The Hidden Chinatown of San Francisco

Today, at 743 Washington St, is a small building squashed between two regular buildings, with an elaborate multi-level pagoda roof, and you'd walk by without another glance, as it is just a bank (now East West Bank, formerly Bank of Canton). But you are walking by a piece of history, for that was the location of the Chinatown Telephone exchange.  The telephone service in Chinatown actually started in 1894, with 3 male operators and 37 phone subscribers. Though some sources claimed it started in 1887 or 1901. However, the 1894 date seems to be better supported .  The switchboard used to occupy a different building on the corner of Grant and Washington but moved in 1896 into the 743 Washington building, which was previously occupied by the first English Newspaper in California, the California Star , founded by Sam Brannan. (Those of you who kept up with history may have heard the joke that Sam Brannan was best known for buying up all the shovels and pans in the city before annou...

There is an ancient neon sign from the 1920s at 850 Clay that says 金星 "Golden Star Radio", cross street is Spofford Alley.  Golden Star Radio Sign @ 850 Clay by author Turns out there's a story behind this... Golden Star Radio was the sponsor of the first all-Chinese radio program in the US, called "Golden Star Radio Hour".  It was recorded  that Thomas Tung and his company sponsored the first all-Chinese radio program on April 22, 1939, transmitted by 1450 KSAN-AM in San Francisco. According to the book Cathay by the Bay  via NerdsEyeView  the program called for 15 minutes of news, 15 minutes of Cantonese Opera, 6-7 different commercials, and the last half dedicated to contemporary music from Hong Kong.  Golden Star Radio Co was Founded in 1936 at 846 Clay by Thomas Tung, it started as a radio sales and service company. The company primarily served as a radio seller and repair depot for Chinatown during the day. But at night, in the basement, Thomas T...

Eastern Bakery, at the corner of Grant and Commercial, is the oldest bakery in SF Chinatown, having operated continuously since 1924, originally by the Lee family. The current owner is Orlando Kuan, who can be seen peddling made-in-house items through the limited operating hours, roughly 12-4.  Eastern Bakery is best known for three things: genuine lotus mooncakes, authentic coffee crunch cake, and Smackles, the original "cow ear cookies", all of which can be seen at "front door" table.  Moon cakes have been around China for thousands of years, but it was probably most famous for its use to hide messages to coordinate a revolt against the Mongol occupiers on August 15th, which lead to the founding of the Yuan Dynasty. Before that, they were used as "sacrifices" to the moon goddess. President Clinton tasted some mooncake when he visited Chinatown back in 1995 and took a box home with him, according to photos in the store.   Photo of President Clinton's ...

New Lun Ting Cafe is not a restaurant that stands out, and even in Chinatown it's extremely old-fashioned... It has maroon Naugahyde booth seats and bachelor's row stools, and it serves a mix of Eastern and Western foods, so it could be considered a tea restaurant.  According to history, the bachelor's row used to stretch all the way around the interior in a U-shape and the whole cafe was called "bachelor's cafe", and women used to avoid the place. By adding booths and tables back in the 1970's, the place was made more "family-friendly".  Another nickname for the place was "The Porkchop House", even though its best-known dish was actually "roast pork". A huge slab of pork, with ribs still attached in some places, sliced to about half-inch sticks, almost perfect tenderness, slathered with either "brown sauce" (which is sort of burnt orange), or if you are adventurous, try the yellow / curry sauce. You also get some ve...

Xiao-long-bao, often abbreviated as XLB, is a type of dumpling that still have soup inside as you eat it. As it was invented near Shanghai in the village of Nanxiang, it was often called "Shanghai Dumplings". Visually, it looks like a round white dumpling, slightly larger than a siu-mai (pork dumpling), and roughly the size of har-gow (shrimp dumpling).  Xiao-long-bao, with one in a Chinese spoon for scale One thing to note about XLB is they are hot, and if you are not careful enough extracting the dumpling from the steamer basket, you can break the skin, and lose all the soup inside the dumpling. While it is only a tiny bit, that is the whole point of eating the XLB. Because the soup inside is hot, you don't plop it into your mouth either. Put one into the Chinese spoon, then carefully bite a small hole (or use the chopstick) and taste the rich broth inside the dumpling. THEN take a slightly larger bite. This is not a chicken nugget.  The XLB can be found all over Chinat...

We have seen plenty of TV episodes and movies set in Chinatown. How about games?  Turns out there are not that many. PLENTY of games have San Francisco as a level, but Chinatown is MUCH harder to find. In fact, I've only counted... maybe 4 or 5.  Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (and its remake) has a Chinatown map with the TransAmerican pyramid in the background. It is actually a remake of the COD/COD2's MP map Carentan. So while it looks right, the layout is in no way related to the real SF Chinatown. This one is a bit of "meh".   Rockstar's game GTA: San Andreas has a version of San Francisco called "San Fiero" where there is a reduced version of Chinatown .  NOTE: GTA has a mobile game called Chinatown Wars, but it's based on LA's Chinatown, not San Francisco's.  Driver: San Francisco has a very good representation of San Francisco in general, but almost nothing of Chinatown. Guess the streets are a bit too narrow for all the drifting and ...

