated to a corner, supplanted by a food-spattered high chair
and an explosion of toys. Roxi climbs up nimbly and settles onto the couch
for a viewing of Kung Fu Panda; seeking comfort, her left hand drifts up and
takes hold of her mothers ear. Wong-Chie smiles and teasingly asks her, in
Cantonese, if shes content. Being exposed to language, and family, WongChie says, as she takes her daughters hand. Thats why I want to stay.
118
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OUTTAKES
Whos socializing where.
By Lauren Murrow
Photographs by Drew Altizer
San Francisco has never been overly precious about

its landmarks. Quite the opposite, actually: They
make great places to party. Suit- and stiletto-clad
revelers rounded the bases at AT&T Park and took
selfies in the dugout during Hearts After Dark,
the annual fundraiser for San Francisco General
Hospital, cochaired by Schuyler Hudak and Noah
7:58 p.m. | 2/12/15
Lichtenstein. At Carnivale, a black-tie dinner ben-
(1) Attendees dine amid

the splendor of Grace
Cathedral during the
churchs Carnivale
fundraiser.
efiting Grace Cathedrals service ministries and

arts programs, Alexis Traina, Salman Khan, Susie
and Mark Buell, and others toasted beneath the
churchs vaulted ceiling and stained glass windows.
Drum squads and flash mobs paraded down City
1:07 p.m. | 2/12/15
Halls grand staircase as part of One Billion Ris-
(2) A flash mob breaks

out at City Hall during
One Billion Rising,
an event protesting
violence against
women.
ing, a movement to end violence against women

that preaches empowerment through dancing. The
Palace of Fine Arts, lit in neon hues for the 100-year
anniversary of the Panama-Pacific International
Exposition, played host to guests decked out in
7:01 p.m. | 2/05/15
(1,2) SUSANA BATES; (3) CLAUDINE GOSSETT, ALL FOR DREW ALTIZER
period garb, including Mayor Ed Lee, Charlotte
(3) Singkiang owner

Linda Pastorino at the
opening of the Tribal &
Textile Arts Show at Fort
Mason Center.
Shultz, and Mark Leno. And Exploratorium visitors guzzled smoking, bubbling, and glowing drinks
at the museums Science of Cocktails party.
121
8:08 p.m. | 2/20/15
(1) Thena Holmen

at the centennial
celebration of the
Panama-Pacific
International Exposition of 1915.
7:11 p.m. | 2/18/15
7:12 p.m. | 2/26/15
(3) Kristin Chambers (left) and

Planned Parenthood president
Cecile Richards at
the organizations
Acts of Courage
fundraiser.
12:50 p.m. | 2/12/15
(4) Supervisor Malia

Cohen and Mayor
Ed Lee at the Heroes
& Hearts luncheon
and auction, benefiting San Francisco
General Hospital.
10:14 p.m. | 2/12/15
(5) Gina Klein

(left) and Emily P.
Wheeler dance at
Hearts After Dark, a
fundraiser for San
Francisco General
Hospital held at
AT&T Park.
122
(1) JANA ASENBRENNEROVA; (2) RACHEL BUSSIRES; (3) DREW ALTIZER; (4) DEVLIN SHAND; (5) TARA LUZ STEVENS, ALL FOR DREW ALTIZER
(2) Ken Fulk, Eric

Petsinger, and Joy
Venturini Bianchi
(from left) at a book
signing for Kevin
Sessums memoir, I Left It on the
Mountain.
7:29 p.m. | 2/11/15
(1) Willie Brown,

Jan Yanehiro, Todd
Traina, and Gavin
Newsom (from
left) celebrate the
Sundance premiere
of Jennifer Siebel
Newsoms film The
Mask You Live In
at a cocktail party
hosted by Graff.
6:47 p.m. | 2/05/15
(2) Shoe designer

Christian Louboutin and Dede Wilsey
at the Tribal & Textile
Arts Show.
(1,2,5) CLAUDINE GOSSETT; (3) DEVLIN SHAND; (4) SUSANA BATES, ALL FOR DREW ALTIZER
12:55 p.m. | 2/24/15
(3) Opera Guild

members Jane
Mudge, France
Szeto, and Claire
Fluhr (from left) at
a Saks Fifth Avenue event featuring the Erdem fall
collection.
1:01 p.m. | 2/12/15
(4) Master drummer

Moussa Bolokada
Conde plays at City
Hall during One Billion Rising.
11:11 p.m. | 1/30/15
(5) Mixologist Tony

Devencenzi serves
Johnnie Walker Platinum at the Exploratoriums Science of
Cocktails party.
123
EATS
San Francisco
Bayview,
Dogpatch, and
Potrero Hill
W H E R E TO D I N E H E R E A N D N OW
Piccino
$$$
As Dogpatch has developed, so has its

demand for Cal-Med cooking, which helps
explain Piccinos move to a larger space. Its
rustic bones are spit-shined, its main room
filled with a kick-back casualness. Cipollini
soup, with fried capers and green-onion
pure, is a bright ballad of the season. From
the beef-and-pork polpette in crushed tomatoes to the pan-seared halibut with spring
onions, there are few surprises. A strawberry-rhubarb crostata is, like the restaurant, good enough to draw you back if you
live nearby. (8/11) 1001 MINNESOTA ST. (AT
22ND ST.), 415-824-4224
Plow
$$
Among the citys best brunch spots, Plow

serves food designed for the culinaryminded craving: Say, French toast with
caramelized bananas. Or a delicate scramble made with Glaum Ranch eggs, spring
garlic, spinach, and goat cheese. The breakfast and lunch menus are one, so its fine to
enjoy the roast-lamb sandwich with salsa
verde and aioli before noon. (4/11) 1299 18TH
ST. (AT TEXAS ST.), 415-821-7569
Smokin Warehouse Barbecue
At this scrappy operation, slow-cooked

meats and sticky-finger sides emerge
through the window of a Bayview warehouse, a bright spot on a block of industrial
blight. The 10-hour-cooked brisket is all
that you could ask for, soft as brie and tinged
with tangy flavor, and the glistening pork
ribs are just what youd expecta hands-on
indulgence that warrants the Wet-Wipes
that come on every plate. The cornbread is
so intensely sugared that it might as well be
cake, but the slaw is lighter and brighter.
(10/11) 1465 CARROLL AVE. (NEAR JENNINGS
ST.), 415-648-8881
Bernal Heights,
Glen Park,
and Noe Valley
Contigo
NEW AND EMINENTLY NOTEWORTHY

Cockscomb HH
$$$$
version of puttanesca, ribbons of pork skin stand in for pasta. In a foie gras appetizer, a mound of
braised pig trotters, piled with grapes and foie on brioche, manages to make the fatty duck liver taste
comparatively light. Its conquerors cuisinethe kind of food you wash down with the blood of your
enemies during a banquet overlooking the battlefield. (3/15) 564 4TH ST. (AT FREELON ST.), 415-974-0700
124
TRO ST. (AT 24TH ST.), 415-285-0250
Ichi Sushi + Ni Bar
$$$
Tim and Erin Archuleta have

graduated to a shiny, expansive
new home across the street from their tiny
original storefront. With a separate izakaya
bar hidden somewhat awkwardly by a room
divider, the space is a bit perplexing. But
the sushi is as impeccable as ever. Dainty
HOT
KIMBERLEY HASSELBRINK
The former chef of now-closed Incanto, Chris Cosentino first gained notice with a badass brand of
meat-heavy cooking that earned him a spate of televised attention. At his new project, Cockscomb,
his culinary swagger remains intact. Though the alpha-male menu isnt all oal, or even all meat
seafood gets plenty of spaceits about as Game of Thrones as a restaurant gets. In Cockscombs
$$$
Tapas is often Spanish for greasy small

plates you paid too much for. But not at
this Noe Valley restaurant, where Brett
Emerson oers a fresh translation of mostly
Catalonian-inspired cuisine. What stands
out most is the West Coast sensibility the
chef brings to his food. A triumphant king
salmon fillet, baked in a fig leaf and caressed
with cava butter, absorbs the sweetness of
its wrapper. For dessert, coee flan tastes
at once exotic and familiar. Thats what you
want in a neighborhood restaurant: a place
that takes you somewhere distant even as
it makes you feel at home. (7/11) 1320 CAS-
and bracingly fresh, each piece of fish oers

a masters thesis on the paradoxical relationship between restrained portions and
explosive flavor. (7/14) 3282 MISSION ST. (NEAR
here is the chili-marinated chicken breast

on ciabatta. (9/10) 2304 MARKET ST. (AT 16TH
ST.), 415-558-8123
29TH ST.), 415-525-4750
La Nebbia
For authentic Italian, there is no place more

beloved than La Ciccia, owned by Sardinian chef Massimiliano Conti and his wife
and host, Lorella Degan. Which is why their
second, more casual spot, located a kitty
corner away, has been packed since day one.
La Nebbia is all about pizzas (a popular one
is topped with squid ink, pine nuts, raisins,
anchovies, and fresh mozzarella), lasagnetta, and dierent levels of prosciutto.
The Italian wine list is expectedly excellent.
For dessert, the fresh ricottina with honey
is essential. (2/14) 1781 CHURCH ST. (NEAR
30TH ST.), 415-874-9924
Castro
and Duboce
Triangle
Frances
&
THE FLAVORS
$$$$
Of a beautiful coin of beef, caked lightly in

lichen, a server says, It has ancient flavors
common to our distant ancestors. Our
Paleolithic forebears feasted well, it seems,
but not as well as diners do today at Coi,
where Daniel Pattersons strict focus on
his 11-course prix fixe menu provides a
night of fresh discoveries. Sauted abalone
on a bank of farro and wheat berries is
lapped by currents of squid ink. A tomato
mousse tart with a pesto base and an olive
tuile top stars as a classic trio. The snug,
subdued dining room feels like a place
where everyones eavesdropping. But
mostly what you overhear is My God, did
you taste this? (11/11) 373 BROADWAY (AT
THE EXPERIENCE
BARTOL ST.), 415-393-9000
Landing a table here requires the

kind of months-out planning
more common for the French Laundry,
though the payoff is California comfort
cooking: local, seasonal, satisfying, safe.
Melissa Perello works adroitly in the genre.
She nests duck confit in sweet lentil ragout,
with a back bite from escarole and Rome
Beauty apples. Kale, which cameos in ricotta
gnocchi, moves on to star in its own salad,
with dates, crispy shallots, and fennel agrodolce. Is Frances worth the wait? The answer
is yes; theres just no guarantee that youll
get in. (2/12) 3870 17TH ST. (AT POND ST.),
415-621-3870
$$
In a hood not known for great Asian restaurants, this little Chinese dim sum spot is
more audacious than the most flamboyant
drag queen. Feisty Mama Ji runs out good,
handmade dumplings to the small dining
room, including, yes, soup dumplings and
an excellent shrimp and chive. Szechuan
specialties give you a reason to return for
dinner. (10/13) 4416 18TH ST. (NEAR EUREKA
ST.), 415-626-4416
Super Duper Burgers
Coi
$$$
HOT
Mama Jis
Chinatown,
Embarcadero,
and North Beach
$$
At this cheerful burger joint in the Castro,

the meat is ground daily and respectfully
prepared, charred on the outside and pinkish in the middle. The most basic presentation is brushed with super sauce, a kind
of tangy mayo, and oers the option to bulk
it up with bacon, cheese, or a second patty
the last an act of excess if you also opt for a
vanilla milkshake, thick enough to eat with
a spoon. But the best thing on sliced bread
Ferry Plaza Seafood
$$$
Ferry Plaza Seafood may have

lost its Embarcadero home, but
it hasnt lost its way. Its new North Beach
digs are clean and elegant, and its menu
skillfully mingles old-timers like crab Louie
and clam chowder with more modern conceits. Chubby tubes of grilled Monterey Bay
squid are dressed scantily (and eectively)
in green olive tapenade and a bit of lemon,
while local king salmon, perched serenely
on a raft of grilled tomato and kale, is a silky
dream. (11/14) 653 UNION ST. (NEAR COLUM-
NEW
BUS AVE.), 415-274-2561
Golden Flower
On a bustling Chinatown block stands

