My employer sponsors various Employee Groups that are aligned to a certain ethnicity or heritage. I am a member of all the various geographic representatives because I find that by attending these events I get a sip of cocktails of culture right in one place adding to my mental trivia of things, cultures, history, foods.
One of these entities represents the Asian region and Pacific Rim countries. Last night was a celebration of the companies that participated in the Chinese New Year Parade of 2015. Celebration was a dinner invitation in China Town for members of all financial sponsors of the parade. The event was hosted by the Bay Area Chinese Chamber of Commerce.
Getting into SF's China town from any points outside of it is an exercise itself. Esp if you are walking it. It sits on a hill in the middle of the city where locals (who want their choice Durian) and foreign yokels (who come to gape at so many red lanterns in one place... and buy trinkets for a bargain) compete with double and triple parked vehicles that seem to be suspended on impossible angles.
Luckily there were enough employee friends coming in and I got to ride in and we found parking right under the event site.
The venue was a Cantonese restaurant on a narrow street. It is really a banquet facility in terms of the cavernous hall that could hold 500 people, and yes it was packed to its gills.
Event's invitee list is the who's who of the local political landscape including the current Mayor and former Mayor and city staff. Parade participants all got prizes of some sort of the other for decorating their floats, while the MC who was a septuagenarian Asian lady did the roast (instead of a toast - or maybe she had one too many toasts before we got there..we will never know). As in ripped into quite a few local political types for their affiliation or otherwise of what she thought was rip worthy. It was a hoot.
When it finally came time for food it was quantity over quality. The servers produced one after another version of game and fowl, along with relatively bland somewhat sauced family style dishes that the table of eight was supposed to spin and grab with their plastic chopsticks.
I and another friend (of Korean heritage) asked for extra helpings of chili sauce to douse everything including our egg drop soup. That made it work. The event ended with a fish dish in white sauce that no one seemed to have an appetite for but the finale - dessert items vanished quick. Some sort of coconut cookie and some rice balls filled with sweet red bean paste.
After that me and another colleague raced home on our only local train facility - which ended up almost becoming a different sort of race related affair - black kids wanting to do a short demo of their latest rap/gymnastic skills vs. a tired white commuter wanting to read his book. Police showed up as an after thought - luckily things cooled off and we moved on.
One of these entities represents the Asian region and Pacific Rim countries. Last night was a celebration of the companies that participated in the Chinese New Year Parade of 2015. Celebration was a dinner invitation in China Town for members of all financial sponsors of the parade. The event was hosted by the Bay Area Chinese Chamber of Commerce.
Getting into SF's China town from any points outside of it is an exercise itself. Esp if you are walking it. It sits on a hill in the middle of the city where locals (who want their choice Durian) and foreign yokels (who come to gape at so many red lanterns in one place... and buy trinkets for a bargain) compete with double and triple parked vehicles that seem to be suspended on impossible angles.
Luckily there were enough employee friends coming in and I got to ride in and we found parking right under the event site.
The venue was a Cantonese restaurant on a narrow street. It is really a banquet facility in terms of the cavernous hall that could hold 500 people, and yes it was packed to its gills.
Event's invitee list is the who's who of the local political landscape including the current Mayor and former Mayor and city staff. Parade participants all got prizes of some sort of the other for decorating their floats, while the MC who was a septuagenarian Asian lady did the roast (instead of a toast - or maybe she had one too many toasts before we got there..we will never know). As in ripped into quite a few local political types for their affiliation or otherwise of what she thought was rip worthy. It was a hoot.
When it finally came time for food it was quantity over quality. The servers produced one after another version of game and fowl, along with relatively bland somewhat sauced family style dishes that the table of eight was supposed to spin and grab with their plastic chopsticks.
I and another friend (of Korean heritage) asked for extra helpings of chili sauce to douse everything including our egg drop soup. That made it work. The event ended with a fish dish in white sauce that no one seemed to have an appetite for but the finale - dessert items vanished quick. Some sort of coconut cookie and some rice balls filled with sweet red bean paste.
After that me and another colleague raced home on our only local train facility - which ended up almost becoming a different sort of race related affair - black kids wanting to do a short demo of their latest rap/gymnastic skills vs. a tired white commuter wanting to read his book. Police showed up as an after thought - luckily things cooled off and we moved on.
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