Sam Wo Lives (Again)

The late, great Edsel Ford Fung (left), the "world's
rudest waiter," in a gallery photo from the website.

When we first posted on Sam Wo Restaurant 22 years ago, the signs of its demise were unmistakable: the menu was dated, the dishes didn't provide good value, and the decor was on the verge of going to seed. ("If Sam Wo is here 20 years from now, I'll be very surprised.")

Since then Sam Wo went out of business twice--the second time was this January--and its chapter in San Francisco's history appeared closed. To my pleasant surprise, Sam Wo is back:

The century-old establishment, almost certainly the most famous restaurant in Chinatown, reopened its doors in early September under new ownership. There are updates to the menu — more dim sum, including sections for steamed and fried “tapas.” Also, instead of potent Hong Kong-style lemon tea and milk tea, there’s a list of oolongs and pu-erhs from Vital Tea Leaf, available by the pot. Not to fear, the barbecue pork rice noodle roll ($) is still on the menu.

I'll be sure to pick up a T-shirt the next time I go.

Nuances of the Oyster Sauce Market

A sign like "LKK Oyster Sauce - Old" would not seem to be the best way to sell a product...unless one knows the nuances of the oyster sauce market.

Lee Kum Kee has been selling oyster sauce since the 19th century; I remember going with my grandmother to Honolulu's Chinatown in the 1950's and buying a bottle with a picture of the "lady on the boat."

LKK introduced a cheaper, sugary "Panda" brand later in the 20th century, but those of us who grew up with the lady on the bottle much prefer the "old" oyster sauce. Thousands of Asian cooks can't be wrong.

It's Just Offal

The Asian supermarkets in our area are offering a wider variety of offal, i.e., parts of the animal that are not part of the mainstream American diet. (As noted yesterday, even Costco is selling chicken feet.)

99 Ranch has beef aorta, a cut I had never seen, much less eaten, before. I searched for recipes online but found only a couple; Google also helpfully displayed recipes for beef heart, which is quite different from aorta despite their proximity in the animal.

My curiosity is piqued, however. If I ever do see aorta on the menu, I'll give it a try.

It's Over

Sam Wo after hours (Stephen Lam/Chron)

Last month we lamented the imminent demise of San Francisco's Sam Wo restaurant. Alas, there was no white knight:

After 117 years (with a three-year pause during its relocation to 713 Clay Street), the Chinatown institution served its last barbecue pork noodle roll on Sunday...It feels both poignant and fitting that Sam Wo shut its doors just days before the Lunar New Year.

Sam Wo's closure is due to two commonplace factors: changing tastes and the inability of a family operation to find anyone in the next generation(s) with the desire and ability to run the business. The latter was the missing ingredient, because there appeared to be enough sentiment from Chinese-American fans, near and afar, to provide the capital to keep it going.

Sam Wo had a good run, but it's finally over.

Gung Hee Fat Choy

Cute, with big eyes and a smile

Happy New Year! It is the Year of the Snake, which is a symbol of wisdom, intuition, transformation, cunning and stealth. Snakes are also linked to wealth, good luck, and prosperity.

The lunar New Year is the most celebrated holiday in Asia, yet the snake is a difficult animal to make appealing.

It’s the biggest holiday on the calendar, and a time to ring up big sales.

But it’s tough to build a marketing campaign around a coldblooded, sometimes venomous creature with no arms or legs...

The years of the Dog, Sheep and Rabbit offer huggability. The pig has Peppa Pig to lend it cuteness and star power. Even the rat can bask in the reflected glory of Mickey Mouse. Cows have eyelashes.

For designers, the only options are extreme: Present the snake as a different, cuter animal dressed up in a snake outfit. Or go all the way and give the snakes arms, legs or ears. Lose the forked tongue. And definitely tone down the scaliness.

One aspect of the lunar New Year that never seems to go out of style, regardless of one's feelings toward the zodiacal animal, is the receiving of money-filled red envelopes (Cantonese: lai see; Mandarin: hong bao). Now that our elder status has put us on the giving end of the red-paper custom, I have a partial answer to that age-old question: can money buy affection? The answer is yes, if one is content with a superficial, short-lived expression of the same.