Golden Flower, one of the few Vietnamese
restaurants in this heavily Cantonese district. First up on the 142-item menu are 15
versions of pho, the classic beef soup with
rich, almost sweet broth. Bun thit nuong, a
generous portion of chilled rice noodles
topped with strips of charred pork, is ready
to be doused in a sweet fish-sauce dressing,
while clay pot catfish arrives as a thick steak
simmered in traditional caramel sauce shot
through with black pepper. Fresh lemonade
is served like a true citron press, with the
sugar sitting at the bottom of the glass, just
waiting for your spoon. (7/10) 667 JACKSON
ST. (AT GRANT AVE.), 415-433-6469
Hard Water HH
$$$
The clock strikes five, and suits begin to

swarm this pretty space on Pier 3 where the
marble horseshoe bar is overhung by a large
HOW TO READ THE LISTINGS

Restaurants with star ratings were reviewed
by Josh Sens, San Franciscos chief restaurant
critic. Sens dines anonymously, and his
expenses are paid by the magazine. Nonstarred
listings were written by San Francisco contributors and staffers who have dined at the
restaurant. Please note that a lack of stars is not
an indictment of a restaurants quality. These
listings arent intended as a definitive critical
assessment, but rather as a shorthand guide to
some of the best current dining in the Bay Area.
Prices
Average cost
of an entre
$ = $10 or less
$$ = $11$17
$$$ = $18$24
$$$$ = $25 or more
Ratings
Our admittedly
imperfect star ratings are based on
food quality, variety,
service, ambience,
and value.
NEW = Open within

the last six months
HHHH = Superlative
HHH = Excellent
HH = Very good
H = Good
H O T = Highly
sought after
= Below average
125
Where else do gauchos grill meat on swords?

Churrasco, our delicious Brazilian tradition, has been
around for three centuries. Here you can enjoy a taste
of fourteen meats served tableside, along with dozens of
salads and side dishes. Explore all the delicious options.
710 South B St. San Mateo 650.342.8700
1686 Market St. San Francisco 415.552.8792
www.espetus.com
half domeshaped light fixture. On the terrific cocktail menu, a mint julep crowned
with a snow cone of crushed ice is one of
several hits. Though happy hour is a high
time, much of the menuthink feisty chaurice sausage and wild gulf flounder can
hold up through the evening. The challenge
isnt settling on something good to order
its flagging down a bartender and finding
elbow room to eat. (8/13) PIER 3 (AT EMBARCADERO), 415-392-3021
Original Joes
$$$
This isnt the original Original Joes, but

its a loving reproduction. And thats fine,
because you dont eat at Joes to taste the
latest fashions. You go to feel like a part of
the city as it once was, when waiters wore
tuxedos and the sole piccata came with a
side of pasta. Joes Special, a hash of ground
beef, eggs, spinach, and onions, has been
widely imitated but rarely equaled. Yes, you
could complain that the shellfish in the
shrimp cocktail are mealy and that the Caesar salad has no anchovy kick, but why
would you? Joes is like a cherished relative
whos returned after a long absence.
Embrace it as it is or not at all. (5/12) 601
(AT LAGUNA ST.), 415-621-5482
Boxing Room HHH
$$$
With no murals of the bayou, Mardi Gras

beads, or attempts to pose as a boozy haunt
on Bourbon Street, this dining room doesnt
deal in the Disney version of Dixie. The task
of re-creating a night out in Nawlins falls
squarely on Justin Simoneaux, whose menu
is a portal to the soulful South. He transports entres from the Cajun and Creole
canon, including a thick and complex
gumbo built on smoky tasso ham, and a
tangy toue teeming with sweet, plump
crawfish. For dessert, get the crumbly indulgence of pralines and cream. Even if youve
suered through a mournful workday, youll
leave this place with a jazzy spring in your
step. (10/11) 399 GROVE ST. (AT GOUGH ST.),
415-430-6590
Lers Ros Thai
$$
In the space that once housed Mooses, a

power brokers redoubt, new owners, Anna
Weinberg, Dave Stanton, and chef Jennifer
Puccio, offer a contemporary menu in a
context that pays homage to the past. Cocktail-friendly starters, including tart little
fried green tomatoes and deviled eggs that
are like savory bonbons, represent the kitchens greatest strength. And the poulet
rougea game hen with a chili marinade
wont disappoint. (12/11) 1652 STOCKTON ST.
The snobs common complaint about Thai

food in the citythat its overly sweetened
to appease the Western palateruns up
against reality at Lers Ros. Here, Tom Narupon Silargorn sticks to his fiery brand of
cooking, using sugar as an extra, not a star:
Its the cool foil in the hot sauce on his barbecue chicken; its the yin to his duck larbs
lime-and-chili-powder yang. His encyclopedic menu includes exotic entries; stirfried garlic frog tastes like very tender
chicken. But even standard items such as
tom kha kai soup come across as dierent:
Theyre more balanced than most versions
youve tried before. (2/12) 307 HAYES ST. (AT
(AT FILBERT ST.), 415-989-7300
FRANKLIN ST.), 415-874-9661
UNION ST. (AT STOCKTON ST.), 415-775-4877
Park Tavern HH
Tosca HHH
$$$$
$$$$
Following a renovation by restaurateur Ken Friedman and chef

April Bloomfield, North Beachs century-old
den of iniquity looks pretty much the same.
The torn red vinyl booths have been redone
in red leather, but the jukebox is still there,
and the chandeliers still cast a perfectly
moody glow. The biggest change is that Tosca
serves solids: from an open kitchen, Bloomfield turns out sharp, straightforward CalItalian dishes like breadcrumb-and-red-vinegar-topped treviso, the bitter leaves roasted
to just-so sweetness, and a roast chicken for
two that comes garlicky, moist, and arranged
rustically with arugula and ricotta-smeared
toasts. Tosca hasnt just been spared extinction. Its been saved from disfigurement into
a theme park restaurant, and feels true to
both the past and the present. (1/14)
HOT
242 COLUMBUS AVE . (NE AR BROADWAY ),

415-986-9651
Civic Center
and
Hayes Valley
Bar Jules
$$$
Monsieur Benjamin HH
$$$$
The most buzzedabout bistro of the

year comes from Corey Lee, the man behind
the two-Michelin-starred Benu. Its a very
pretty place, reflective of todays shinymoney San Francisco. One glance at the
menu, though, leaves no question of its allegiances. Its a document inspired by the
canon of casual French cooking, its greatest-hits ris ranging from steak frites to
sweet breads grenobloise. Camembert beignets are tart squares dusted with porcini
mushroom powder, while the duck confit
comes served with dense duck sausages and
turnip pure, its moist meat capped in crispy
skin. Monsieur Benjamin is not a lusty bistro, but Lees modern spin will please a lot
of people in a city where French cooking
doesnt get much play these days. (10/14)
NEW HOT
451 GOUGH ST. (NEAR IVY ST.), 415-403-2233
Nojo HH
$$
Greg Dunmore cooked at Terra and Ame

and then trekked across Japan before returning to open a restaurant of his own. And in
his trips between cultures, he has arrived
at some nicely assimilated dishes. Chawanmushi, a savory custard comes with green
garlic, fava beans, and Dungeness crab in
its silken folds. Pork gyoza in a shiitakeseasoned broth has bright spring peas
bobbing all around. A Nojo sundae of blacksesame ice cream with candied kumquats
and Thunder Crackers is a dessert much
like Nojo itself: It holds your interest and
makes a sweet addition to the neighborhood. (7/11) 231 FRANKLIN ST. (AT LINDEN ST.),
415-896-4587
Plj
$$$
With Noma, the famed Copenhagen restaurant, Scandinavian fare stepped into the
worlds spotlight several years ago. And
though Plj (pronounced play) is no Noma,
it brings the city a rare taste of Sweden. In
the intimate bottom lair of the Inn at the
Opera, Swedish-born chef Roberth Sundell
makes potato dumplings with lingonberries, submerges sashimi in a warm dill-andginger broth, and casts a charcuterie spread
of wild boar salami and fenalar-salted lamb
with spicy gooseberry jam. And, yes, there
are Swedish meatballs. Dont overlook the
cocktail list, specifically the Plj Thyme.
(10/12) 333 FULTON ST. (NEAR FRANKLIN ST.),
THE FRONT
BURNER
415-294-8925
Cole Valley
and Lower/
Upper Haight
Maven HH
Restaurants coming soon.
$$$
The line between bar and restaurant has

grown increasingly blurry, as with this
hybrid. The menu focuses on food-andbooze pairings: It suggests, for instance,
that you couple Thai chilisplashed calamari with a New Orleans lager. The cuisine
jumps from Chinatown duck sliders, with
shiitake mushrooms, bitter greens, and
bacon, to seared, perfectly cooked Arctic
char. But its more complex than most cocktail-hour cooking. Mavens greatest strength
is the refreshing change it oers in a neighborhood abundant with divey hangouts
(4 /12) 598 HAIGHT ST. (AT STEINER ST.),
415-829-7982
Rickybobby
$$
The chef team from Broken Record in the

Excelsior has moved into new digs, complete with a double-headed calf mounted
above the chalkboard menu. Aggrandized
California pub food is on order. Take your
Lipitor and dig into the lobster mac n
cheese with bow tie pasta, hunks of fresh
lobster drowning in American and cheddar
cheese, and the double bacon cheeseburger,
with the bacon ground right into the patty.
(2/13) 400 HAIGHT ST. (AT WEBSTER ST.)
Wing Wings
Behold the poultry shrinea tiny storefront

lined with stools, tins of Old Bay Seasoning, and a couple of boom boxes. It keeps
things simple, with nine flavors of fried
wings, sold in bucketssmall ($6), large
($10), or jumbo ($23, mix and match). This
works out to about a buck a wing, which is
on the pricier side. But the chicken is all
natural and free range. And everything that
goes with it is made from scratch, including the biscuits and fiery coleslaw. The wings
are sticky and meaty: the chili, sesame
seed, and scallionflecked Angry Korean;
the signature Wing Wing, with a ginger-soy
sauce; and, of course, the hot-as-hell buffalo. (10/11) 422 HAIGHT ST. (NEAR WEBSTER
ST.), 415-834-5001
Cow Hollow
and
Marina
Arguello
$$
Located in the rustic, beamed,

Mission-style Presidio Ocers
Club, dating back to 1776, this Mexican res-
NEW
B-Side Baking Co.

