Everything I Ate In San Francisco After A More Than 2 Year Absence

It's been an extremely rough period, so it was nice to get away last month for a 3+ day visit to San Francisco to catch up on some of the new Chinese restaurants that have opened up since the Spring of 2023.  Flying up on a Tuesday morning, my logical starting point would be Millbrae.  But I was surprised to discover than a goodly portion of the Chinese restaurants, particularly the dim sum houses, were closed on Tuesdays.   Interestingly, Google Maps did not send me down US 101 for the short drive from SFO to the main restaurant areas, but rather through the residential areas of San Bruno, which I found very interesting.  

 

Fortunately, one of the three new dim sum restaurants in Millbrae, Yan Peninsula, was open.  Looking for menu items not found in the Los Angeles area, I ended up with carrot buns, reminiscent of a jelly roll.

 

As well as ginger paste, which I expected to be the reddish glutinous rice cake you see during Chinese New Year, but these certainly weren't red.   The big surprise was that even here at a second tier Bay Area dim sum restaurant I found a more interesting menu than anything back in Los Angeles.

 

While typically for me Chinese food in San Francisco Chinatown is secondary to me since this is not the home of really outstanding restaurants, there were so many new restaurants open here since my last visit that I was looking forward to eating at several restaurants.  First up was Rice Roll Express on Stockton St.  At first it seemed disappointing since for a restaurant specializing in cheung fun they didn't have that many varieities.

 

But as things turned out Rice Roll Express had an interesting concept in many respects. Beef cheung fun comes with your choice of embedded greens. Meanwhile, when your plate of whatever cheung fun you ordered comes out, you go to a condiments table (like at a hotpot or Guilin noodle place) with soy sauce (sweet or jalapeño), chili oil, Sriracha, and yes, peanut butter, as you choose. Except for the soy sauce, I never dreamed of such toppings on cheung fun. And true to the “express” in the restaurant name, your number is called quickly after you order.

At this point I was ready for a nice drink so it was over to the Bruce Lee themed Enter The Cafe over on Broadway.  

  The hawthorne yogurt smoothie hit the spot!

 

However for dinner I was bedeviled by the same problem as in Millbrae--many of my target restaurants were closed on Tuesday.  I actually returned to my room after my first unsuccessful foray, and was planning to wait a while when I checked the internet to find out that Today Food on Kearny Street would be closing within the hour.  So I made a mad dash and got these organic chicken dumplings, the first dumplings I ever ate so labeled.

 

And on the opposite corner a bonus.  V Cafe was also open and their chicken steak was best in class!

 

Skipping breakfast Wednesday morning, I started off the day with a bitter melon smoothie at Imperial Fruit on Grant Ave.  Was as good as it sounds.

 

Then I headed over to the new 606 SF replacing the venerable New Sun Hong Kong (but sort of related) for their salt and pepper fish.

 

Meanwhile two more Taishan restaurants opened up since my last visit.  I went to Taishan Specialty on Stockton St. for purple potato sesame balls.

 

And after eating and resting for a while it was over to Sacramento Street for a sparkling lichee drink at Ti Bear, the new Chinatown branch of a tea parlor adjacent to the UC Berkeley campus. 

 

For dinner it was over to the Richmond District and Bao Bao Dumpling, a newly opened Shanghai style restaurant on Geary St.

Can't go to a Shanghai dumpling place with xiaolongbao.

 Honey glazed vegetarian chicken.

 Shanghai soup

 Tofu eggplant.

 

Taking the scenic way back to Chinatown, I decided to drive down Clement St., being quite surprised that a lot of the eateries were closed by 7pm.  However I had to stop when I saw Mamahuhu, Brandon Jew's ode to Chinese American takeout food.   The fried chicken sandwich with hawthorn sauce on a pineapple bun was excellent.

 

Thursday it was both breakfast and lunch in Millbrae.  Breakfast was at Laka Spicy on Broadway, which served an odd mix of Sichuan, Cantonese and miscellaneous food.  Like this spam musubi.

