eddo's Qype profile

Ubuntu, the word, is a traditionally African ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people’s allegiances and relations with each other - that a person is part of a greater whole and that he or she is diminished when others are diminished, and is uplifted when others are uplifted.

Ubuntu, the restaurant located in the heart of California Napa Valley wine country, is the newest restaurant earning national accolades from food writers across the country for its promise, vision, and extraordinarily talented chef.

A combined restaurant and yoga studio (I kid you not), Ubuntu is a vegetarian restaurant that transcends vegetarianism. Billing itself not as vegetarian but instead as a “vegetable restaurant”, Ubuntu takes the glory of the vegetable, most of which are grown on Ubuntu’s onsite “biodynamic” garden (I put it in quotes because I have no idea what it means!), and brings out every possibly flavor of California’s famous produce. This creation of an entirely fantastical, playful, and almost whimsical bounty of freshness, locality, and flat-out perfect cuisine can not come from anywhere else in the world.

Ubuntu’s chef, Jeremy Fox, hails from internationally renowned Manresa and has taken that cutting edge style and technique and applied it meticulously to each and every one of his dishes, which are meant to be shared and cost no more than $15 each. Indeed, three other diners and I shared multiple entrees, were so impressed that we ordered another round of food, and ended up spending less than $40 (EU26 or GBP20) per person, wine excluded.

Highlights of the meal included the cucumber watermelon soup with its cool creamy texture blended with pureed lemongrass and bread crumbs, and the strawberry margarita pizza, highlighted by its “marinara” created from a refreshing mixture of fresh strawberries and basil to form a delicate balance between sweet and savory on fluffy wood-crisped crust. The cuisine is playful, absolutely unique, and phenomenally special in every single possible way.

So go, quickly, because Ubuntu is rapidly being noticed by the fooderati across the country. Racking up phenomenal reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine Magazine, and dazzling the country’s finest restaurateurs and food industry insiders at the James Beard Awards, Ubuntu is not going to stay a local, nor a regional, treasure any longer. Ubuntu is about to become Napa Valley’s next international destination. And it deserves every single accolade rained upon it, because this restaurant could not happen anywhere else in the world but in San Francisco’s wine country.

When you dine at Ubuntu, you feel spectacular. And when you feel spectacular, others feel spectacular too.

I’m on crutches because a soccer mom hit me in her SUV (typical, I know). My over-protective Asian mother flies in from Southern California to take care of me, her precious baby. She does all the things Asian mothers excel at - laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, telling me I’m fat, driving me around, saran-wrapping my remote control, and purchasing tupperware.

Anyways, I’m waiting for her to finish her grocery shopping at Safeway, and I’m feeling all appreciative, and I tell her I’ll take her out to dinner. Such a good momma’s boy, I am. The closest restaurant is Home, and trust me - when you’re on crutches, you don’t want to spend any time lugging around.

So we go, we sit, we order. The food is decent, I like their macaroni and cheese, my mom enjoys their head of lettuce salad. We split a roasted chicken, the food at Home is standard mid-range American comfort food and prices are alright.

Then my mom looks around:
Momma Ed M.: Deese restah-rant here, deese restah-rant…
Me: Yeah? It’s good, huh? San Francisco is full of places like this, on like every corner.
Momma: Is eet, you know, is eet, for tha…
Me: What?
Momma: You know, tha gaayy? There lots gayy here.
Me: Well, we’re close to the gay neighborhood.
Momma: So many, so many of tha gay.
Me: Mommy, you can’t say that out loud! This is San Francisco!
Momma: Dey eberywhere, tha gays.
Me: I know, but Mommy, stop staring! You know, they’re normal people. They do the same things everyone does - they eat, they work.
Momma: Work? You work with tha gaaayys?
Me: Yes, some of my bosses are gay.
Momma: Ohhhhh. You San Foo-rahn-ceesco… you sooooo deeferent from eberywhere. Soo many gaays.

So now, my mom likes to go home and tell her mah-jong spinster friends that her son took her TO A GAY BAR. “The gaaay, dey all so hand-some! Sooooo hand-some! Not like my son, he too fat!”