WEST OAKLAND
ETA: Spring 2015

Tanya Holland has partnered
with Brown Sugar Kitchen
baker Celeste Scott to open
a bakery in the former B-Side
BBQ space. 3303 SAN PABLO
AVE. (AT 33RD ST.)
Unnamed Adriano
Paganini Project
COW HOLLOW
ETA: May 1
Adriano Paganini (Beretta,
Super Duper Burgers) is
taking over the former Caf
des Amis space with plans
for a Belgian brasserie. 2000
UNION ST. (AT BUCHANAN ST.)
Unnamed Kim Alter

Project
HAYES VALLEY
ETA: Fall 2015

Kim Alter (pictured above) is
partnering with the Daniel
Patterson Group to open a
40-seat restaurant serving
a casual prix fixe menu. 330
GOUGH ST. (AT LINDEN ST.)
Press 12
LOCATION TBD
ETA: TBD
Humphry Slocombe
co-owner Jake Godby has
joined with chocolatier Jewel
Zimmer to open a bakery
that they plan to introduce
with a series of Saturday
pop-ups at Four Barrel.
SARA DAVIS
At this endearing restaurant, Jessica Boncutter deals in a stripped-down style of California cuisine. Wood-grilled asparagus stars
without makeup, stretched out over morels;
lingcod lays naked and confident with English peas and baby carrots in a shallow bath
of chive-butter sauce. The chef s nearly
pitch-perfect approach pairs well with the
small, simple blue-and-green-walled space.
126
Desserts, such as chocolate pot-de-crme

and cardamom cake with strawberries, are
fitting emblems of a restaurant where the
only complications are landing a table and
finding a parking spot. (8/10) 609 HAYES ST.
JOIN US AT CALIFORNIAS PREMIER FESTIVALS
FEATURING: San Franciscos Union Street Festival ~ North Beach Festival

Fillmore Jazz Festival ~ Ghirardelli Chocolate Festival ~ Noe Valley Wine Walk
Downtown San Mateo Street Festival ~ Bay Area Blues Festival in Martinez and more!
800.310.6563
SRESproductions.com
FoodMaster
Studies
of Arts
taurant owned by chef Traci Des Jardins

(Jardinire, Mijita) might best be enjoyed
with a cocktail on the patio, which features
a comal where fresh tortillas are made.
Taquitos are a classic, the perfect precursor
to pull-apart roasted pork shoulder with
pico de gallo and cabbage salad. (1/15) 50
MORAGA AVE. (AT GRAHAM ST.), 415-561-3650
Bistro Aix
$$$
Chef Jonathan Beard makes his mark with

composed interpretations of Provenalinspired dishes, such as saron-scented
bouillabaisseits broth an aromatic setting
for clams, calamari, and halibutand a New
York steak partnered with a barnaise sauce
that would make Escoer proud. Beards
fare has a California accent, as in egg
tagliatelle with spicy lamb meatballs, enlivened with mint salsa verde. His cozy, warm
wood dining room gives way to a skylighted
atrium centered by an olive tree: Both provide a backdrop for a quiet performance
youre happy to see time and again. (11/10)
3340 STEINER ST. (NE AR CHESTNUT ST.),
415-202-0100
Causwells
$$
Industrial meets art deco at this

coolly designed little spot serving classic American food with just the right
smidge of chefly aectation. The excellent
burger comes draped with a big fat square
of American cheese, while an heirloom
tomato salad enjoys a creative update courtesy of fried okra, Jimmy Nardello peppers,
and melon vinaigrette. The service is as
sweet and welcoming as the doughnut bread
pudding, which should come with a Lipitor
chaser. (10/14) 2346 CHESTNUT ST. (NEAR
NEW
Earn a Master of Arts in

Food Studies in San Francisco
University of the Pacific is oering the only comprehensive food studies degree
program on the West Coast. This program in the heart of one of the worlds
premier food cities is designed for those with a passion for food. Students will
have the flexibility of completing the degree in the classroom or online.
Highlights of the program include:

Training and resources to master the skills necessary for success in foodrelated professions
Students will be trained to write persuasively, using relevant data
and with technical proficiency and style
Simulcast guest lectures and field visits to restaurants, farms and
food processing facilities
Potential Career Opportunities:

Food writer/editor
Marketing of food
Sustainability positions
DIVISADERO ST.), 415-447-6081
Seed + Salt
ST.), 415-872-9173
Viva Goa
$$
Dont let the sparse interior scare you. The

guys behind Viva Goa care less about decor
than they do about bringing authentic
regional Goan cuisine to San Francisco.
Standouts include the spicy-sweet seafood
masala, spiked with ginger and coriander;
and the lamb and the chicken xacuti, a traditional curry of dried chilies, fresh coconut,
and white poppy seeds. The pork vindaloo
is tangy, and the baingan bhartha beats any
other eggplant dish around. (12/10) 2420
LOMBARD ST. (AT SCOTT ST.), 415-440-2600
Business of food
Advocacy and policy makers
Financial District,
Jackson Square, and
Union Square
Bartlett Hall
Ken Albala, Program Director
Pacific.edu/SFfoodstudies
415.400.8222
$$
The food at this immaculate

Marina caf eschews gluten,
dairy, processed sugar, trans fats, and
GMOs. Fortunately, theres no prohibition
on flavor or innovation. The B in the BLT
comes from crunchy eggplant bacon, while
the falafel sandwich is reimagined with quinoa and green garbanzo hummus. Desserts
also emerge triumphant: A chocolate chip
cookie, made with almond flour, isnt just
a good gluten-free cookie. Its a good cookie,
period. (2/15) 2240 CHESTNUT ST. (NEAR AVILA
NEW
$$$
The dark leather-and-wood decor, littered

with a motley collection of antiques, says
gastropub. The wall of flat-screen TVs says
128
sports bar. The menu says seasonal Californian. But if Bartlett Halls identity is a bit
blurry, its food is surprisingly focused. Fried
green tomatoes, improbably light and
dressed with a squiggle of pickled ramp
ranch dressing, make the case for the Southern staples continued dissemination, while
a silky brick of wild king salmon plays nicely
with a hit of Thai curry. Skip the pleasant
but forgettable desserts and opt for a barrelaged cocktail and a bowl of fiendishly addictive Angostura-spiced mixed nuts. (7/14)
242 O FA RRE LL S T. (N E A R P OW E LL ST.),
415-433-4332
Coqueta
$$$$
From the tapas to the communal tables,

theres plenty to share at this cozy but stylish Spanish restaurant from celeb chef
Michael Chiarello. Say yes to pintxos
delightful one-bite skewers that feature
chorizo and roasted artichokesand a glass
of sherry. Move on to creamy-crisp chicken
croquetas, wood-grilled octopus, and paella.
Though Coqueta is on the waterfront, the
best place for a view is the justifiably
crowded bar, located in the glassed-in annex.
(7/13) PIER 5 (NEAR THE EMBARCADERO),
415-704-8866
Cotogna HH
$$$
This oshoot of Quince is casual and homespun but well bred. From pizza to pappardelle to roasts, the food is a match for
its surroundings, and at its best makes you
wonder why you ever eat any other way. A
savory custard of English peas is a sweet
expression of the peas garden-y essence,
and the pastas, such as pappardelle with
braised rabbit rag, span the earthy and the
artful. Lamb chops with black olives leave
you gnawing at the bones like a wolf. Count
on attentive service and a superb wine list:
All bottles are $50 and all glasses are $12.
(5/11) 490 PACIFIC AVE. (AT MONTGOMERY ST.),
415-775-8508
Gaspar Brasserie
$$$$
A t m o s p h e r e - w i s e , Fr a n c k
LeClercs handsome watering
hole feels like a mnage trois between a
gentlemans club, a French prop studio, and
a stack of money. But the fare demonstrates
a refreshing lack of pretension: Its simple
food done very well. Raw oysters come fantastically cold, plump, and creamy; a chickpea panisse cake boasts a crunchy crust and
creamy innards; and grilled entrecte steak
hews deliciously to tradition. Its all
unabashedly old-schooland deeply satisfying. (10/14) 185 SUTTER ST. (AT KEARNY ST.),
NEW
415-576-8800
Roka Akor
$$$$
A Japanese restaurant that hinges more on

its open kitchens robata grill than on the
raw fish in its sushi larder, the newest San
Francisco branch of Scottsdale-based Roka
Akor sports an open blond woodwrapped
decor, all sorts of addictive charcoal-fired
red meat, and a dessert platter befitting the
highest of Vegas high rollers, piled with ice,
willowy melon spears, and a two-layer semifreddo snowball rolled in coconut snow.
All told, its fresh bait for FiDi expense
accounts, girls night out, or those craving
a liquid escape at the excellent subterranean
bar. (10/13) 801 MONTGOMERY ST. (AT JACKSON
ST.), 415-362-8887
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Inner
and Outer
Richmond
Aziza
EXPERT SERVICE IN COSMETIC AND GENERAL DENTISTRY

When you come to Aesthetic Dentistry of Noe Valley for cosmetic treatment,
you are greeted by an American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry dentist who
insists that the laboratory ceramists and materials she works with meet exact
standards. Dr. Nisha Krishnaiah, a decade long member of the AACD, has
been helping patients in the Bay Area for over 15 years. Whether you need a
dental checkup and cleaning or porcelain veneers and resin bonding, you are
provided with top quality care in a patient focused environment. The practice
uses the latest technology including low-radiation, digital x-rays to enhance
safety and quality and a cad/cam digital crown milling machine that allows
crowns to be made on site so we can finish the procedure in one visit
instead of two. The goal is for you to leave smiling!
$$$$
As written on the menulamb shank, saffron, couscousMourad Lahlous dishes

bear some hallmarks of his homeland, yet
his compositions owe more to modern global
currents than they do to Marrakech. A
cucumber-beet pairing reads traditionally
enough, but Lahlou turns the beets into
towers rising from a purple pool of beet
reduction and compresses the cucumbers
into dense batons. A pouf of flaky phyllo,
filled with duck confit, is his take on a classic beesteya. The restaurants arched doorways hint at Morocco, but everything else
about it, from the avant-garde cocktails to
Melissa Chous inventive desserts, feels
happily situated in the here and now.
(3/12) 5800 GEARY BLVD. (AT 22ND AVE.),
415-752-2222
Marla Bakery
Dr. Nisha Krishnaiah

Aesthetic Dentistry of Noe Valley
4162 24th Street
415.285.7007
aestheticsmiles.com
DRINK HERE
NOW
$$$
Sweet is the word to describe

everything here, from the amazing pastries and bread to the lovely scene in
the evening when it becomes your favorite
new date-night spot. The menu is simple
but refined: soup with a little chili oil and
crawfish, braised pork belly with buckwheat
polenta. Theres a back patio to boot. In a
neighborhood starved for a little style, its
a gem. (9/14) 3619 BALBOA ST. (NEAR 37TH
NEW
AVE.), 415-742-4379
Shanghai House
Visit the Historic Cliff House
Shanghai House looks like just another nondescript Richmond district Chinese restaurant from the outside, but it is one of the
few where you can get authentic noodles
hand-cut to order. There are two menus,
one with more expected Chinese-American
oerings, the other with Shanghai specialties. But the best item is o-menu: a honking pork knuckle, caramelized in Chinese
spices and then deep-fried. You can stu
yourself with the kitchens solid rendition
of xiao long bao, a bocce-ball-size lions head
meatball, Shanghai chow fun, and the like
for under $20. (3/13) 3641 BALBOA ST. (AT 38TH
AVE.), 415-831-9288
Inner
and Outer
Sunset
Izakaya Sozai
Famous for fine food, stunning views, and historic ambiance!
Sutros at the Cliff House with California coastal cuisine for lunch and dinner.
The Bistro with a classic San Francisco menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The Terrace Room for Sunday Champagne Brunch Buffet or private events.
Live Friday night jazz in the Balcony Lounge.
$$
16TH AVE.), 415-742-5122
Nabe
$$$
With its wall of glass and its tables with

built-in convection burners, this modern
1090 Point Lobos
San Francisco
415-386-3330
www.CliffHouse.com
130
Tim Stookey is a barkeep

cut from a Dashiell Hammett novel, his Jazz Age
demeanor a perfect echo
of that bygone eraand
the same is true of Stookeys Club Moderne, his newly
minted cocktail saloon.
Situated in Nob Hill and
decked out with green banquettes and red tables, its
an appealing box theater
for the spirit-soaked show
performed every night by
its owner. TheSaturday
nightcrowd is thick with
gals with hair piled high and
gents in suits.
Trimmed in teapot blue,
Club Moderne is intimate
yet whimsicala decided
departure from the many
barrooms of hardwood and
iron that have opened of
late. Instead, it shares DNA
with Bix, the Tadich Grill, and
House of Shields, joints with
a similar antique aesthetic
and equally well-considered
refreshment.
The bar is further distinguished by Stookey himself,
a veteran, hands-on owner.
When asked which of his
concoctions is a cant-miss,
his answer is unequivocal: You gotta try 100 Reasons rye! And hes right: The
drinkJames E. Pepper rye,
Punt e Mes, Cointreau, and
Regans orange bittersis
delicious. Hammett wouldnt
miss it. 895 BUSH ST. (AT
TAYLOR ST.), 415-212-8180
DUGGAN M C DONNELL
Although Izakaya Sozai predates the izakaya genres newfound trendiness, this
clean and minimal, often jam-packed little
joint still has a wait for a table on weeknights after 7 p.m. Many ramen devotees
say that its tonkotsu ramen is the best in
San Francisco, but the rest of the menu is
worth dabbling in as well. Izakaya novices
can make a meal of braised pork belly, fish
carpaccios, bacon-wrapped mochi, and
tsukune skewers. For the initiated, there
are takoyaki, skewered chicken hearts,
andwhen its in season in the winter a
lovely tempura treatment of a Japanese
delicacy, shirako. (3/13) 1500 IRVING ST. (AT
Stookeys Club Moderne.
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Los Angeles | San Francisco | Las Vegas | San Diego | Scottsdale