 

Or this bean thread salad

 Or Chinese breakfast crullers.

 

I went straight from Laka Spicy and made the two block trek for lunch at Hong Kong Palace on El Camino Real.  What a meal.  Hong Kong Palace is definitely second tier in the Bay Area, but it's clearly better than anything in the San Gabriel Valley.  Not sure where to start--maybe the mugwort peanut coconut buns.

 Crispy pork cookies

 Black sticky rice mochi lava balls

 Deep fried egg puffs

 Crispy baked bbq pork buns

 Bunny shrimp

 Fried green tea balls

Piggy custard balls

 

Eggplant

 Crispy pork

This visit was a real revelation.  I knew there were a dozen or more dim sum restaurants in the Bay Area better than whatever might be the best in the San Gabriel Valley.  But to find another one which is clearly not considered a topflight dim sum restaurant up here, and clearly better than anything in Los Angeles was shocking.  And how many more like these might there be in the Bay Area?

 

Of course after back to back meals in Millbrae, I didn't think about dinner.  But dinner time did come and I did think about dinner.  And actually I went out early for dinner in hopes of finding space at one of my target restaurants for which reservations are not generally available.  Sure enough, Empress by Boon had space in the lounge area, which had the advantage of being able to order individual items off the tasting menu,  so I went there. 

This is the $18 jasmine infused rib sandwich.

 And the ginger noodles were also $18.

 I jokingly mentioned to the bartender/server that I was the world's oldest influencer, and darn if he didn't comp me this lantern luau cocktail.  I presume an Instagram posting was the implied quid pro quo, so I did my part.

 

 On my way back to my room I had to stop by the oddly named Spicy & Cloudy on Clay St. which had been closed the previous two days.  I ordered something called crab puffs, but alas they were merely fancy versions of crab rangoon.  Not bad though.

 

 Friday was getaway day and originally I was planning to take it slow.  However on Thursday I realized that the Louie Dim Sum on Stockton near Broadway was now a House of Dim Sum branch.  Furthermore, the House of Dim Sum was full to the gills the times I walked by.  I also noticed that they apparently opened at 6:45am.  So I decided that if I happened to wake up early I'd go down there to beat the crowd.  In fact I woke up a little after 7 am and headed straight there, indeed beating the crowds.  Of course they didn't have much food either, but they did have baked bbq pork buns, which is what I probably would have ordered anyway.

 

Also at this point I was starting to sour on San Francisco.  Not the food, of course, but driving back to the Royal Pacific in Chinatown was such a hassle, both with traffic once you got back into the city, and then trying to find a parking space at the Royal Pacific, even though you were guaranteed free parking.  Likewise maneuvering around SFO both on foot and by car was also not fun.   So quickly before checking out of the Royal Pacific, I made stops at my last two Chinatown targets.

The final Taishan restaurant branch, Taishan Taste Dim Sum on Powell Street for a full cilantro cheung fun.

And then to Sum Dim Sum at the historic corner of Grant Ave. and California St., home of the historic Chinatown McDonald's restaurant for chicken dumplings.

 
 

 

Now with the mindset that I might not be back to San Francisco again for quite a while, I searched my memory for places which I never got around to trying, and I came up with one--Night Market in South San Francisco.  I remember when it opened pre-COVID that this was an exciting sounding restaurant which was written up in the San Francisco newspapers as uniquely replicating the atmosphere of an Asian night market.  I hadn't heard anything about it lately, but I decided to look it up, and it was still in business.  So I made it my last stop before the short hop over to SFO.  But when I got there was I disappointed.  I assumed it was located in a busy shopping district, maybe a large shopping center with other eateries.  But no, it was all by itself in an industrial area!

 Oh well.  At least they were open and I could scratch it off my list.  I ended up with this interesting fried tofu sandwich.