Gung Hee Fat Choy!

Sam Wo: The End?

Chef David Ho (Strazzante/Chronicle)

Every month we hear a report of a well-known San Francisco restaurant closing--often these announcements come as a surprise--but Sam Wo's demise has been in the cards for at least a decade. Its closure (for health code violations) occurred in 2012, and it reopened in 2015 at a different address. In 2020 long-time chef and co-owner David Ho, then 65, was feeling the effects of age.

His body is full of aches and pains. He’s scared of catching the coronavirus. Still, he doesn’t want to stop working, despite the pleas of his business partners. Even his daughter has expressed concerns he’s working too hard without a staff to back him up, according to co-owner Steven Lee, who helped resurrect Sam Wo, Chinatown’s oldest restaurant, after it temporarily closed in 2012.

Sam Wo will probably close on December 31st.

A 116-year-old San Francisco Chinatown landmark, Sam Wo Restaurant, is set to close Dec. 31 — potentially for good — as chef and co-owner David Jitong Ho retires and his partners scramble to find a successor.

First opened sometime after the 1906 earthquake by Chinese immigrants, Sam Wo Restaurant became a haunt of the 1950s Beat Generation poets, including Allen Ginsberg, and workplace of the late Edsel Fong, whose colorful personality earned him the title of “world’s rudest waiter” from Chronicle columnist Herb Caen.

Ho, the second generation of his family to helm the restaurant’s kitchen, has been working at Sam Wo since 1981, except for a three-year break starting in 2012 when the restaurant temporarily closed. The 69-year-old said he is exhausted from the years of toil and needs to retire, in part, because of two torn tendons in his arm.

Sam Wo Restaurant was the subject of one of the first posts on this blog in 2003. At that time David Ho had already worked in the kitchen for over 20 years. He deserves a happy and restful retirement.

Chicken Feet

While shopping at 99 Ranch I passed the display of chicken "paws." The price was $5.49 per pound, and no, I didn't buy any.

My paternal grandmother used to get chicken feet free from the Honolulu Chinatown butchers. When one has to feed nine kids, no part of the animal is wasted.

Grandmother had several go-to recipes. What they all had in common was long hours of cooking. The feet are tough and require heat over an extended period to break down the cartilage.

My father never lost his childhood fondness for chicken feet and would always order a dish at dim sum restaurants. Nostalgia can be a powerful motivator.

Not Getting A Head

In traditional Chinese cuisine no part of the animal is wasted. At the barbecue counter in 99 Ranch a roasted pig's head was placed next to the cash register. That's an impulse purchase that you won't find at Safeway or Lucky.

I proceeded to the refrigerated egg section and picked up a six-pack of century eggs for $6.25. They were imported from Taiwan and boasted "no lead added." Good to know.

I threw a couple of chopped eggs into the pork jook that had been simmering for a couple of hours. They would add complexity to what would have been a plain-tasting dish. There will be enough in the pot to last until Sunday.

Getting Ahead

Bay Area Cantonese restaurants sell half or whole chicken and duck. Although traditionalists prefer to carve the fowl themselves, the restaurants will slice it free upon request.

We bought a whole steamed chicken yesterday, and the restaurant cut the chicken and included its head. Not only does it prove to the customer that he received the entire chicken, but many diners still regard the head as a delicacy.

My father and uncles patiently waited for their kids to serve themselves, knowing that the head would remain untouched. Saving the best for last, they sucked the entire appendage, leaving only the beak and pieces of the skull.

I throw the head into the compost pile. That's one tradition that stopped with the previous generation. Sorry, Dad!

Go for It

Cantonese restaurants have a better chance of surviving in Hawaii than in California, where tastes have moved toward dishes favored by the Mandarin-speaking immigration wave from the Mainland and Taiwan.

Modern palates also look askance at the traditionally heavy use of soy, sugar and cornstarch, but I say go for it when you're on vacation. You won't find noodles like this in the hoity-toity Bay Area.

I took home half the dish for tomorrow's consumption. I'm enthusiastic but not crazy.