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Atlanta | Washington DC | Denver | Miami | Stockholm | London
A San Francisco tradition

since 1908 and a favorite
of celebrities, this historic
restaurant offers great
steaks and fresh seafood.
little Japanese nabemonoor hot pot

place steams up in no time. Choose from
five menu items, including traditional sukiyaki with warishita broth and thinly sliced
Berkshire pork belly with a kimchee miso
broth. After all the dipping of veggies and
thinly sliced meat, the broth is full of flavor.
At the end of dinner, the server will ask if
you want to mix the broth with rice, beaten
egg, green onions, and nori. Say yes. Its
delicious. (3/13) 1325 9TH AVE. (NEAR IRVING
Johns Grill was a setting

in Dashiell Hammetts,
The Maltese Falcon.
ST.), 415-731-2658
Outerlands
$$$$
Outerlands newly expanded digs

come with a a new menu. While
the food generally maintains its celebrated
rustic-refined balance, it occasionally ventures into uneven territory. For every luscious, caveman-portioned lamb chop with
smoked yogurt and pickled eggplant, theres
a pistachio cakepresented in compressed
puck formthat tastes of neither cake nor
pistachio. Still, the wood-lined dining room
is a knockout, and the storied toast remains
as transporting as ever, particularly when
accompanied by a wee pot of saron-garlic
custard. (7/14) 4001 JUDAH ST. (AT 45TH AVE.),
HOT
Enjoy live jazz nightly

in the upper level
dining room.
415-661-6140
Japantown
and
Pacific Heights
(415) 986-3274 | www.JohnsGrill.com
63 Ellis Street between Powell & Stockton
D ream
Believe
Achieve
A
LEGENDARY
NIGHT
niversary Spring G
h An
t
ala
5
6
Join us as City Youth Now celebrates 65 years of supporting

at-risk youth in San Francisco, and recognizes the
HONOR ABLE WILLIE BROWN
Izakaya Kou
FILLMORE ST. (AT GEARY ST.), 415-441-9294
Palmers Tavern
Friday, May 15, 2015 6:00 11:00pm
Where
San Francisco Design Center, Galleria Atrium

101 Henry Adams Street, San Francisco, CA
Tickets
CityYouthNow.org /415.753.7576
$$$
The Leopolds crew has made over the former Long Bar with a 40s-era kick. Dark
wood, plush crimson booths, and taxidermied beasts set the tone for hearty dishes
like a Flintstonian lamb shank or quail a la
plancha. A whole trout wrapped in ribbons
of pancetta and crispy squash blossoms
oers a more modern approach. The best
way to soak up the retro atmosphere? Order
a Pimms cup and let it transport you to a
time when farm-to-table wasnt a San Francisco catchphrase. (11/13) 2298 FILLMORE ST.
(AT CLAY ST.), 415-732-7777
State Bird Provisions HHH
When
$$$
This Korean-inflected izakaya stakes its

claim in a part of town thats long been stagnant on the culinary front. To find the gems,
venture away from the expected sashimi
and yakitori. Instead, order soft, slippery
tofu topped with tiny dollops of uni, oshinko,
and mentaiko. A slab of eggplant slathered
in sweet miso and grilled tastes as rich as
roasted meat. The large wood-lined space
oers a few tatami rooms where customers
can get comfortable with the restaurants
rather extensive sake selection. (12/13) 1560
$$
Chefs Stuart Brioza and Nicole

Krasinski offer an experience
thats so refreshing, you wonder why no one
has tried it before. Most menu items are
portioned onto small plates, then wheeled
past you on carts, dim sum style. Restraint
is required if you want a meal with reasonable pacing. Oysters come with still-warm
potato chips, steelhead roe, and crme
frache. Tuck into this until your attention
is diverted by crab suspended in a satsume
gele, or a stunning stew of pork, shellfish,
and kimchee. As if nation-wide accolades
werent enough, the restaurant recently
increased its bragging rights with expanded
seating, family-style dining, and a sidewalk-
HOT
132
adjacent raw bar. (6/12) 1529 FILLMORE ST.

(NEAR GEARY BLVD.), 415-795-1272
Mission
Burma Love
$$$
The tea leaf salad abides at this

offshoot of Burma Superstar.
Outfitted in scalloped orange-and-white
tiles, the fifth location of the Burmese chainlet feels slightly antiseptic, but the warm
familiarity of the menu compensates for
the chill. Theres the aforementioned salad,
still fresh and vibrant, along with tomatobased curries and a new array of seafood
dishes. The okra-and-egg curry is especially
rich and satisfying. (3/15) 211 VALENCIA ST.
NEW
(NEAR DUBOCE AVE.)
Californios
$$$
Cloistered behind a facade of

frosted glass, chef Val Cantus
elegant 30-seater is the staging ground for
his modern, fine-dining interpretation of
Mexican cuisine. The counter oers prime
viewing of Cantus tweezer-manipulated
creations: Oro Blanco granita with Pop
Rocks, beef tongue with a quenelle of avocado pure, and a ridiculously good foie
gras ice cream that comes studded with pear
and showered with tortilla chip crumbs.
Warning to those who like to choose what
they eat: Theres only one prix fixe option
and no printed menu. (3/15) 3118 22ND ST. (AT
NEW
CAPP ST.), 415-757-0994
Central Kitchen
$$$$
Broadening his businessand his

ambitionsFlour + Water chef Thomas
McNaughtons second restaurant takes him
to more experimental ground. Here his rustic repertoire of pasta and pizza gives way to
modern musings, such as charred avocado
with sea beans, pickled celery and pine nut
pure, and crunchy rye crumble, topped
tableside with a cooling broth of beets and
goat-milk whey. Meanwhile, simplicity
reigns at Salumeria, his aptly named gourmet retail and sandwich shop that stands
in front. (8/12) 3000 20TH ST. (NEAR FLORIDA
ST.), 415-826-7004
Craftsman and Wolves
$$
Theres not a trace of Mission funk in evidence at this sleek, very uptown pastry shop,
opened by renowned pastry chef William
Werner smack in the middle of the Valencia
Street corridor. The fancy croissants made
of passion fruit and sesame, as well as the
muns made of cocoa and carrot, stand at
attention, waiting to be plucked up and
enjoyed at the communal table with a cup
of Sightglass espresso. Though there are
only a few sandwiches on oer, make sure
to take one for lunch, because theyre good.
And the cube cakesfanciful layered creations of four-star qualityare perfect for
special occasions (or just because youre
you). (10/12) 746 VALENCIA ST. (NEAR 18TH ST.),
415-913-7713
Delfina
$$$
In the many years since Delfina

opened, Italian food in San Francisco has moved from Americanized redsauce outposts to someplace closer to Italy.
In this context, many dishes at Craig and
Anne Stolls beloved Mission district restaurant still sparkle, such as escarole salad
HOT
GUARDSMEN
SPORTS AUCTION
February 5, 2015
In partnership with the Giants
Community Fund, the Guardsmen
hosted the 27th Annual
Guardsmen Celebrity Dinner &
Sports Auction at the Fairmont,
raising close to $400,000 for
at-risk youth in the Bay Area.
Please join us for the 39th Annual
San Francisco Wine Auction,
April 18, 2015 brought to you by
the Guardsmen!
Barry Bonds and Javier Lopez
Photography by Gustavo Fernandez
Sports Auction Program
Barry Bonds and Derick Brown
SFDC HAUTE DOG

February 6, 2015
British Motor Cars displayed coveted exotic luxury vehicles
San Franciscos chicest pooches

strutted the runway at the San
Francisco Design Center, dressed
in exquisite couture outfits created
by prominent Bay Area interior
designers. Proceeds of the show,
which was co-sponsored by
Interiors California and was the
final event of Design San
Francisco 2015, supported
Muttville Senior Dog Rescue.
Photography by Kira Stackhouse
Winner Kizzy and companion Avner Lapovsky, flanked by host Wilkes Bashford
and Muttville executive director Sherri Franklin
Standing tall and looking sharp
sweetened with roasted grapes, spiced with

gorgonzola, and scattered with almonds;
and grilled calamari, emerging from a shallow sea of savory white beans. Service
remains astute, professional, and playful.
Although others have met the restaurant
on the path that it helped to blaze, Delfina
is still a very good Italian restaurant.
(10/10) 3621 18TH ST. (AT GUERRERO ST.),
REQUIRED
READING
415-552-4055
Foreign Cinema
$$$
The restaurant that redefined dinner and

a movie puts on one of the best brunches in
the city, where you can begin with a frothy
gin fizz or a spicy Sunday Bloody Caesar
paired with oysters or a half Dungeness
crab. Follow that with appetizers like salt
cod brandade with green chilies, or slices
of sourdough slathered with chicken liver
pt, and youre just getting started. Organic
eggs come next: sunny-side up on polenta
scattered with chanterelles, nettles, and
sweet onions; poached in slow-cooked Berkshire pork, with avocado and warm tortilla
chips; or fried, served over garlicky potato
hash and roasted greens. After a few strips
of brown sugar bacon, you might consider
skipping dessert. (2/11) 2534 MISSION ST.
(NEAR 22ND ST.), 415-648-7600
Hapa Ramen
$$
Richie Nakanos ramen restaurant has become a reality after

years as a stand at the Ferry Plaza Farmers
Market.The space, conceived by design itgirl Lauren Geremia, boasts blond latticewood booths, a blood-red loft ceiling, and
a generous bararea for swigging an icy Big
Island Buck. There are steamed buns and,
of course, a few dierent versions of ramen
the namesake version is embellished with
fried chicken and pork belly. Sop it up with
a crisp brussels sprout salad. (3/15) 2293 MIS-
NEW
SION ST. (AT 19TH ST.), 415-202-6333
Izakaya Rintaro
$$$
Sylvan Mishima Brackett (Peko Peko) has

transformed the former Chez Spencer space
into a rustic, gated little izakaya. In the open
kitchen, cooks shave katsuobushi (dried fermented tuna) into perfect curls. Theyre part
of a menu that includes yakitori, grilled rice
balls, and lacy gyoza. A perfect wild arugula
and radish salad betrays a bit of Chez
Panisse, where Brackett used to be the creative director. Snag one of the spacious
booths if you can. (2/15) 82 14TH ST. (NEAR
NEW HOT
FOLSOM ST.), 415-589-7022
Lazy Bear HHH
$$$$
Fine dinings old

divides, teetering for
so long, tumble into rubble during meals
at David Barzelays Lazy Bear, where cooks
take turns introducing dishes and diners
are encouraged to approach the kitchen
for look-but-dont-touch primers on whats
going on. Before his move to a brick-andmortar home, Barzelay worried that what
worked during his restaurants tenure as
the citys hottest pop-up might come o as
contrived in a fixed location, what with the
forced sociability and formal seating. But
for all its choreography, the dinner party
format somehow feels organic, the natural
outgrowth of an upscale but easygoing celebrationin fact, the best sit-down bash
youve ever attended, given that youre
with p eople that you barely know.
(12/14) 3416 19TH ST. (NEAR SAN CARLOS ST.),
NEW HOT
415-874-9921
134
Benu, by the book.