 

But then I looked across the street and I saw Hung To Seafood restaurant, which I actually recognized as being a third tier dim sum restaurant in South San Francisco.  And even they had dim sum that you don't see in Los Angeles, like this lotus and shrimp meatball.

 And how about this deep fried har gow?

 

 I mean if a local neighborhood dim sum restaurant has stuff like this, what am I missing in the dim sum restaurants that I haven't visited throughout the Bay Area from Redwood City to Union City to Fremont to San Leandro to Alameda to Emeryville to Belmont to Castro Valley and points in between?  So quickly my thinking changed on the spot.  I have to see what other dim sum there is throughout the Bay Area.  I'll just skip the city of San Francisco altogether.

 

Is The Best Chinese Food In the San Gabriel Valley in the City of Walnut?

One San Gabriel Valley city which I really haven't mentioned much in writing is Walnut.  If you've read about my description of the decades long eastward march of Chinese residents and Chinese food starting from Monterey Park in the 1960s, I jump from Rowland Heights to Diamond Bar, without particular mention of Walnut.  That's because Walnut, a relatively small city, is immediately adjacent to Rowland Heights and indeed its history is related to the Rowland family.  As such, I've always treated it as an extension of Rowland Heights.   But in many ways, Walnut is distinct from Rowland Heights, a few miles removed from the main thoroughfares of Rowland Heights and Industry, and I would suspect that its restaurants draw more locally than those in Rowland Heights or even Diamond Bar.  And I know that traveling to Walnut is an unusual occurrence for me.  In fact I hadn't been to Walnut since before COVID when I was invited to lunch at Sunny Dumpling House in Walnut.  I was well acquainted with their locations in Rowland Heights and Lake Forest, and was intrigued by their first sit down location with a wider menu.  

 

The strip mall exterior of Sunny Dumpling belied a nicely decorated restaurant.

 

But the food was the attraction.  Starting out with baskets of regular pork and pork with shrimp xiaolongbao, all I could say was wow.

 

Best flavor ever in an XLB, particularly the rich broth.  Skin was on the thick side while I prefer it thinner, but certainly no complaints.

The beef rolls were also best in class with an extra crisp to them.

 

And then something that we had never seen before, a dish described on the menu as crispy crunchy beef with tofu, containing small toasty soybeans.  Later discovered it was a Sichuan dish called zha zha beef.  A great new dish for me!

 

 As I was leaving the shopping center, I noticed a banner on a restaurant which contained the word "shocking" which you never hear when talking about restaurants.

 

Well, I wouldn't call $11.99 per pound for hotpot shocking, but that was a good enough deal.  Of course I was full from my meal at Sunny Dumpling, but I made a note to return to try this hotpot as soon as possible.  When I did, I saw their selection, and they had all of my favorite items, so I loaded up with over 2 pounds worth!

 

It took several minutes for them to cook my hotpot selection, but in the end it was worth it.

As good as any hotpot broth I've eaten.  And with all my favorite ingredients.  What more could I ask for?  Well, it'd be nice if it were 25 miles closer to me.

But wait, there's more!  Most of the Walnut Chinese restaurants that I had eaten at pre-COVID had turned over.  So I needed to check out some more of them.  At Picnic Time Cafe, I encountered a most interesting combination of breaded chicken cutlet and Shanghai fried noodles.  I'm presuming this is a Taiwanese restaurant and the chicken was the best I've tasted.

 

Meanwhile in the same shopping center at Fu Restaurant, the absolute best fish dumplings ever, with an unbeatable combination of wrapper and filling.

 

And yet another restaurant in the same center on Amar Road, Hong Kong Cafe, a wonderfully crisp curry beef tarts.

 

And around the corner, a great fresh fruit boba parlor, Goomo Tea House.  This is their peach smoothie.  And this shopping center might be the boba capital of the San Gabriel Valley as there are three different boba spots in the span of 10 storefronts!

 

And worth noting from prior visits, the unique Liu and Sun Enterprises is still in business with a rotating daily menu for dishes costing $10.50 each.