Happy Year of the Dragon

(Image from X/Year of the Dragon)

Today is the first day of the Lunar Year. Each year is assigned to one of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac; yesterday the Year of the Rabbit ended and today the Year of the Dragon begins.

In Chinese culture there's a belief that an individual takes on the characteristics of the animal of his or her birth year. Dragon babies--like your humble blogger--have an auspicious future.[bold added]

Arriving fifth in the sequence, the dragon is the most potent—and most desired—zodiac symbol. It “catalyzes all the powers of nine animals and is therefore considered very supreme,” says Richard E. Strassberg, an expert on Chinese culture and the author of A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures From the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas. “There [is] an overwhelming mixture of respect and hope in invoking the dragon’s powers.”

When the Year of the Dragon arrives, birth rates in China tend to boom. Many parents believe that a child born during this year, a lucky dragon baby, will be destined for success. Though this perception is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, with parents investing greater resources in their dragon child, the extraordinary expectations surrounding the zodiac creature speak to its deep associations with intelligence, authority and good fortune.

Sharing our good fortune this year

Like everyone else, your humble blogger has had a life of ups and downs, but in all the important ways a life filled with good fortune.

Maybe there was something to this zodiac thing.

Happy Year of the Dragon!

If China and the U.S. are Both Against These People, They Must Be bad

As of March: My nine most recent invitations from LinkedIn

We posted about "pig butchering" earlier:

Scammers involved in this practice, which started as early as 2017 in China, create fake profiles on social media sites or dating sites, connect with victims, build virtual and often romantic relationships, and eventually persuade the victims to transfer over their assets. The scammers themselves came up with the name “pig butchering,” comparing the intensive and long-term process of gaining victims’ trust to raising a pig for slaughter.

I have never connected with any of the attractive Asian women who send me invitations on LinkedIn. Nevertheless, I still get 1-2 requests to connect every week. It's annoying.

China, which was suspected of being one of the sources of the scam, has cracked down on pig butchering:

In recent months, China has unleashed its most aggressive effort to crack down on the proliferation of the scam mills, reaching beyond its territory and netting thousands of people in mass arrests. Its main target is a notorious stretch of its border with Myanmar controlled by narcotics traffickers and warlords.

Five suspects, flanked by Myanmar police,
were turned over to China. (WSJ)

For decades, frontier fiefdoms such as those in Myanmar have been havens for gambling and trafficking of everything from drugs to wildlife to people. Now, they are dens for pig-butchering operations.

The scammers operate out of secretive, dystopian compounds, many of which are run by Chinese fugitives who fled their country to places where it was easier to flout the law. They cheat Chinese citizens out of billions of dollars each year, as well as victims across the globe. The U.S. Treasury Department in September warned Americans about the scams...

For Beijing, it is a significant source of embarrassment that Chinese criminals are at the center of scams ensnaring people the world over, said Jason Tower, Myanmar country director for the United States Institute of Peace, an independent research organization founded by the U.S. Congress that specializes in conflict mitigation.

China is “quite sensitive to the narratives that could potentially emerge,” he said. “These are largely Chinese crime groups which China, for years, did very little to check.”

Although the crooks will regroup and move on to other locales, this effort will save many thousands of people from being scammed in the immediate future.

Florida Woman

Every Asian-American knows this expression:
don't mess with me (WSJ photo)

Kim Ng holds a number of firsts: in 2020 she became the first woman and the first person of East Asian descent to be a general manager of a major league baseball team. Her roster moves helped the Miami Marlins, who have a payroll of $105 million (#22 out of 30, the league average is $165 million), to make the playoffs this year.

Digression: both her parents are of Chinese descent, hence the "East Asian" qualifier. Farhan Zahdi, who is Pakistani-Canadian ("South Asian"), became general manager of the Dodgers in 2014.

Kim Ng upends another stereotype: despite her Asian upbringing and going to the famously quantitative University of Chicago, she eschews analytics in favor of a traditional approach:

The Marlins open the wild-card round against Philadelphia on Tuesday night with a team Ng designed by prioritizing old-school principles such as avoiding strikeouts and the pursuit of higher batting average—ideas that are far from cutting edge in today’s data-driven game...

