Friday 24 June 2016

Grant Place - comfort food in San Francisco Chinatown


Hubs likes San Fran ( the way he likes to call it ) but me , I'm not very fond of the city except for the landmark bridge and the Transamerican Pyramid below . 







City feels rather unfriendly and cold . There's a huge homeless problem , streets don't smell nor look very pleasant either , ( looks beautiful from afar however once you get near oh my goodness  ) . Needless to say , I was eager to leave as soon as possible .





Before we can do that , we've got breakfast on the cards . Guide's taking us to Chinatown and frankly I am just hoping for the best .






Already trekked on foot from the pyramid , past the Hilton and are about to reach the restaurant when this catches my eye .
Penang Garden ...haha ....wonder if they serve ckt or ktt inside there as well as how bad or good it will taste .







Am afraid I have a very biased disposition towards Chinese food when I am overseas , as I have had many bad experiences in Western Europe and the UK ...enough for me to swear off it for life unless forced to . And to make matters worse , I didn't even like any of the American foods served in this city , so while I was indeed apprehensive and entertained thoughts of bolting away , this lady from Sulawesi , she practically dragged me in by latching onto me ....not giving me a chance to protest . 






 Her dining buddy was opting out ( oh oh ) you see ( from overfeeding ! ), also she somehow seemed to know that if she ate just one quarter of whatever she ordered , this piglet would help vacuum up the balance for her. Oh wow . 







Inside is packed . Looks no different from HK . The Chinese diaspora from far flung places like Canada , Indonesia , Malaysia ( am I talking about me ? ) , Taiwan , Hong Kong are all dining under one roof with ABC's ( American Born Chinese ) and Chinese citizens .
Amazing .






Pace is frantic . Waiters are gruff . No one can seem to muster up a smile .
I have a weak , one sided cynical smile  illuminating the entire room .
Just kidding .






Everyone wants one thing in common . A hot bowl of century egg pork porridge with cruelers . 
We don't always dimsum but a boiling hot bowl of rice porridge lulls into an appreciative silence so long as it passes our lips ( have you not heard the din in one of these places ? )
Turns out to be a HUGE bowl , but the taste is very comforting to the Chinese soul , enough to make Madame Sulawesi order more food .
Aunty , eh , enough already , no ...aiyo sei lar , she's looking at me as if she is feeding her grandchild.






In the end , I had to stagger out while she had plenty of energy to stand akimbo and take more photos than muah .

Life . Sometimes I have some stupid life story folks and this so happens to be one of the lamer ones  .  

Location : San Francisco Chinatown 

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