Since the offerings rotate daily, the menu looks like this.  Possibly the best bargain in the San Gabriel Valley.

 

So does Walnut have the best Chinese food in the San Gabriel Valley (putting aside the fact that going back a few decades I remember Walnut as being described in the Walnut Valley, though now it is counted today as an SGV community)?  Probably not, because there aren't enough Chinese restaurants in town to make a broad statement.  But on an average per restaurant rating, quite possibly.

 

 

 

West Covina Becoming A Haven For Chinese Food

While West Covina is clearly one of the major communities of the San Gabriel Valley, it has not been a center for authentic Chinese dining because of a smaller Chinese resident population than other San Gabriel Valley cities.  This was because as the Chinese community spread out eastward from it's arrival in Monterey Park in the 1960s, spilling into cities like Alhambra, Rosemead, San Gabriel and Arcadia, it then started leapfrogging over infill areas into newly constructed residential communities such as Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights, Walnut, Diamond Bar and Chino Hills.  However, as these new communities became more and more distant, the existing communities in the San Gabriel Valley that had been hopscotched over in favor of new construction began attracting Chinese residents not willing to travel so far.  So a little over 20 years ago, West Covina had obtained a sufficient critical mass of Chinese residents to support a large Chinese supermarket, Hong Kong Supermarket, which developed a Chinese centric shopping center, Hong Kong Plaza, that included numerous Chinese restaurants.  And as the new residential communities started to be developed in more and more distant parts of the Inland Empire, the Chinese infill accelerated, with quality Chinese restaurants like LAN Noodles and Thumbling opening up.

But now, Chinese food has taken a great leap forward with the open of a Haven City Market in the former food court area of Hong Kong Plaza, containing over two dozen Chinese and other mostly Asian eateries into the fading food court area.   I have previously written about the Haven City Market in Rancho Cucamonga and was surprised to hear about their venture into the San Gabriel Valley.

 

The interior of the food court, formerly highlighted by Indonesian restaurants, had been smartly remodeled.

 

One thing about the Rancho Cucamonga Haven City Market is that they brought in a lot of new vendors, rather than just having new branches of old restaurants.  Indeed they have gone further in West Covina in bringing in eateries from far away.  This is the first branch of Taiwan's Fat Daddy American Fried Chicken.  Except that the name is merely Fat Daddy Fried Chicken, since back in Taipei they aren't really serving American fried chicken, but a version of Taiwanese fried chicken which is marinated in milk.

 

Fat Daddy is iconic in Taiwan, but I passed on eating it because it is rather pricey, with the smallest three piece order costing about $10.  However, I was intrigued by their deep fried okra balls, which were quite good.

 

Besides bringing Fat Daddy in from the Far East, they also brought in a business from the closer east, Brooklyn, New York to be specific, boba vendor Partea NYC.  But I’m not sure what’s the point here. My drink wasn’t anything unusual. If there’s one thing that distinguishes Partea from the run of the mill boba shop, it’s a shorter list of drinks (though apparently they sometimes serve alcoholic boba but that wasn’t an available choice when I ordered. Plus the alcoholic version is not available in their original Brooklyn location.). The shorter drink menu, however, couples with a bigger selection of edibles, including chicken sandwiches and short ribs. In reality this is a Taiwanese snack shop that sells drinks on the side.

 

At Taipei OG Noodle Shop, I had the most unusual bowl of chicken noodle soup ever.  I mean when do you see chicken noodle soup in a brown broth?

 

 At Cr8zy Bao, a mild mannered looking mantou bun is something wild and crazy.

 

It's pizza bao!

 

Golden Roast has the best Chinese roast meats in the area.

 But its extremely short list of entrees contains this gem, stir fried pepper beef udon.

 

And an interesting visit to Baoshutang.

 

I first noticed their pure fruit smoothies, a little expensive at $7.75, but for fruit, rather than syrup, certainly worth it.  Was I surprised when they gave me two drinks for that price! 