The question for Ng and the Marlins is if this traditional approach still has a foothold in today’s game. Her tenure as general manager thus far has featured a contradiction: She’s a reluctant symbol of social progress in baseball, but her day-to-day work reflects reverence for another era.

Ng asserts that she is not “new school” nor “old school” in her mentality. She just wants to build a balanced roster, a philosophy that has fallen out of fashion as baseball executives increasingly seek to construct teams made up of extreme outliers.

The Giants didn't make the post-season, and I didn't intend to pay attention to the MLB playoffs. Now I have a rooting interest.

Sam Wo Restaurant: It Lasted Longer Than Expected

At the new location on Clay (Chronicle photo)

We first posted about the Sam Wo Restaurant in 2003, lamented its closure for health and safety reasons in 2012, and lauded its re-opening in a new location in 2015.

However, the 117-year-old Chinatown institution may finally close for good due to reasons familiar to many small family-owned enterprises: the aging of its owners and their inability to find members of a younger generation to run the business.

[David] Ho has run the restaurant for more than 40 years, working long hours in the kitchen by himself during the throes of the pandemic. [Co-owner Steven] Lee said Ho has been talking about retiring for years, but recurring health issues and the impact of the coronavirus accelerated his decision. Ho will stay until the lease is up...

David Ho (with daughter
Julie) looks tired.

Malcolm Yeung, executive director of the Chinatown Community Development Center, said a closure would be a major historical loss for the neighborhood.

“Sam Wo is a legacy business,” he said. “So Sam Wo closing means that Chinatown will lose a little piece of what makes Chinatown ‘Chinatown.’ ”

To Yeung, the news is not necessarily a reflection of a struggling Chinatown, but rather a “bigger existential crisis for our community” — the lack of a next generation willing and able to continue longtime restaurants. (Neither of Ho’s children, despite working at the restaurant, will take over the business.)

Sam Wo meant more to my father, who passed through San Francisco during the War, but I'll be sad to see it go, too.

Pig Butchering on LinkedIn

My nine most recent invitations from LinkedIn

Lately I've been receiving regular invitations to connect on LinkedIn. None of these individuals are known to me, nor do we have any shared organizations (schools, businesses) in our histories.

They do have attributes in common with each other: young, female, attractive, and Asian, mostly Chinese and Chinese-American. Yes, these are honey traps. [bold added]

The profile of “Mai Linzheng” is actually one of the millions of fraudulent pages set up on LinkedIn to lure users into scams, often involving cryptocurrency investments and targeting people of Chinese descent all over the world. Scammers like Mai claim affiliation with prestigious schools and companies to boost their credibility before connecting with other users, building a relationship, and laying a financial trap...

This wasn’t the first time [Financial Times columnist Jeff] Li had noticed what he thought were fake LinkedIn accounts. Starting in late 2021, he says, he started seeing profiles with less than a few dozen connections—rare for real LinkedIn users—and with profile photos that were always good-looking men and women, likely stolen from other websites. Most appeared to be of Chinese ethnicity and to live in the United States or Canada.

Scammers involved in this practice, which started as early as 2017 in China, create fake profiles on social media sites or dating sites, connect with victims, build virtual and often romantic relationships, and eventually persuade the victims to transfer over their assets. The scammers themselves came up with the name “pig butchering,” comparing the intensive and long-term process of gaining victims’ trust to raising a pig for slaughter.

Guys, know yourself: if a pretty girl strikes up a conversation with you, it's not because she's interested in a romantic relationship. The saying on Wall Street applies to social media: "Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered."

Family Dinner

You know you're getting old when you want to sit at the kids' table.

Being in their 20's and 30's, my nephews and nieces aren't "kids" any more, but I often think of the no-longer-little darlings that way. Their table certainly had more energy than ours.

On our table the brothers and their wives discussed retirement, medical issues, investments, taxes, and, of course, Mom.

We packed up a plate of leftovers to bring to her. Earlier in the day Mom had requested steak for tomorrow. I'll grill a small piece for her and throw it in with the chicken, noodles and duck. I'd be surprised if she eats half of what I'll bring her, but since, without her, none of us would be here, no request is too small.

