It was late one August Saturday night and 4 white folks were lookin for some late night chinese delight in Chinatown San Fransisco. We did a quick search on our super advanced mobile devices and came to the conclusion that Sam Wo was our destination. We arrived at around 12 am.
The facade of the restaurant forced us to initially take a step back as it looks like some kind of open kitchen and not a restaurant. From the street there are no tables in sight. We entered cautiously and were quickly ushered up the tiny stairs on the right hand side by an elderly Chinese woman who was sitting at a picnic table right by the open front door tearing what looked like shreds of pork in a giant bowl and coating them with flour.
As we reached the top of the stairs we were greeted by a small but full restaurant of asian clientele eating and sipping tea in complete SILENCE. We find the atmosphere initially a little, off putting, but since there was a table open right at the the top of the stairs we sat down and said, "lets give this place a shot".
Despite the initial awkwardness we were quickly greeted by the one and only waitress working at that time. For all of our sakes lets call her "Mai". She quickly wiped down our table and I asked, "Do you have any beer?" thinking maybe we could order a round for the whole place and possibly liven the place up a touch. Mai replied staunchly, "NO!".
Ok, now the adventure truly begins. We were now taking it all in, trying to observe our surroundings, it really felt like we had fallen into a whole some kid dug that led all the way to China. As we looked around I noticed this sign that must have been at least 35 years old.
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| Read it out loud to yourself |
We sat and waited for about 10 minutes taking in our surroundings until Mai brought some menu's for our perusal. We had read that the Rice Noodle Rolls were a must. So we quickly decided what we were going to order and waited patiently for Mai to return to take our order. 10, 15, 20 minutes quickly rolled by as I watched Mai wait and bus the other tables. I attempted to wave and make eye contact to try and get her attention, she wasn't having any of it. I watched as orders were buzzed from below and then Mai would pull the rope for the dumbwaiter to rise. I was lucky enough to be in the only seat at the table that was able to observe the goings on in the restaurant. One thing of note occurred when a nice bowl of soup came up and without hesitation Mai grabbed a spoon, quickly spooned something out of the broth and threw it in the garbage. She then happily brought the bowl to an eager customer for consumption. I chose to not inform anyone at the table of this event until well after we had ordered our food.
As it became blatantly obvious we were ready to order, she loudly remarked to no one in particular and pointing in our direction, "I'm scared, I'm scared, I don't want to go over there." This threw me for a loop, perhaps my beard, or my request for a beer caused her to distrust us Gui Lo in the corner. Eventually with some coaxing she approached our table with caution.
As I mentioned earlier, we immediately ordered the Rice Noodle Rolls, first thing listed at the top of the menu, to which Mai quickly replied, "NO MORE, NO MORE!" and ran away back to her station to fiddle some more. She returned about 3 minutes later and we scrambled to get something ordered.
Rice Noodle Soup with BBQ Pork
Won ton Noodle Soup
Beef and Brocolli Chow Fun
Duck Chow Fun
A Tofu Dish
Fried Rice
Kung Pao Chicken
At this point she cut us off and said no more. My friend was intent in ordering the Chicken Chow Mein and asked if we could have one of those as well. Mai abruptly refused and said, "TOO MUCH, TOO MUCH!" He begged and pleaded and promised to take it home with him if it wasn't finished and she finally agreed. We order some Diet cokes to go with the food and believed we were home free.
They have a very interesting way of communicating at Sam Wo due to the fact that the kitchen is downstairs and the waitress and customers are all upstairs. Its quite rudimentary but extremely entertaining to watch. We couldn't quite figure it out and our theories ranged from carrier pigeons to pure unadulterated psychic powers. As it turns out, through their manually controlled dumb-waiter system they also have what seems to be a super long shoe lace attached to the wall next to the dumbwaiter with a clothes pin fastened to the other end. Mai will re-write your entire order on small squares of paper, attach them to the clothes pin and throw them down the shoot where presumably the cooks will grab them and get to work. Efficiency at its best. Or so we thought. About half an hour later we were ecstatic when Mai brought us chopsticks and plates. We knew we were going to be eating any minute but up until then we were having serious doubts about whether they were just testing us to see if we would just get up and leave. We had been sitting in Sam Wo for at least 1 hour and had not received a glass of water, tea and now finally had our chopsticks. More than once I considered a spoon full of chili sauce to tie me over till the food got there.
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| Note the Communication String dangling in front |
Then, out of no where we hear the buzzer from downstairs. Mai starts pulling the manual dumbwaiter and low and behold, plates and bowls of steaming food. Since by this point we were the only people in the place who hadn't eaten, paid and left it had to be for us. It was!! Over the next 30 minutes our food slowly trickled to our table. I must say, I have eaten a lot of chinese food in my day, this was nothing to write home about, but late night, it ain't that bad. Chow Fun and soups were definitely a highlight. Kung Pao chicken was also tasty. The people I was with enjoyed the Tofu but I didn't think it was anything special.
We're eating now for about 30 minutes and every time Mai comes back to the table with a new dish we ask for the Diet Cokes. She doesn't seem to acknowledge. Finally I take matters into my own hands. I get up from the table for the first time in over an hour and start back downstairs to see if I can go directly to the source. Mai, who is busy at the other end of the restaurant studiously taking some ones order sees me out of the corner of her eye getting up, at top speed she literally flies across the room to attempt to stop me from moving, quickly see's the rest of my party still sitting at the table and realizes, no, I'm not trying to bolt on the bill. Perhaps this was her concern from the get go?
Anyway, I go downstairs to talk to Pork tearing lady to see if I can quench some of this thirst. I ask for a Diet Coke, without a word, she stands up, walks 2 feet to the refrigerator and gets me 2 Diet Cokes. I return upstairs a hero, wielding the magical nectar which will sustain us through the rest of our MSG infested feast. As most of us know, a Diet Coke coupled with some late night dirty Chinese food is incomparable.
In the end, Mai was right, we didn't finish the Chicken Chow Mein, but we did take it home to sit in the fridge till its will then be thrown in the trash. Mai did also warm up to me a little by the end. Coming over to the table with our Diet Cokes after we'd finished our food and were ready to go. A real super lady. So, if you're in San Fransisco and you want to experience something different and you're absolutely not busy at all, check out Sam Wo. Tell them Jack sent you and you're sure to receive the royal treatment.