Five years after opening
Benu, his lavishly lauded,
Michelin-starred SoMa
restaurant, Corey Lee brings
us Benu, the book. Published
this month by Phaidon, its
a thick, austerely beautiful
volume that channels the
low-key but insanely refined
elegance that characterizes
its namesake. The
restaurants greatest hits
are present and accounted
for: Lees faux shark fin
soup, the fin a triumph of
hydrocolloid gel, is here, as
is his thousand-year-old
quail egg. But Lees book
comes with a disclaimer:
Benu, he writes, is not a
book intended to be cooked
from. Instead, its meant
to archive and share
something that our team
works tirelessly to execute
every day. Professional
chefs, Lee explains, would
be capable of executing his
recipes, but wouldnt want
to: So much of cooking at
a high level is being original,
so why would you want to
replicate recipes from a
different restaurant? As for
nonprofessional readers, Lee
is hilariously blunt: Youre
not going to cook out of it,
he says. I dont know why
youd even want to. What
you will want to do is slowly
thumb through the pages,
dreamily imagining the food
youll never make.
Mission Cheese
$$
Run by Wisconsin native Sarah Dvorak,

Mission Cheese has a feel thats half farmhouse, half urban sleek. The tiny self-service
caf oers $12 flights of cheeses from across
the States arranged by region; a killer adultfriendly mac and cheese; and four oozy hotpressed sandwiches like the Allota Burrata,
Belfiore cream-filled mozzarella with cherry
tomatoes and basil on a toasted Della Fattoria baguette. There are a dozen or so wines
by the glass and a handful of beers on tap,
but its the cheese thats the draw. Dvorak
has managed to fill a hole this town didnt
even realize was there. (9/11) 736 VALENCIA
ST. (AT 19TH ST.), 415-553-8667
Orenchi Beyond
$$
Not since Tampopo

has ramen been so
trendy. And not since, well, ever, has the
Mission had a ramen shop of such cachet.
Its cult status secure at its original Santa
Clara location, Orenchi has spun o and
branched out. But its signature soups
remain the showpiece, oered with assorted
add-ons in your choice of broth. If youve
been to the original, youll recognize the
vivid, layered flavors, as reliable as the long
lines youll face out front. (2/15) 174 VALEN-
NEW HOT
CIA ST. (NEAR DUBOCE AVE.)
Rice, Paper, Scissors
The Vietnamese food pop-up has found a

semipermanent home at Brick and Mortar
Music Hall, where it serves a short but sweet
lunch menu. The banh mi op la is a beautiful bruiser of a sandwich topped with a perfectly fried egg, and the Hanoi-style beef
pho is delicious. The best seats are out on
Mission Street, where you can perch on a
red plastic stool and watch the world go by.
(4 /14) 17 10 MISSION ST. (AT DUBOCE ST.),
415-878-6657
Wise Sons
$$
Historically, this city hasnt been known for

its deli fare. But that changed with the opening of Wise Sons. Almost everything is made
from scratch; it shows in the crusty edges
of the dense bialy, layered with cream cheese
and house-smoked salmon or steelhead.
Theres a West Coast bent here: Witness a
Reuben that swaps out meat for trumpet
mushrooms. Happily, those influences also
shape the service, which is California-sunny.
If that strikes a deli absolutist as inauthentic, well, so be it. When it really matters,
tradition is honored by a kitchen that makes
great corned beef hash but doesnt make a
hash of anything else.(8/12) 3150 24TH ST. (AT
SHOTWELL ST.), 415-787-3354
Nob Hill,
Russian Hill, and
Tenderloin
Farm: Table
This microcaf is as long on charm as it is

short on space. Working with only a hot
plate and a countertop oven, husband-andwife team Shannon and Kate Amitin turn
out a three-item breakfast and lunch menu
and a handful of pastries. The creamy cauliflower-cumin soup, like most everything
served here, could benefit from sharper seasoning, but what the kitchen lacks in finesse,
it makes up for in goodwill. Baby greens
with tomatoes, cucumber, corn, and basil
tasted as if the ingredients had been plucked
straight from a CSA box, and a warm sandwich of apples, cheese, and arugula showed
an artful sense of pairing. (10/10) 754 POST
ST. (AT LEAVENWORTH ST.)
Huxley
$$
This wee little spot

from Saison vet Kris
Esqueda is as big on charm as it is short on
square footage. Snag one of its 25 seats, and
youll be treated to consummately NorCal
numberslike a rich bowl of farro porridge
carrying an earthy-sweet cargo of wild mushrooms, hazelnuts, and dates, or a chorus of
squid, their charred bodies tossed with
chickpeas, mint, and avocado and tucked
under a blanket of garlic aioli. Its food to
get lost in, served in a space worth hunting
down. (1/15) 846 GEARY ST. (NEAR HYDE ST.),
NEW HOT
415-800-8223
Leopolds
$$
The first thing youll notice when you walk

into Leopolds is the welcome: Instead of a
skinny, bitchy twentysomething, youre
greeted by a sweet lumberjack of a man: coowner Klaus Rainer. Next youll notice the
noise: the clanking of steins; the laughter
of diners loving the transportive power of
this restaurant where the walls are dotted
with taxidermy and the servers are clad in
cleavage-busting bodices. The chicken soup
is a thing of steamy beauty, swimming with
chives and semolina dumplings. The pancetta-wrapped trout is a must-order, and
you also shouldnt miss the flaky apfelstrudel with warm vanilla sauce. (5/11) 2400 POLK
ST. (AT UNION ST.), 415-474-2000
Sweet Woodruff
At this Sons & Daughters spin-o, owners

Teague Moriarty and Matt McNamara turn
their well-trained hands to counter service
fare. At lunch, the menu is a mix of soup,
salads, and high-bred sandwiches such as
roasted suckling pig smacked with salsa
verde, pickles, and ghost pepper aioli. As
the day wears on, the kitchen adds an entre.
Gnocchi with housemade sausage, peas,
and parmesan could hold its own in a formal dining room. Sweets include a Rice
Krispies treat served in a satisfying, if cinder-block-size, slab. (6/12) 798 SUTTER ST.
(AT JONES ST.), 415-292-9090
NoPa
and
Panhandle
Corner Store
$$
Nourishing a part of the city that was starved

for a stylish place serving cocktails and a
good Cal-Americana menu, this restaurant
has been packed since day one. Diners enjoy
everything from farm-fresh salads to a great
burger topped with bacon jam. Even vegetarians get the delicious option of a rustic
multigrain sort of risotto, cooked in a savory
parmesan-mushroom broth and topped
with greens. For outdoor types, theres a
smartly heated covered patiokey for an
often fog-swept corner. (11/12) 5 MASONIC
AVE. (AT GEARY ST.), 415-359-1800
Green Chile Kitchen
$$
Hidden on a NoPa corner, this neighborhoody spot focuses on New Mexicanstyle,

green-and-red-chili-spiked fare. On weekend mornings it welcomes the hungover
brunch crowd, and late afternoons see the
aprs-preschool set, with parents putting
135
SUBSCRIPTIONS ON SALE NOW

Single tickets on sale April 6
2015
BY
SEASON
CAL SHAKES
Call 510.548.9666 or visit

www.calshakes.org
TWELFTH NIGHT
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
MAY 27JUN 21
Disguise, Danger, Desire
LIFE IS A DREAM
BY
PEDRO CALDERN
DE LA BARCA
TRANSLATED AND
ADAPTED BY NILO CRUZ
JUL 8AUG 2
A Classic from the

Spanish Golden Age
BY
THE MYSTERY
OF IRMA VEP
back $2 Pacificos and kids digging into fresh

guac and quesadillas. As night falls, folks
line up for homemade blue corn tortillas;
hearty stew made with Niman Ranch pork;
and enchiladas stuffed with steak and
smothered in chili sauce. Stick around for
dessert: Theres a gooey-warm brownie ice
cream sundae drizzled with spicy-sweet
raspberry-chili sauce and homemade pie.
(7/11) 1801 M C ALLISTER ST. (AT BAKER ST.),
415-440-9411
Nopa
$$$
For the many walk-ins, hovering for a spot

at Nopas long bar or communal table may
not be quite as aggro an experience as it used
to be, and the food is better than ever. The
mix includes changing seasonal dishes and
a number of cult favorites, such as the brown
sugarbrined pork chop with brussels
sprouts. Given that Nopa also has one of the
best cocktail menus and one of the most
aordable, interesting wine lists in town
plus bartenders who cater to your every
wishyou might actually want to spend time
waiting for a table. (12/10) 560 DIVISADERO
ST. (AT HAYES ST.), 415-864-8643
CHARLES LUDLAM
SoMa
AUG 12SEP 6
Vampires, Werewolves,
One Fabulous Mummy
BY
KING LEAR
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
SEP 16OCT 11
Shakespeares Tragic Masterpiece

Pictured: Danny Scheie as Dromio and Nemuna Ceesay as Adriana in Cal Shakes
The Comedy of Errors, directed by Aaron Posner; photo by Kevin Berne.
Titles, dates, and artists subject to change.
ATTENTION RESTAURATEURS!
The biggest sale of

the year is coming!
THOUSANDS
ON SA
RIDICULOUSLY LOW
PRICES
LIVE EQUIPMENT
DEMOS
Anchor & Hope
$$$$
Old life preservers and wooden oars hang

on the walls, but Anchor & Hope manages
to be cool, not kitschy. The Minna Street
location is a bit inconvenient for anyone not
rolling in after work for happy hour. Still,
its a shorter trip than a flight to the East
Coast for straight-from-Maine lobster (here
stued into a lightly toasted brioche bun)
and plump shrimp with a spicy housemade
cocktail saucefar fresher than the wimpy
version you remember from childhood. Its
just like Anchor & Hope itself: your favorite
seafood shack, all grown up. (1/11) 83 MINNA
ST. (NEAR 2ND ST.), 415-501-9100
Bar Agricole
$$$
ST. (NEAR HARRISON ST.), 415-355-9400
APRIL 23 24 25
SAN FRANCISCO 1200 7th Street
(415) 626-5611 (800) 323-3384
For more information visit
www.TriMarkEconomy.com
136
Prospect
$$$$
Billed as the hipper, younger spin-o of San