More significantly, this seems to be another one of the new style Hong Kong Cafes with a Taishan/Cantonese Mainland bent.  This is defined as much as what's not on the menu, as dishes customarily found on historic Hong Kong style cafes aren't there, as much as what is on the menu, in what may be described as country or rustic dishes, particularly with innards.  But purists, or maybe just because they're old fashioned, are upset that these are described as Hong Kong Cafes.

 

Chinese Street Food Comes To The San Gabriel Valley

When traveling abroad, many destinations are well known for their street food, including China, Taiwan and other parts of Asia.  Many types of Chinese street food are found in the San Gabriel Valley but typically are found in sit down Chinese restaurants.  Unlike the Chinatowns of New York, food carts just aren't seen on the street corners of the San Gabriel Valley, though occasionally one might find a small snack cart operating in front of a Chinese supermarket.

So it was surprising for me to find a Chinese food cart operating on a side street in Rowland Heights, within view of busy Colima Road, Yu Ji Stone Mill Chinese Crepes.

 

But Yu Ji Stone Mill Chinese Crepes is not a haphazard or fly by night operation.  In some ways it has the trappings of a formal restaurant.  It is listed in Yelp, showing a fixed location and fixed business hours, with bags with their name and location.

  

Yu Ji Stone Mill Chinese Crepes is a one trick pony in that they serve only one dish, their jian bing.  Yes, they do have a menu, but all it really does is list the ingredients of their crepe.  You can adjust the spice level or delete a listed ingredient.

 

There's just one person with one grill, taking about 5 minutes to cook, so you'll have to wait if there's a line.

 

On the other hand, watching the gal (or her husband) make each crepe one at a time from scratch is an interesting show.

 

And in the end it's worth the wait.

 

The cart is parked at 1648 Jellick Ave. in Rowland Heights. 

One Music Video Screen Shot Tells A Thousand Tales

While this blog primarily deals with Chinese American food topics, I do occasionally go off topic with sports related topics.  Another interest of mine is pop music, starting from the mid-1950s when I was a little tyke, lasting all the way until about 10 years ago, when I finally lost connection with the music of the day.  But I do have nearly 4,000 music videos on my computers, dating from the mid-1950s until about 2010.

My first, and perhaps only posting on music videos was triggered by this screen capture I took of a song called Beach Baby by the singing group First Class from 1974.  And while there may not actually be a thousand interesting tales derived from this picture, there are what I consider to be a number of different intriguing storylines.

 

The premise of the song Beach Baby is a look back at the Los Angeles surf culture of the 1960s, with an infectious song talking about the days in "old LA" at the beach, in musical harmony reminiscent of the Beach Boys or Jan and Dean.  Of course, since MTV didn't popularize music videos until 1980, and it took a while for clips of pre-manufactured music videos songs to get into circulation, I didn't see the video performance of Beach Baby until the mid-1990s, and the singers certainly could have passed for surfer dudes a decade later.  So, it was to my shock to find out that First Class was a British vocal group, and it's possible that none of them had ever been to California in their lives.

All of which explains the T-shirt worn by the lead singer.  Upon first glance it appears to say University of California, but looking closer it only says "University California," which makes no sense.  Plus the school colors of the University of California are blue and gold, not black and white.  Note that while these days, school and team paraphernalia may come in other than official colors, something like that would never had existed in 1974.  Needless to say, shirts of this design have probably never been seen anywhere in California.

And speaking of the lead singer, it turns out he actually didn't sing the song Beach Baby in the recording itself.  Rather the song was recorded by a studio group, and when the song became a hit, a live version of the group was needed to do tours and television show appearances.  So a bunch of guys were hired to lip sync the song.  The real lead singer on the record was a guy named Tony Burrows.