Kung Hee Fat Choy

Mirroring Foster City's demography, about 20% of the local Episcopal church's membership consists of people with Chinese ancestry.

And so it was that a lunch celebrating Chinese New Year was held after the service.

The liturgical calendar says the seasonal color is green, but for one day the walls were adorned with red posters and signs.

The table groaned with chicken salad, desserts, and six different kinds of dumplings. I managed to limit myself to one plate, knowing that later that day many calories would be ingested watching the NFL playoffs.

Before the games started we made calls to elderly relatives--more important than calling them on Thansgiving or Christmas--and wished them a new year filled with health, happiness, companionship, and love.

By early evening the 49ers had defeated the Dallas Cowboys, 19-12, an auspicious beginning to the Year of the Rabbit.

Happy New Year!

Successful Excursion

Ho Tai Printing (723 Clay) is across the
street from Portsmouth Square

Red envelopes are widely available for Chinese New Year (January 22, 2023)--Amazon has new year lai si--but a relative from Hawaii wanted some with her family surname.

Ho Tai Printing has red envelopes pre-printed with dozens of common family names, and so it was that we headed to San Francisco's Chinatown to browse its wares.

Traffic on 101 North was moderate to light in the early afternoon, not yet equal to pre-pandemic levels.

It had been three years since we had been to Chinatown. Parking at the Portsmouth Square garage, we used to find it difficult to snag a space, but today there were plenty on the lowest level.

The print shop had an ample supply of envelopes with the name we were looking for. (We didn't see any of ours--the clerk said they had run out.)

In previous years we might have done some shopping. However, with many boarded-up storefronts San Francisco had lost its appeal.

It had already been a successful excursion, and unfortunate things usually happen when we press our luck for more.

Don't go for a home run and be satisfied with a single---sounds like a good motto for 2023.

Attack on Councilman "Tied to His Ethnicity"

Millbrae City Councilman Anders Fung and his family were physically attacked over the weekend: [bold added]

Sutro Baths

A Millbrae City Council member enjoying a Saturday afternoon walk with his family near San Francisco’s Cliff House said he suffered a head gash and neck injury when assailants flung a concrete block down at him.

“We went out to Lands End for a little family hiking; it’s a beautiful place,” Anders Fung said in an interview Sunday evening. “Then this big concrete block landed on my head and I instantly fell to the ground.”

The attack occurred as Fung and his wife and two children were heading down a steep trail to the ruins of Sutro Baths at Lands End. The injuries included a two-inch gash on the top of his head.

"Two young men in hoodies" (Facebook)

At first the councilman thought it was an accident, but other smaller objects followed. His wife saw what Fung in a Facebook post described as two “young men in hoodies.”

“When my family confronted the perpetrators demanding them to stop, one of them gave my family an obscene hand gesture,” Fung wrote.

They then ran off. Fung said he had no doubt the assault was racially-motivated.

After the family recounted details of the assault to U.S. Park Police Fung was taken by San Francisco fire fighters to the emergency room of California Pacific Medical Center. In addition the head injury, which doctors closed with a half-dozen metal stitches, Fung wrote that his injuries included “a cervical disc herniation around my neck.”

The Chronicle didn't print the above photo which was posted to Anders Fung's Facebook page, nor did it publish additional details of the suspects' appearance or speech patterns, which could easily be obtained from interviewing the Fung family.

Maybe the reasons are innocuous, or maybe the suspects don't fit the narrative of those who commit hate crimes.

Landing Ritual

My brother and I resumed our habit of stopping at the Mini Garden restaurant on the way home from the Honolulu airport. Except for the masked waitress, there were no signs of the reason that we had not been able to visit for nearly three years.

My brother usually orders a tendon dish

The three other parties--one a table of ten--all were engaged in animated conversations with nary a face covering in sight.

The menu prices were significantly higher; it cost $41 for two lunches plus one take-out to bring to Mom later.

I gave the waitress $50, and she asked if I wanted change. I had been thinking about leaving her all of it, but that presumptuous question quelled my generosity. Two dollars were removed from the nine on general principle.

The ingredients were fresh, the food was hot, and the ambience was good. Mini Garden after the airport is one ritual we'll keep intact.