Franciscos landmark Boulevard, Prospects
slightly corporate, museumlike dining room
feels like it could be in any major city. But
the menu from chef Pamela Mazzola gives
it a firm sense of San Francisco. Kobe beef
tartare is accompanied by pued beef tendons and crispy bone marrow, while duck
is served in an inspired trinity of breast,
liver, and confit leg. For oenophiles, wine
director Josh Thomas can do no wrong, but
Prospects hearty food and thoughtful happy
hour menus mean its good for much more
than a multicourse tasting experience. (6/13)
300 SPEAR ST. (AT FOLSOM ST.), 415-247-7770
Red Dog Restaurant

and Bar
$$$
With her first full-fledged restaurant, il Cane

Rossos Lauren Kiino has room to stretch,
both literally and menu-wise. The airy, industrial space makes an appropriately expansive
backdrop for Kiinos generous, full-bodied
cooking, which at dinner includes a silky fillet of petrale sole and a bowl of brown rice
and vegetables invigorated by a Meyer
lemonbrown butter vinaigrette and an
expertly fried egg. For dessert, a butterscotch
pot de crme inspires both euphoria and
hoarding impulses. (9/14) 303 2ND ST. (NEAR
HARRISON ST.), 415-692-0211
TBD
$$$
With its open live-fire kitchen and eclectic

decor, this AQ spin-o has turned a slice of
mid-Market into an upscale ski lodge.
Patrons dig into burly meat dishes under a
clustered-lantern chandelier and antlers
mounted on the walls. But for every heavy
dish (smoked pork andouille, hunters stew
with rabbit oloroso), theres a lighter item
(heirloom carrots with lentils and sesame)
to counterbalance it. (1/14) 1077 MISSION ST.
Turtle Tower
At this corner nook on Sixth Street, pho

adopts its Hanoi guise, a style that calls for
flat, wide noodles, clear, beefy broth, and
just two garnishes (lime and chilies). The
boldly flavored result satisfies in the simple
ways it should. But the menu features more
compelling players, including bun thang (a
shrimp pasteenhanced soup with chicken,
egg, ground pork, and vermicelli), assorted
rice plates in the key of meat, and a fried
chicken leg, bare and bronzed, with a side
of salty lemon sauce thats a perfect foil for
the crisp skin. And the banh mi sandwich
with an egg amounts to the best $4.75 meal
in town. (1/12) 501 6TH ST. (AT BRYANT ST.),
415-904-9888
$$
This wine barbistro from Saison

co-owner Mark Bright is likely
the only establishment within walking distance of AT&T Park where you can watch
Amlie on a flat-screen TV while sipping a
glass of burgundy. Its also one of the best
new lunch spots in the city, a place to find
a voluptuous smoked salmon tartine and a
plate of vibrant greens enlivened by the
bright pucker of a lone boquerne. The cozy
NEW
ST.), 415-795-1422
(NEAR 7TH ST.), 415-431-1826
A restaurant this beautiful could almost get

by on looks alone. A Zen-like courtyard leads
into a space of shapely wood banquettes
and skylights framed by glass tubes that call
to mind curtains shifting in the wind. Bar
master Thad Vogler works cocktail magic
with sours, collinses, and other classics
made with local spirits and artisanal syrups. Melissa Reitzs menu is vibrant,
unfussy, and wildly creative. High notes
include rabbit leg paired with green lentils,
roasted figs, and red wine butter and a crispy
chickpea farinata freighted with vegetables
that change with the seasons. (1/11) 355 11TH
Les Clos
room invites lingering, so have another

glass. (1/15) 234 TOWNSEND ST. (NEAR CLYDE
Una Pizza Napoletana
$$$
Four nights a week at 5 p.m., the metal door

to a SoMa warehouse rolls open like a curtain rising on an o-Broadway show. Inside
stands Anthony Mangieri, who closed his
worshipped East Village pizzeria and
crossed the country, cult following intact.
Here, hes the star of a one-man show that
features pizza-making as performance art.
Pies are all you get: a tangy marinara; a
sauceless bianca; a filetti with garlic and
cherry tomatoes; a dulcet margherita; and
the Ilaria, topped with smoked mozzarella.
MAGNIFICENT
OBSESSION
You cant deny that this is killer pizza, its

crust gently blistered by an almond-wood
fire. Theres also no ignoring the whi of
self-importance surrounding the proceedings. (12/10) 210 11TH ST. (AT HOWARD ST.),
415-861-3444
East Bay
Berkeley
like armadillos and wrapped around ricotta,

to flaky fazzoletti, or handkerchiefs, with
olives, tomatoes, and artichokes in their
fragile folds. PIQ is not a California homage to the Old World. Its a portal to the place
that gave us real focaccia: not oily, or spongy,
or leaden, but delicate and light, the perfect
platform for panini (with, say, eggs and prosciutto). And it also oers espresso that the
staunchest coee snob would be pleased to
drink. (5/11) 91 SHATTUCK SQ. (AT ADDISON
2035 FILLMORE ST. SAN FRANCISCO

415-931-5620 MIOSF.COM
MON - SAT 10 - 6 SUNDAY 12 - 5
ST.), 510-540-7700
Oakland
Comal
ERIC WOLFINGER
Neighbor Bakehouses
blackberry-pistachio
croissant.
Even in a town seething
with high-quality breakfast
pastry, the blackberry-pistachio croissant that Greg
Mindel conjures at Neighbor
Bakehouse stands out from
its buttery brethren. Twicebaked to crackly crusted
perfection, its gossamer
innards streaked with blackberry poppy-flower jam and
pistachio cream, it provides
irrefutable evidence that
transcendent joy is, in fact,
a by-product of butter and
flour.
Although its flavors suggest otherwise, Mindel says
that his pastry is really just a
pumped-up almond croissant. I wanted to make
something subtly different,
he says. I like the almond
frangipane thats used classically, but its a little too
moist. So I tried to do a more
marzipan-y, dense, chewy,
cookie-like texture.
Although Neighbor Bakehouse just opened its Dogpatch storefront in January,
Mindel has been part of
San Franciscos pastry
landscape for years. Prior
to starting Neighbor as a
wholesale business in 2012,
he worked stints at Tartine
Bakery, Spruce, and William
Werners defunct Tell Tale
Preserves Co. His blackberry-pistachio croissant is
the culmination of years of
experienceand a testament to the timelessness of
a very good idea. 2343 3RD ST.
$$
With floor-to-ceiling slats of wood, this

sweeping, modern Mexican restaurant
couldnt be more au courant. Former Delfina chef Matt Gandin is cooking, and his
food is beholden neither to tradition nor to
the output of a greasy (if good) taqueria.
Salmon ceviche is sprinkled with sesame
seeds; bok choy makes a debut. But more
representative of the menu are the familystyle dishes cooked on the wood grill, including whole fish served simply with delicious
black beans, grilled green onions, and housemade tortillas. The tincture-driven cocktails are a bit intellectualized but well suited
to sipping on the huge back patio, complete
with a fire pit. (7/12) 2020 SHATTUCK AVE.
(NEAR UNIVERSITY AVE.) 510-926-6300
Easy Creole
LINE ST.), 510-858-5063
$$
New digs, same great duck for this respected

outfit, which reopened two years after it was
scorched by fire. These days, a bar eases the
wait, and the notoriously curt service seems
kinder. The kitchen still serves crowd-pleasers such as kung pao chicken and ant
climbed the treeand then theres the
Peking duck. The piled-high platter of moist
meat and crisp, malty skin remains the reason that this place has die-hard regulars.
(3/14) 2190 BANCROFT WAY (AT FULTON ST.),
510-843-7996
Iyasare
$$$
At his first personal project, chef Shotaro

Kamio (Ozumo, Yoshis) uses a sparkling
new kitchen in the former O Cham space
to cook up refined Japanese fare thats rustic in its simplicity. From Kamios Tohoku
region of Japan, try the fancified okonomiyaki with Dungeness crab, roasted miso
eggplant, and a whole grilled branzino with
cooked salmon roe spilling around it. In an
East-meets-West nod, Ale Industries awardwinning beers are on tap. (2/14) 1830 4TH ST.
(NEAR HEARST AVE.), 510-845-8100
PIQ
$$$
The menu at Oaklands toughest

seat centers on pizza and pasta,
but there are also salt cod fritters, roasted
fennel dusted with bottarga, and a short list
of seasonal, Cal-Med entres (king salmon
with radish agrodolce) to match with a nifty
selection of old-world wines. The space,
with its marble bar and dark wood accents,
is understated but upscale, energized by a
lively open kitchen. Like the other A16s, it
seems like a slam dunk. If the price-to-portion ratio induces sticker shock, youre not
familiar with the neighborhood. (10/13)
HOT
5356 COLLEGE AVE . (NE AR HUDSON ST.),
Duboce Triangle pop-up Easy Creole is now

a quirky 22-seat, counter-service, Louisianainspired restaurant with a no-fry policy
and plentiful vegetarian options. Yes, the
cooks know their audience, but self-respecting meat eaters line up for the likes of spicy
gumbo loaded with shrimp, chicken, and
sausage. With its cheap prices and portraitfilled decor, the joint fulfills its names promise: a painless place for dinner any night of
the week. (7/13) 1761 ALCATRAZ AVE. (AT ADE-
Great China
A16 Rockridge
The fresh sweets and savories arrayed along

this bakery and cafs counter range from
sfogliatelle, shells of pued pastry ribbed
510-768-8003
B-Dama
$$
At this tiny izakaya, plucky chef Chikara

Ono cooks with the energy and purpose of
an artisan released from an assembly line.
His broadly ranging menu progresses from
salads and housho maki, sweet bundles of
seafood in an eggandpickled daikon wrapper, to stewed beef tongue and kakiage,
lightly battered shreds of vegetable tempura
with nuggets of fried seafood. Along the
way, there is yakitori for every yearning
duck breast, scallops, chicken hearts and
tendonsand alcohol for each elapsing
hour: beer to start, sake in the middle, shochu toward the evenings pie-eyed end.
(11/11) 907 WASHINGTON ST. (NEAR 9TH ST.),
510-251-1113
Clove & Hoof
$$
At this butchery and restaurant,

classic sandwiches made with
responsibly raised meat get modern spins:
Pulled pork shoulder, served on a potato
bun with mustard barbecue sauce and pickled jalapeos, updates a smokehouse
standby, while a cheese steak with shaved
turnips and onion confit says, Youre not
in Philly anymore. The grass-fed halfpounder with a side of tallow fries is comfort food for the conscientious. (3/15)
NEW
4001 BROADWAY (NEAR 40TH ST.), OAKLAND,

510-547-1446
Cosecha
*ANNETTE GORTZ
IVAN GRUNDAHL
MIEKO MINTZ
NORIEM
RUNDHOLZ
TRIPPEN
At this counter-service spot, Chez Panisse

trained Dominica Rice-Cisneros gives a
Gourmet Ghetto upgrade to humble fare
like fish tacos. Rice-Cisneross take on
themdelicate fried cod, with jicama slaw,
chipotle crema, and a fiery slice of jalapeo
on topcomes close to transcendent. Ditto
her smoldering black bean soup, with crisp
plantains and latent chili heat, and pork
tortas on thick toasted bread with guajillo
chili sauce: Theyre the rare sandwich worth
(NEAR 20TH ST.)
ISSEY MIYAKE COLLECTIONS:

WOMEN
MEN
BAO BAO
CAULIFLOWER
PLEATS PLEASE
132.5
137
a cross-bridge trip. The location, in opendoor Swans Market, means youre apt to
need a sweater. (3/12) 907 WASHINGTON ST.
(AT 9TH ST.), 510-452-5900
Dopo
$$
The size of the dining room has doubled

since Jon Smulewitz first opened this Italian-inspired spot, but tables have become
only slightly easier to secure. Blame it on
the kitchen, which strives for simplicity and
achieves it beautifully in almost every dish,
including a crudo of halibut brightened with
lemon and mint. The salumi transcend the
trend with supple mortadella and smoky
pimentn, and the thin-crust pizzas have a
well-earned following. But its the pastas
delicate sheets rolled fresh each evening
that truly stand out. Each nights menu
features three, including a masterful lasagna alla napoletana with layers of parmesan and pecorino and an earthy bolognese.
(8/10) 4293 PIEDMONT AVE. (AT ECHO AVE.),
510-652-3676
The Growlers Arms
$$$
A haute take on haggis highlights

the menu at this thoughtful gastropub. Chez Panisse vets Seamus and Shelley Mulhall run the show, and A16 alum
Brian Ventura handles the cooking: a satisfying survey of British and Irish tavern
fare that includes fish pie and Yorkshire
pudding. No one should leave without trying the haggis: The assortment of lamb oal
comes braised, not boiled, and its easy on
the palate even without a whiskey chaser.
(2/15) 4214 PARK BLVD. (NEAR GLENFIELD AVE.),
NEW
510-328-1315
The Half Orange
A big name in his native San

Diego, restaurateur Jay Porter
has started small in Oakland with this
endearing nook near the Fruitvale BART,
a burger shack with a Baja bent. Aside from
ground beef on a bun, the menu makes room
for beer-battered shrimp, spiked with hot
sauce and wrapped in corn tortillas, and
Ensenada-style beef tongue, roasted but
served chilled with almond salsa and guajillo chili jam. Craft beers on tap provide the
lubricationalong with yet another reason
to rely on public transport to get there and
back. (11/14) 3340 E. 12TH ST., STE. 11 (AT 3RD
NEW
AVE.), 510-500-3338
WEST), 510-663-4440
Hawker Fare HH
James Syhabout may hail from

hardscrabble Oakland, but theres
no hiding his polish. Hes the man behind
the elegant Commis, the citys only restaurant to have earned a Michelin star, and he
followed it up with this feisty Asian street
food joint. Rice congee turns up here, with
ginger, garlic, chicken cracklings, and
1,000-year-old eggs. Tom khemstyle pork
is built around pork belly, with pickled mustard greens to cut the meats fatty heft, and
shavings of fennel accentuate the five spices
star anise notes. Rarely do you find such
careful touches in food you shovel quickly
from a bowl. (9/11) 2300 WEBSTER ST. (AT 23RD
ST.), 510-832-8896
$$$
Homestead
$$$
The ever more sophisticated Piedmont Avenue is lucky to have the addition of this rustic charmer from a husband-and-wife team
who once worked at Farallon. The modernfarmhouse menu outlines deft seasonal
dishes. Baked ricotta, with salty lardo and
sweet peaches, gives way to pan-fried gnocchi with white corn and chanterelles, followed by salt-baked halibut in a bath of
hollandaise. All told, the sharp cooking
moves in step with the shifting tastes of the
neighborhood. (10/13) 4029 PIEDMONT AVE.
(NEAR 40TH ST.), 510-420-6962
Kushido
$$
In yet another demonstration of

its burgeoning fashion sense,
Temescal has acquired this cool new izakaya, where the chilled sake flows freely
and chicken hearts sear on the robata grill.
Sashimi? Sure. But better still are the skewered meats (picture any proteinyoull find
it impaled here), robust miso ramen, and
assorted warming small plates that all but
beg for booze. The space is all hard lines,
with a chalkboard menu listing daily specials that change as fast as the neighborhood. (1/15) 4828 TELEGRAPH AVE. (AT 48TH ST.)
NEW
Miss Ollies HH
$$
Barbados-raised chef Sarah Kirnon brings

this counter-service-for-lunch, table-service-for-dinner Afro-Caribbean restaurant
to Old Oakland. Filling a corner of Swans
Market, the space has lofty ceilings, generous windows, and tropical touches. Here,
Kirnon pays homage to her roots, but aligns
those traditions with the Chez Panissey
ethos of her adopted home. You taste it in
the beautiful braised oxtail, black-eyed peas
and collards basking in its fatty runo. The
presence of Kirnons pepper sauce shouldnt
imply that her cooking needs extra kick.
Caribbean cuisine isnt shy about its heat
or its spiciness, and neither is the menu at
Miss Ollies. (4/13) 901 WASHINGTON ST. (AT
Penrose
$$$
At Charlie Hallowells (Pizzaiolo and Boot

and Shoe Service) latest hot spot, woodfueled flames leap in the open kitchenonly
now theyre firing flatbreads instead of pizza,
along with an array of fish, veggies, and
meat. Cal-Med stunners include fried brussels sprouts with honey mustard and a grilled
half chicken thats as good as any bird in
town. Reservations arent taken, but theres
a big bar serving the newfangled cocktails
that youve seen being made by those guys
with muttonchops. (2/14) 3311 GRAND AVE.
(NEAR ELWOOD AVE.), 510-444-1649
Pho Ao Sen
A dingy dining room is rarely a deterrent

for those in need of serious Vietnamese
noodle soup. Yet even the finicky will be
satisfied with this first-rate pho house. Paintings line the walls, pop music plays, and
spring rolls of shrimp, mint, and pork are
NEIGHBAVORE
LOWER PACIFIC HEIGHTS
510-835-5588
Southie
$$
Southie sits next door to Wood Tavern, the

restaurant that begat it, and it puts forth
the same cheerful face for which its parent
is so warmly known. By day: soups, salads,
and sandwiches, including a winning meatball version, and another stued with walnut-studded chicken salad thats too doused
in mayo to be saved. At night: broader, and
better, options. Ricotta crostini with carrots, leeks, and Castelvetrano olives give
way to pulled pork, a mop top of meat over
cheddary polenta, with tomatillo salsa and
an oozing egg. Trued baconandpoached
egg salad, with a frizzy do of frise and
couscous, also stands out. The space is
small, but good vibes swell in surplus. (6/11)
6311 COLLEGE AVE. (NEAR ALCATRAZ AVE.),
510-654-0100
Tamarindo Antojeria
Mexicana
$$
Tequila was intended to be sipped, not

sluggeda fact that Tamarindo recognizes.
Magnificent margaritas, rimmed with chili
salt and splashed with such refreshers as
tamarind pure, share space with straightup one-ounce pours. Chef Gloria Dominguez sticks with small plates that delve into
the layered strata of Mexican cuisine. Scallops sauted with clay-red guajillo chilies
bask atop a bed of avocado relish; a carnitas
torta topped with chili de arbl salsa sets a
fire tempered by a soft Acme baguette. The
biggest draw, however, is the bar: Its where
grown-ups drink while others waste away
in Margaritaville. (10/10) 468 8TH ST. (NEAR
BROADWAY), 510-444-1944
South of the City

Santa Clara
and
San Mateo
$
Housed in what was once a Taco Bell, Bengali Sweets only masquerades as a fast-food
joint. Its actually a palace of slow cooking
where the flavors stand out with unusual
clarity. The mostly vegetarian menu draws
from across India, with chaat-style dishes
from the south and Punjabi specialties, such
as kadhi chawal, fabulous chewy chickpea
dumplings in curried yogurt sauce, from
the north. Service can be languid, but you
can entertain yourself by watching crisp
papdi chaat being made to order in the open
kitchen. (4/10) 5029 MOWRY AVE. (AT BLACOW
RD.), 510-713-0155
MOUNTAIN VIEW
Bushido
THE PICKS:
Pizzeria Delfina
This is a great place for
lunch, particularly the
outdoor patio seating. The
broccoli raab pizza and
insalata tricolore are
my favorites.
2406 CALIFORNIA ST. (NEAR
FILLMORE ST.), 415-440-1189
Out the Door

Its beautiful and
comfortable and great for
brunch, but I also like to go
for lunch. I usually get the
chicken salad, but the spring
rolls and shrimp-and-pork
wonton soup are also good.
2232 BUSH ST. (NEAR FILLMORE
ST.), 415-923-9575
SPQR
FREMONT
Bengali Sweets Chaat Cafe
The expert: Melissa

Perello, chef-owner of
Frances and Octavia
(opening in early April)
$$$
At happy hour in this lighthearted izakaya,

you can snack on such inventions as teriyaki sliders and deconstructed California
rolls. But when dinner rolls around, tradition takes hold. House specials include a
fragile chawan mushi, an egg custard made
The menu here changes

pretty frequently, but
everything is amazing,
especially the pastas. Im
friends with the executive
chef, Matthew Accarrino,
so I come here for dinner
quite often.
1911 FILLMORE ST. (AT WILMOT
ST.), 415-771-7779
Ino Sushi
Im not typically in the mood
for sushi, so I save this place
for special occasions. When
I do go, I usually order the
omakase, and Im never
disappointed.
22 PEACE PLAZA, STE. 510 (NEAR
GEARY BLVD.), 415-922-3121
MICHAEL SUGRUE
If the Lower Haights classic RosamundeToronado night out got a masters degree,
it would probably look something like Hogs
Apothecary, where a meat-heavy menu complements 30 taps of California beer. Cicerone Sayre Piotrkowski pairs the hearty pork
138
510-338-3847
plated with a Jackson Pollock swirl of hot

sauce. You could opt for a rice plate with
grilled shrimp and egg cake or a fiery stew
of cow and pig parts called bun bo hue. But
pho remains the best dish, its broth rich
with beef bone, perfumed with star anise,
and stocked with your choice of tendon,
brisket, flank, or perhaps a combination of
the three. (4/12) 1139 E. 12TH ST. (AT 12TH AVE.),
9TH ST.), 510-285-6188
HOT
Hogs Apothecary
terrine, bacon-wrapped rabbit leg, rotating

housemade sausages, and lard-fried chips
with heady beers like Iron Springs Flashover smoked porter and Craftsmans Triple
White Sage. Most of the beer is shipped
directly from the brewery for maximum
freshness. (12/13) 375 40TH ST. (AT OPAL ST.),
with fish broth that hides treasures like tender shrimp, dark morsels of chicken, edamame, and pieces of fish cake. Expertly
fried panko-crusted oysters are topped with
tonkatsu, and the short list of yakitori
includes chicken hearts and gizzards. The
dessert menu pleases all comers with honey
kasutera cake, a featherlight sponge with
matcha cream filling. (11/10) 156 CASTRO ST.
(NEAR VILLA ST.), 650-386-6821
LOS GATOS
Dio Deka
$$$$
Spirited excess prevails at this purveyor of