And speaking of Tony Burrows, he has the distinction of being the only recording artist to be a one hit wonder five different times.  That's because he was lead singer for five different alleged recording groups, singing also "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes," for Edison Lighthouse; "United We Stand" for Brotherhood of Man; "Gimme Dat Ding" for the Pipkins; and "My Baby Loves Lovin" for White Plains.  I remember all those songs in the 1970s, and had now idea at the time that they were studio groups and all had the same lead singer.

So indeed a music video screen shot is at least worth a thousand words.

 

 

In Memory of Mrs. Chandavkl

Given June 24, 2025 at St. Bridget's Chinese Catholic Church in Los Angeles.

On behalf of myself, Eric, Christina and the rest of our family I want to thank you for taking the time to be with us.  Mary Anne Chan was born in Gim Gong village in Toishan, China. As you can see, the program indicates she was born on November 22, 1949.  But that’s incorrect.  Mary actually has three birth dates and November 22, 1949 is not the correct one, though it is the one we observed.  What happened is that she was born on the 22nd day of the 11th month of the Chinese calendar  for the Chinese year of the ox which began in the western calendar year 1949.  But as you know the Chinese new year starts a few weeks after January 1.  So about 10 years ago when applying Mary for Medicare I figured out that she was actually born on January 10, 1950.   But those few weeks made a big difference as it made Mary a child of the 1950s instead of the 1940s.  Oh, and the third birth date?  Well for some reason when Mary’s family came to the United States her dad registered her birth date as November 22, 1950.  We know where November 22 came from, while 1950 was the calendar year in which she was born.  And that was a big deal, as Mary started school a year late and we had some splainin to do when Mary applied for Medicare.

Not only did Mary have three birth dates, but she also had three different names.  In addition to Mary, she was known to many by her Chinese name Chelmoon.  And the third one?  Father Pong, you’ll like this. Before she was born her parents chose an English name for their upcoming baby.  Given that they already had two daughters, they decided on the name Peter, hoping to increase their chances of getting a boy.  Well that didn’t work out.  Fortunately baby James came along a couple of years later and Mary could be Mary. 

Mary moved to Hong Kong for a short while before coming to the United States.  She didn’t remember much of her stay there, but she did have one distinct memory.  She remembers being in a classroom and being reprimanded by her teacher in school.  She responded by giving the teacher a swift kick.  Like who do you think you are to scold me?

In 1955 the Chan family moved to the United States. At that time very few Chinese were able to migrate to the United States without already having family here because of the restrictive immigration laws but they were granted entry as refugees.  Their destination was Chicago where fellow villagers had established themselves.  But first they landed in San Francisco, which was cold and damp.  Mary’s mother decided that if San Francisco was this unpleasant, she sure didn’t want to go to Chicago.  So they detoured down Highway 101 and headed to Los Angeles.   

They soon settled in Los Angeles in East Hollywood on Burns Ave. which became the family homestead for over 60 years.  Mary attended Immaculate Heart of Mary elementary school for 8 years, then transferring to public school at King Junior High School for 9th grade, meaning she had graduations in back to back years.  She then attended Marshall High School, UCLA and Cal State Los Angeles, becoming an elementary school teacher for 38 years.  A strict teacher, she consistently turned rowdy little kids into obedient little soldiers, though her methods probably not be approved today.  Mary was such an outstanding teacher that parents asked that their children be placed in her class.  Mary was a certified bilingual teacher—in Spanish--and taught in Spanish for many years. She also stunned innumerable Spanish speaking gardeners and workers with her fluency in the language.  Her students also loved her for being such a good teacher.  I can’t tell you how many times we went out shopping and former students and parents would recognize her and warmly greet her, even in West Los Angeles.

Mary and I were married in 1980 technically making her Mary Chan Chan and saving her the trouble of getting a new driver’s license.  This past Saturday would have been our 45th anniversary.  We have two wonderful children, Eric and Christina and three lovable grandchildren, both chronologically and alphabetically, Eli, Jemma and Jordan. 

