The recount of my trip to San Francsico was actually incomplete. The moment up to going and staying at SF was actually full of indecisions. It was a Thursday evening, a workout evening so that I could retain the figure that drives women wild, a beautiful temperate night where a light jacket is the only thing you needed, a night in which the HermitQueen was going to read at City Lights in San Francisco. I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone who has ever read at City Lights, the center of the world in poetry, the home of beat poetry, the place where Allen Ginsberg HOWLED from morning into evening into the darkness of his soul, where Jack Kerouac most likely stood still and cased his life as a 20 year bottle of wine.

Weighing the merits of going and not going was interesting. What pushed me to finally decide to go? I figured I could have dinner at Chinatown and then go on to City Lights. I walked through the bowels of Chinatown in the light of dusk seeking a restaurant that is not too expensive but is not a hole in the wall either. I began from the gates of Chinatown at Stockton and Grant. Each time I pass through the main street of Chinatown, I am amazed that above the storefronts, people live, eat, and die. Have you ever looked up to the windows? You can almost listen to the breathing of the hidden lives.

I chose the restaurant ________. I saw that they had "Beef Stew ? Cantonese Style" and I remembered that in the 1990's, my favorite restaurant in Berkeley was this Hong-Kong Restaurant on University near the Cineplex where the Rocky Horror picture show would be shown. Beef stew was comfort food if I ever had a bad day in lab, in love or in the loneliness that follows and haunts graduate students wondering whether or not if they will ever finish their thesis.

The beef stew was excellent. It was a 5 out of 5 oxtails experience. The seasoning was just as I expected. The beef turned out to be tendons which is a larger surprise, but not an unwelcome one. Tendons when cooked properly and for a long time become soft, pliable and delicious. Biting into tendons is like eating fat, without the disadvantage of blocking your arteries. The beef with pan fried Chinese bread was a disappointment. 0 out of 5 oxtails. Don't order it because the bread came out dry. It should be crispy, not rock solid hard.

Overall, going alone to this restaurant was not pleasant, but the food was good enough. They placed me right next to the cashier. I suppose that if you were the owner, you would not want the multiple seating tables to be occupied by a lone stranger. Oh well, not much tip for the server either.