ANCIENT FRAGRANCES

North Beach has become too popular with the out of towners. Mobs of them. An infestation. Fortunately once we left the burger place there was the party wheel chair across the street, with loud Latin dance music and strobe lights. He wheels through the darkened city waking the natives with salsa. In a radius of half a dozen blocks.
A breath of positivity and light.

Besides, at the intersection of Columbus and Broadway the only people sleeping are drunk or drugged. A long time ago I used to live very near there, and I can remember sometimes being up until dawn, when the robust aroma of fresh roasting coffee beans from the Caffe Trieste and the Roma beckoned.

Some of the local bars already had the early alcoholics at that hour.

We ended up at Vivian's (not the actual name of the place) because both the beer hall and the karaoke bar were insane asylums. Tat Yee expressed wonderment that I had not gone to the latter, and I explained that there is nothing worse than twenty-something white people singing Hotel California or Country Roads. Or, heaven forfend, the Okland Booty song.

Caucasian yuppazoids love the Oakland Booty song.

Whereas a bar with only half a dozen people inside and NO loud music is a slice of heaven. Quite tolerable. Especially if they have hot water for tea. Plus Guinness and Jameson whiskey for the bookseller.

A few hours before pipe and pub crawl I had been down in C-town enjoying a plate of salt fish and chicken chunk fried rice (鹹魚雞粒炒飯 'haam yü gai nap chaau faan'). Hong Kong people may claim that dimsum is their quintessential home town food, but nothing evokes a sense of comfort and well-being quite like salt fish. That briny cheesy saveur! That intense baconesque jolt of umami! That richly fermented pong! AND it combines harmoniously with chicken or fatty pork, much like cheese for many westerners. Which it scares considerably. Despite being great with dollops of chilipaste.

Sadly, I have never been able to convince other English-speakers of this.
I guess I will first have to teach them all Dutch. Then they will know.
The Netherlandish tongue inculcates gustatory understanding.
Denk aan nasi goreng met een beetje trasi of daing.

Or, in the case of my apartment mate, bacon and eggs over rice for dinner with a dollop of oyster sauce. Which isn't Dutch, even though a Dutchman would assuredly enjoy that also, but very American-born San Francisco Cantonese. 真好食呀！
See, an Anglo would have potatoes and ketchup.
In lieu of rice and oyster sauce.

We do have ketchup in the fridge, but we go through oyster sauce far faster.

In some places like Mississippi or Alabama you have to travel out of state to purchase oyster sauce. I cannot imagine living there. How horrible!


Crowded bus on the way back over the hill.
Dammit y'all, go to bed already!



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