Mary was an accomplished world traveler, having been to almost 60 countries, more than I’ve been to because sometimes she went without me.  Mary visited New York City 25 times and indeed her favorite department store, Century 21 was located there.  Mary was an excellent cook, but hated cooking because it was too time consuming because she had to get it just right.  She was very knowledgeable about Chinese food and found it laughable that people would ask me about Chinese food.  She also enjoyed dancing, sewing, watching movies, and in her retirement years, learning Mandarin Chinese. 

Mary loved coming to St. Bridget Church because she always felt it was so welcoming.  That being the case you might be wondering  why you didn’t see her here more often over the years.   Truthfully, she actually planned to come here most every Sunday.  But quite often she didn’t get up in time and ended up down the hill from our house.   And Mary was a champion slowpoke, so even when she got up in time, by the time she was ready it was already 11:15am.  And when she did come that’s why you often saw her sitting in the back row. 

In her retirement years, she also enjoyed what I referred to as her periodic gang meetings.  Mary was a member of three gangs, a St. Bridget’s gang, a Lockwood Elementary School retired teachers gang, and her cousins gang, where they would go out periodically  on weekdays for lunch, usually in the San Gabriel Valley.   She was enjoying these get-togethers until just recently.

I met Mary in 1970 at UCLA.   She was a freshman and I was finishing up my masters degree in accounting.   That probably doesn’t make much sense to you since I’m only a year and a half older than Mary.  But between Mary’s redshirt year before starting school and my skipping a year and a half of elementary school, I ended up four grades ahead of her.  

Mary and I met at a meeting of the UCLA Chinese club.  Again that might sound funny.  I mean isn’t UCLA just one big Chinese club?  Well maybe now, but not 55 years ago when there were relatively few Chinese students at UCLA.  Back then there were only 20,000 Chinese in Los Angeles.  Now it seems like there are 20,000 Chinese on the UCLA campus. 

Mary went to the meeting because her mom told her to, as she wanted Mary to have Chinese friends.  For me it was quite a different story.  I had spent four undergraduate years at UCLA without having Chinese friends and not even noticing it.  But in my very last quarter I took the first Asian American studies class ever offered.  That was so long ago the name of the class was Orientals in America.  Mary’s cousin Barbara was in the same class.   Anyway I was so fascinated by the fact that Chinese Americans had their own history my entire outlook changed.  So when I got a flyer inviting me to a meeting of the Chinese club I showed up.  And there was Mary.    

We really didn’t become good friends at UCLA because she transferred out of UCLA at the end of the school year.  The highlight was probably our scheduled first date to go bowling at the UCLA bowling alley, which was cancelled when at 6am the 6.6 magnitude Sylmar earthquake hit and closed the campus.   We did keep in contact for a little while after she left UCLA.   But her mom severely restricted her telephone access.  So for a while we corresponded with each other, exchanging cards, letters and the like.  Once I made up a small book of recipes typing, stapling and sending it to her. Now mind you back then my idea of a recipe was to cook my noodles in a pot of Campbell soup.  Of course it’s hard to keep up with someone via mail and we lost contact.   

Fast forward to early 1978.  What I subsequently learned being married to her was that a few years of radio silence never stopped Mary from looking up former friends and acquaintances.  So one evening Mary’s going through some junk and sees the David Chan Campbell soup cookbook.  Whatever happened to that crazy guy?  She finds my old number and decides to dial—but if a woman answers she would hang up.  Meanwhile I had just bought a house but hadn’t moved out.  At home whenever the phone rang my mom always answered the phone.  But when Mary calls and the phone rings, my dad is walking by the phone.  So he picks it up and says it’s for me.  Mary and I have a great conversation catching up and decide it’d be nice to get together again.  But then I tell her it’s tax season and I’m working 7 days a week and I couldn’t see her for two months until April 16.  Now if I were her I would have slammed the phone down.  But she didn’t and the rest is history.  

I think you can see what an improbable chain of events brought us together.  But to me it shows that some things are just meant to be.