I know Chinese food culture.

I grew up in a boisterous, food-obsessed, unabashedly Chinese, multi-generational immigrant household in San Francisco. I’m fluent in Cantonese and speak conversational Mandarin (which improves with libations), thanks to a family who keenly understood the power of bilingualism as cultural retention. Most importantly, they championed food as the greatest conduit of cultural osmosis.

Like most Chinese families living the immigrant hustle, mine found steady work in restaurants when they arrived from Hong Kong in the late sixties. They’ve endured chapped lips from grueling dishwasher jobs, indescribable fatigue from waiting tables while juggling a full load at City College, and exploitative bosses who mocked their Chinglish. Their grit and perseverance eventually propelled them to a restaurant empire in the Parkside district during the eighties and nineties, most notably, Eight Immortals and In Inn Restaurant on Taraval Street. Rather than play video games or hit up the mall, I’d hang out at the family restaurant after school. I found joy in the water tanks humming with live seafood, the cash register sticky with sauce and spittle, moody uncle-chefs who cursed as much as they smoked, and solemnly executing waiter-y tasks here and there that barely skirted child labor laws. Amidst this cacophony of restaurant culture, cantankerously wise elders, and never-ending commensality, I developed a distinctive ear and palate for Chinese-Americana. This is the soundtrack to my San Francisco.

After 15 years as a corporate paralegal in Silicon Valley, my curiosity for life explored through the lens of food eventually steered me toward more serious scholarship. In 2018, I earned a master’s degree in Food Studies at University of the Pacific. Circa 2017, whilst juggling academia and a new baby, I began freelancing for my hometown paper, the San Francisco Chronicle. I was among the inaugural team behind the Chronicle’s regional Chinese food guide, the first of its kind in North America. Jonathan Kauffman, editor-nonpareil and author of Hippie Food, has my eternal gratitude for including me.

The regional guide went on to win a James Beard award in 2019. (Shout-out to my fellow food critics on the project, Craig Brozinsky and Momo Chang!)

Mister Jiu’s in Chinatown: Recipes and Stories from the Birthplace of Chinese American Food (2021, Ten Speed Press)

I spent two years working with Chef Brandon Jew and his co-author, Tienlon Ho, on Mister Jiu’s in Chinatown, a narrative cookbook produced by an All-Asian team of creatives. I researched San Francisco Chinatown’s history and the foodlore behind the dishes at Jew’s eponymous Michelin-starred restaurant, provided written and oral Chinese translation support, served as cultural broker to local Chinese merchants and community elders, and moonlighted as the brilliant Pete Lee’s sidekick on various street shoots. Along the way, I’ve amassed an OBSCENE amount of vintage Chinese cookery books.

Articles and Experience

Many Chinas, Many Tables: A Guide to Regional Chinese Cuisines in the Bay Area (2019 James Beard Media Awards winner in Dining and Travel)

How Chinese Restaurants are Shut Out of the Organic Movement (San Francisco Chronicle, February 1, 2019)

What Banquet Culture Means to SF—and Chinatown (San Francisco Chronicle May 12, 2017)

"Johnny Kan: The Untold Story of Chinatown's Greatest Culinary Ambassador". California History, Winter 2017 Volume 94 Issue (4): 4–22. doi:10.1525/ch.2017.94.4.4

Master of Arts, Food Studies, University of the Pacific (2018)