Hellenic cuisine, as both the crowds and
price of lamb chops attest. Starters are a
strength, among them roasted red pepper
andpear soup garnished with cilantro and
a streak of almond milk. An artful roastedstrawberryand-beet salad with sheeps milk
custard is one of the chef s modernist musings, but the setting has retained its conservative currents: Masculine and moneyed,
its a fitting backdrop for a beautifully marbled, $79 mesquite-grilled filet mignon.
(1/12) 210 E. MAIN ST. (NEAR FIESTA WAY),
408-354-7700
REDWOOD CITY
Martins West
$$$
The beer list here is a dizzying menu of lagers,

pilsners, IPAs, lambics, porters, stouts, and
witbiers. The kitchen is equally ambitious,
transforming dour Scottish sustenance into
clever dishes that are a spot-on match for
the beers. Theres haggis-on-a-stick, an elegantly puy version of a corn dog, and a brute
of a bone that yields marrow as silky as foie
gras. Buttery lambs-tongue pastrami fills a
soul-satisfying slider. The fragile ale batter
on the fish and chips pleasantly shatters on
contact. Dont forget to ask for bread; youll
get wheat warm from the oven. (5/12) 831
BURLINGAME
Pizzeria Delfina
FORESTVILLE
$$
Wait, Burlingame? When the original location of this beloved pizzeria opened in the
Mission in 2005, no one could have seen
suburbia coming, but here it is. Much of this
third incarnation of the restaurant feels the
same: long lines, great wine, magnificent
pizza. In case youre worried about owners
Craig and Annie Stoll taking the Delfina
brand strip mall, dont be: A menu featuring chilled tripe and fennel with bottarga
shows that theyre not the pandering types.
(3/14) 1444 BURLINGAME AVE. (NEAR PRIMROSE
RD.), 650-288-1041
SAN MATEO
Mayfield Bakery & Cafe
$$$$
LARKSPUR
PARROT DR.), 650-286-0410
COLN VILLAGE CIR.), 415-755-6700
North of the City
SONOMA
Marin
Sonoma
Napa
ST. HELENA
$$$
This airy, country-chic space is an ideal

arena for its safe but thoughtful cooking.
Rotisseries yield beautiful bronzed chickens and perfectly roasted pork loins, plated
in a shallow pool of their own jus, while the
stove tops simmer with dj vu dishes, from
a creamy carrot soup, perfumed with vadouvan, to braised short ribs on a bed of wilted
greens. Service is friendly but forgetful; still,
the coee and desserts give you good reason to linger, even if youre not securing VC
funding over your beignets. (10/11) 855
EL CAMINO REAL (AT EMBARCADERO RD.),
650-853-9200
SAN MATEO
Osteria Coppa
$$$
Chanan Kamen, who worked at Quince,

now plies his Italian chops at this large, likable restaurant. Adept in technique but
unafraid to buck tradition, he dollops orange
crme frache onto Jerusalem artichoke
soup and finishes a bright beet salad with
clouds of avocado mousse. Mainstream
pizza toppings give way to more rebellious
combinations, such as corn, Padrn peppers, feta, and caramelized onions. As for
the artful handmade pastas, some toe the
party line (tagliatelle Bolognese) and others break with convention (eggplant ravioli
in tomato coulis). The setting is ho-hum,
but Kamens steady cooking gives the restaurant character. (2/11) 139 S. B ST. (NEAR
1ST AVE.), 650-579-6021
Head west through Sonoma County, and

fine dining eventually gives way to roadhouses and diners. That is, until you get to
this lovely inn, which lights up a bucolic
stretch of highway. The dining room glows
with polished ease, and Steve Litkes masterful menu skillfully strikes a balance
between comfort and daring, with a lush potde-crme made with local Dungeness crab
and a textbook tartare that bumps the beef
for elk. The service is smooth and relaxed,
and the wine list unexpectedly includes
almost as many bottles from Europe as from
nearby vineyards. (4/12) 7871 RIVER RD. (AT
If ever a Michelin-starred restaurant could

be called a hidden treasure, its this tiny
gem, buried at the far end of a shopping
center. True to tradition, chef Katsuhiro
Yamasakis kaiseki $95 nine-course, prix
fixe menu is a meditation on the seasons,
its delicacies drifting from tempura-crisped
asparagus with shrimp and sea urchin
purses to egg-coated black cod. Grilled sesame tofu gives way to sashimi of Japanese
snapper as the evening builds toward robust
Wagyu beef with sweet tofu pillows. Yamasakis wife, Mayumi, provides all the service
needed for the serene 12-seat room, which
books up a month out. Maybe its not such
a secret after all. (7/12) 115 DE ANZA BLVD. (AT
SF
$$$$
WOHLER RD.), 707-887-3300
Wakuriya
MAIN ST. (AT BROADWAY), 650-366-4366

PALO ALTO
Farmhouse Inn
Bar Terra
$$$
Lissa Doumani and Hiro Sone have converted half of their terrific restaurant Terra
into this relaxed East-meets-West sidekick,
with a bar, uncovered tables, and a kitchen
that operates at perfect pitch. Its laid-back
menu of la carte options crosses continents without a sign of jet lag. Bacalao fritters resemble fried seafood gnocchi, their
crisp coats and creamy centers enlivened
by an aromatic saffron aioli. The shoyu
ramen has the kind of complex broth that
only results from slow and careful cooking.
Pork trotters and jowls come entangled in
the noodles. For dessert, roasted figs in
tangy lebne accompany a beautifully fragile pistachio burma. (12/11) 1345 RAILROAD
AVE. (NEAR HUNT AVE.), 707-963-8931
NAPA
Empire
$$
Not your usual farm-to-fork Napa endeavor,

Empire is complete with a pipe organ bar
and a backlit jellyfish tank. The menu, from
former Charlie Trotters chef Jennifer
Petrusky, trolls the globe from Thailand
(prawns in coconut Thai basil broth) to
Japan (shabu-shabu) to the Middle East
(cauliflower fritters with hummus), and the
lounge-bar vibe continues until the wee
hours. Its a fitting hangout for wine industry types and tourists seeking something
hotter than reclaimed wood and seasonal
vegetables. (7/13) 1400 1ST ST. (AT FRANKLIN
ST.), 707-254-8888
Farmshop
$$$$
Marin Country Mart now has a place to see

and be seen, a local spin-o of Los Angeles
Farmshop. Bejeweled in rope-slung Edison
bulbs, the dining room is wrapped in a blownup black-and-white image of farmers in a
field. Still, one-time Thomas Keller protg
Je Cerciello steals the show in the open
kitchen. The menu is stacked with fresh produce, fire-cooked meats, and pizzas, but desserts (Valrhona budino) and farm-fresh
cocktails (whiskey, kumquat, Chinese bitters) are also worth the indulgence. No wonder the joint has been jammed since day one.
(7/13) 2233 LARKSPUR LANDING CIR. (AT LIN-
Fremont Diner
$$
If Alice Waters had had her culinary awakening in Baton Rouge instead of Brittany,
she might have created the Fremont Diner.
The country-casual spot serves a menu of
Southern classics with ingredients exuberantly sourced from local farms, ranches,
waters, and wineries. Breakfast items include
black pepper brisket hash; lunch means a
Reuben sandwich with house-cured pastrami, chicken and waes, or a chubby, blueribbon burger. For dessert, milkshakes, with
flavors like salted caramel, Ovaltine, and
horchata, steal the show. (1/12) 2698 FREMONT
DR. (AT S. CENTRAL AVE.), 707-938-7370
HEALDSBURG
Mateos Cocina Latina HH
$$
Mateos Cocina Latina is a paean to owner

Mateo Granadoss Yucatn past, sung in a
wine country key. The slow-cooked meats
and long-simmered sauces that anchor
Yucatecan cooking lend themselves nicely
to the pedigreed ingredients and deft preparation here, which underscore the nuances
of the flavors. Cochinita pibil is the most
pressing must-order. The cochinita, or suckling pig, is steeped in vinegar, rouged with
annatto seeds, and slow-roasted in a banana
leaf. The tomate fresca con ahumado
(tequila, tomato juice, lime juice, and pickled white onions) is a world-class ri on a
Bloody Mary. (1/12) 214 HEALDSBURG AVE.
(NEAR MILL ST.), 707-433-1520
MILL VALLEY
Mill Valley Beerworks
$$$
This four-year-old pub recently remodeled,

expanded, and hired a chef from L.A.s chic
Gjelina to execute a new menu, raising its
game from microbrews and snacks to market-driven dinners. Pig cheek with eggplant
relish is the perfect starter, followed by
plump, roasted king oyster mushroom stems
bathed in fennel butter. The roasted wild
king salmon luxuriates with peas and trum-
pet mushrooms. Like the food, the beers are

clean, pristine, and creativeparticularly
the Botanical No. 3. (10/12) 173 THROCKMORTON AVE. (NEAR MADRONA ST.), 415-888-8218
YOUNTVILLE
Redd Wood
$$$
Washington Street could be called the Boulevard of Michelin Stars, but Richard Reddington (of Redd fame) has opened a casual
alternative. Yes, theres charcuterie, small
plates like fried salt cod with harissa, and
generous entres like braised lamb shank
with sweet-pea risotto. But most people
come for the perfectly blistered Neapolitan
pizzas and al dente handmade pastas such
as mint-pea ricotta agnolotti and rabbit
pappardelle, which go quickly. If its nice,
sit outside in the courtyard with a glass from
sommelier William Sherers eccentric wine
list, which hell happily decode for you.
(7/12) 6755 WASHINGTON ST. (NEAR MADISON
ST.), 707-299-5030
OLEMA
Sir and Star HHH
$$$
When chefs Margaret Grad and Daniel

DeLong say local, they mean local. The
menu boasts a neighbors quail, a side of
Mr. Littles mashed potatoes, and a whole
Dungeness crab plucked from the surrounding seas. It may be familiar rustic
California cuisine, but Grad and DeLong
arent dredging up clichs. That the nearest creamery is closer to the restaurant than
the nearest olive oil mill may explain why
butter plays such a strong supporting role.
You taste it in the richness of those mashed
potatoes and in the broth that backs a side
of shelling beans. For dessert, limited
options may include soft-serve vanilla ice
cream with ever-changing toppings or a
semifreddo of Meyer lemons. (8/13) 10000
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE BLVD. (AT STAR ROUTE
ONE), 415-663-1034
NAPA
The Thomas
$$$
Shuttered for nearly 40 years, this former

boardinghouse has been reborn, with its
old bar, Fagianis, on the ground floor and
a restaurant with a raw bar occupying the
two stories above. The menu moves from
teetering seafood towers to contemporary
musings (grilled pork chop with quince aioli;
wild mushroom mousse in a Martha Stewartworthy mason jar) that, like the setting,
seem aimed at invoking past-meets-present
moments: gold rushera California, gone
gourmet. (12/12) 813 MAIN ST. (NEAR 3RD ST.),
707-226-7821
SEBASTOPOL
Vignette Pizzeria
$$
Mark Hopper, a Thomas Keller

ite whose pizza sta meals were
a hit at Bouchon in Las Vegas, brings his
dough-slinging skills to this farmhouse-chic
space in the Barlow complex, where the blistered pies hew to quick-fired tradition but
come in modern permutations (rock shrimp,
chili oil, garlic-herbed breadcrumbs). Starters like roasted brussels sprouts with dates
and garlic provide an expected salute to the
seasons. (11/14) 6750 MCKINLEY ST. (NEAR MOR-
NEW
RIS ST.), 707-861-3897
139
AF F I N I T I E S
Our pictorial study of uniquely Bay Area tribes.
By Lauren Murrow | Photographs by Margo Moritz
The Girls of Grant Avenue

Thank goodness for rolling suitcases, pants Cynthia Yee, 69, wheeling a bag heavily laden with a white tuxedo jacket, fishnet
stockings, feathered hairpieces, high-heeled tap shoes, and various rhinestone-embellished dresses, among other items. The
glittering ensembles are the trappings of the Grant Avenue Follies, a senior dance troupe founded by Yee and three friends in 2003.
They originally met as teenage dancers in the Chinatown nightclub scene, performing at the China Skyroom and Forbidden City
in the 50s; decades later, they reconnected in a tap-dancing class at their local senior center. The groups members are mostly
retired schoolteachers aged 65 to 80; their choreographer, Jean Bruschera, is 83. What they lack in agility, they make up for in oldfashioned razzle-dazzle. We love anything with crystals, rhinestones, or sequins, declares Yee. The Follieswhove performed
at senior homes, veterans halls, and festivals throughout the cityclaim that the key to their vitality is their biweekly rehearsals.
Once we stop, the arthritis will set in, says Yee. She leans in conspiratorially. We also buy cases of Joint Juice from Costco.
TOP ROW, FROM LEFT: Marleen Luke, Irene Lee, Lani Owyoung, Emily Chin, Lillian Poon
BOTTOM ROW, FROM LEFT: Mary Jew, Cynthia Yee, Ivy Tam, Patricia Chin, Avis See-Tho
140
GOT A TRIBE WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT? TELL US AT lmurrow@modernluxury.com
APRIL 2015
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SPECIAL ISSUE

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