Yeah, thanks Home.

I got into LAX this morning, and have been in conferences all day until I checked into my hotel. I wanted to take advantage of the sun so before heading over to Osteria La Buca I took a short dip in the hotel pool.

This might have not been the best idea as the only thing I could think of while occupying 1 of only 22 total seats at tiny cozy Osteria La Buca is how I WANTED TO SWIM IN A POOL OF VEALY PORKY BOLOGNESE SAUCE AND RINSE MYSELF OFF WITH FRESH HANDMADE PAPPARDELLE EGG NOODLES. Also, don’t get Mamma (the awesome Italian mother who wears a pink hat that says “Mamma” and is the matron of the joint and IN GENERAL OWNS YOU) upset by asking her to change her sauces. It takes a long time for her to fill a swimming pool with that much meaty tomato-y deliciousness.

Osteria La Buca makes me happy that I suffer from debilitating body dysmorphia issues. Also, smearing Bolognese sauce all over your body does wonders for your skin.

According to their website, in a single year, Mother’s serves up:

No less than 175,000 pounds of ham and roast beef
More than 40,000 pounds of turkey
A staggering 30,000 pounds of homemade sausage
Quarter of a million biscuits (and even more eggs!)
A whopping 90,000 pounds of jambalaya
Some 25,000 soft-shell crabs and even more shrimp
Nearly 250,000 pounds of cabbage
An incredible 150,000 loaves of French bread
As many pies as there are ships passing through the port of New Orleans (3,500)
A spicy 1,500 gallons of Creole mustard
And an honest ton of hot pepper sauce

I am not even kidding you when I tell you that Mother’s will also sell you SOME OF THE BEST CRAWFISH ETOUFFEE YOU’VE EVER EATEN IN YOUR LIFE - BY THE GALLON!!!!

If only my actual mother gave me what “Mother’s” gives me.

Nope. Instead, my mother gave me a debilitating guilt complex, a potential eating disorder, and crippling anxiety attacks.

And these were not by the gallon.

You know, I’ve never been “cool”. I was the only Chinese kid at my elementary school, junior high, high school, and hence, was ripe for the picking. I wore thick glasses, was good at math, and brought weird things in my lunchbox to school everyday.

“Ewwwww, is that dog?!”
“No, it’s deep fried dried shredded pork and soy sauce.”
“Mrs. Johnson!!! Eddo’s making us eat dooooggggg!!!”

Kids can be such wankers.

I moved to San Francisco around five years ago, started meeting so many wonderful intelligent and sincere people, eaten at the best and worst places, experienced horrifying and superb service.

And last Saturday, after a heavy night of drinking for most people, a group of friends joined me for some good dim sum in spacious and large City View restaurant, which is the least Chinese-y name for any dim sum place I’ve ever been to.

But the dim sum came quickly, in carts, and I reveled in grunting “want” and “no want” in Chinglish to the mostly-Cantonese speaking staff. The siu mais were delicious, as was the beijing duck, and the xiao lung baos were above average. This was a decent standard dim sum place to bring any visitors to our fair City by the Bay to experience a typical Hong Kong style breakfast.

And I sat there and observed the 20+ stalwart and mostly hungover friends who wandered down an alley bordering Chinatown and the FiDi on a beautiful Saturday morning and I thought - “this is what it feels like to be cool.”

And that’s what it is. Real friends won’t make fun of you for eating weird food. Real friends won’t look at you weird if you eat chicken feet. Real friends won’t giggle at you for being fat, or wearing glasses, or for liking math.

Friendship is collectively bigger than any group of people, but for one hour on Saturday, I felt like “the cool kid.” And well, sweaty fat Chinese kids with thick glasses who are good at math and bring fried egg, dried shredded pork, and soy sauce sandwiches to lunch, well, we just don’t feel that way very often.

Disenchanted locals have begun to start calling it “House of Same Sauce.”