Sam Wo, at 713 Clay St, is the oldest restaurant in Chinatown, tracing itself back to 1908, just after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Founded by 3 siblings from Taishan province of China (adjacent to Guangzhou), the restaurant is still open today, having barely survived COVID . The name literally means three peace, referring to the 3 siblings, and may they ever work together peacefully.  Sam Wo, having survived this long, is considered an institution of Chinatown , with many people enjoying its authenticity and a bit of dingy ambiance. Plenty of famous people ate at Sam Wo: Allen Ginsberg , Herb Caen , and even Conan O'Brien , but its low prices and very late hours (open till 3AM back in the 2010's) also means it sees plenty of regulars, locals, and late-nighters.  Sam Wo is also famous for having the " world's rudest waiter " by the name of Edsel Ford Fung, who had a house rule: "No Booze, No B.S., No Jive, No Coffee, Milk, Soft Drinks, Fortune Cookies....

Chop suey is reputed to have been invented in Chinatown. The story goes that in the 1850's, Chinatown is barely established, but word was already out that Chinese food is cheap and delicious. So, late at night, 2 miners fresh off the gold fields, wandered into this Chinese restaurant, even as the owner and cook is about to close up. Already half drunk, they want food, and they want it now! To avoid confrontation, the cook went into the kitchen, found whatever scraps of vegetables left, tossed them all into the wok, whipped up some sauce, added whatever scraps of meat he had, added an egg, and served it on a plate and gave it to the miners.  The miners loved it, to the surprise of the owner, as they wanted the name of the dish as they want to order it again when they come back.  The owner, flabbergasted, simply told them 雜碎 tzap-suey which literally means "mixed scraps". The miners heard that as "chop suey", and a legend was born.  Keep in mind this is a story, a...

There is a concrete slab of basketball court just off Joyce Alley, between Sacramento and Clay that had appeared in multiple movies and TV series.  Cameron House Basketball Court's view of downtown courtesy Cameronhouse.org Look across from the parking lot below: This basketball court, visible on Google Maps, across the alley from the parking lot, is virtually hidden from the locals. It belongs to the Cameron House, named after Donaldina "Dolly" Cameron whom we had a whole post about.  What you may not know was it was featured in multiple movies and television series: Sister Act II (starring Whoopi Goldberg) Murder in the First (TV drama) The OA (TV drama) The Pursuit of Happyness (starring Will Smith and Jaden Smith) Muscle Milk ad with Steph Curry According to the staff as told to SF Chronicle, the playground had been in use since the 1940's, then the basketball court was moved to the top of the structure in the 1970's. All proceeds from the shoots are plowed ...

Most people may have heard of Ross Alley in Chinatown, but few would have paid attention to a smaller alley just uphill from it that has two names: Old Chinatown Lane... and Donaldina Cameron Alley, probably because both pointed to a dark part of Chinatown history that's not exactly... tourist-friendly.  Old Chinatown Lane // Donaldina Cameron Alley Previously we had discussed the rise and fall of the Tongs in Chinatown , and one of the more profitable and despicable activities the Tongs engaged in was the human trafficking... of young girls, both as servants and as prostitutes. We also mentioned Donaldina Cameron then. What we did not mention were the horrible conditions the girls worked under. The very young ones are sent off to work as servants as child slave labor. The prettier ones were sold as concubines. The less fortunate, too old to be servants, were forced into working for brothels. Even though there were supposedly contracts that would allow them to work off their d...

Previously, we have mentioned Hang Ah, the first dimsum restaurant in the US . But what exactly is dimsum, and its related activity, known as "yum chaa" (lit: drink tea, in Cantonese)?  Dimsum is the Cantonese pronunciation of 點心 (dian-xin). One version of the origin story was that dimsum was originally meant as smaller snacks presented as thank-you gestures, from the expression gratitude 點點心意 (lit: bits of our thoughts/gratitude) which got shortened to 點心. The other version cited writing from the Tang Dynasty that used the term 點心 as a verb... "(gently) point at the heart" as in "barely fill the stomach".  Modern dimsum is usually associated with "yum chaa" (drink tea), which is basically a "dimsum brunch". When someone told you in Cantonese "請你飲茶" (chen-nae-yum-chaa), they are not inviting you to tea, but a dimsum brunch.  Family Style Dimsum with 9 dishes (via Wikicommons) The term "dimsum" itself did not appear i...