This is how the review for House of Nanking ends in the Zagat 2006 restaurant guide. Why am I pointing this out in my review? BECAUSE MY SEESTER SENT THAT INTO ZAGAT AND THEY USED IT IN THEIR REVIEW! Which is funny because it’s true. Locals = more than one person = Eddo’s seester + Eddo Feel free to call it that too, we’ll include you in our “disenchanted locals” category. I’ll even start a Myspace group.

My mom, my auntie, my seester, my seester’s fiance Coriander, and I were eating lunch together at my apartment and the conversation turned to Qype.

Coriander: So Eddo, you always tell us about the places that you really like and you give 5 stars to. Is there anywhere that you give 1 star to?
Me: Man, there’s a lot. Lemme think.
Seester: I know - House of Same Sauce.
Me: YES!!!!!
Auntie and Momma: Wha? Where dat?
Seester: House of Same Sauce is in Chinatown. And it’s wildly popular. There’s a huge line out the door all the time. Mostly tourists and business-y people. And you basically sit, and the owner points at you and barks out what you’re going to eat. And then they bring it to you. But the thing is, EVERYTHING HAS THE SAME SAUCE!
Me: Mommy - seriously - it’s so bad. And guess what sauce it is? It’s PLUM SAUCE! They put PLUM SAUCE on everything.
Auntie and Momma [shock and horror on their faces]: Wha?! Prum Sauce?! NOO!
Ed: Yeah. And guess what’s even worse. THEY PUT PEAS IN THEIR JIAO ZIs (dumplings).
Auntie and Momma [still shocked and horrified]: PEAS?!
Seester: Yeah, and they don’t even hand roll the dumplings, they use a machine that just stamps the dumplings in and they fall apart and they’re soooo bad. And peas!
Auntie: Dats horri-bul. So bad. You guys so lucky to have Grandma always cooking for you. So many people don’t know good Chinese food is.
Seester: Here’s the thing - it’s like it’s not even Chinese food. It’s like the owner read someone’s description of what Chinese food is supposed to be and is imitating that description instead of what it actually is in his cooking. It’s so so so so so bad.
Me: Mommy, it’s like, it hurts me that people think this is Chinese food. I’m ASHAMED that I am Chinese and this is passing off as Chinese food. I stay awake at night, my stomach turns, thinking of all the people who think this is the food I grew up with. I think this is why I’m so gassy at night, Mommy.
Momma M: Oh yah, you always gassy. Eh-ber since you lee-tle. Dats why we always get you dee-ferent hotel room.

This review might get a little “Joy Luck Club”….

Personally, I hate Chinatown. The streets are crowded, the food is greasy, everything smells bad, there is always some strange liquid spewing into the street. My standard response when my friends tell me they’re going to Chinatown? “Watch out for SARS!”

Perhaps because it’s always been there. It was one of the first places in San Francisco I’d ever visited. I didn’t know the history, nor did I really even care. “It’s gross and why don’t these people move faster!” was my main concern. All kidding aside, I grew up in a hispanic suburb south of San Diego. I’ve never really felt close to the Chinese community since I never really had one around me. Stories of those Chinese immigrants involving railroads and Angel Island were as foreign to me as my slanted eyes were to everyone else.

I never knew that my Dad had never been to Chinatown either. He was up here in the Bay Area because of my college graduation, so things were already a little bit emo. We were walking around, and on Stockton and Jackson, he stopped. In Mandarin, he tells me a story.

“When I was young, your grandfather and grandmother would always talk about Old Gold Mountain [San Francisco’s name, in Mandarin]. We had many friends who would sneak onto boats in the hopes of arriving here. Many of them never made it to Old Gold Mountain. But when they did, all they could speak of was the strength of the Chinese community and all the hopes and dreams of the Chinese in America.”

The 30 Stockton rumbles by, the street shakes a little, as does my Dad’s voice.

“60 years later, I am here for the first time. I am old, my accomplishments in life are limited. But you, you live here now. And for you, it’s been so easy. But in these streets, you can feel history. You can feel my story, your grandfather’s story, your grandmother’s story, your mother’s story. To you, it is just some street in San Francisco. To us, it is the reason we are all here, celebrating you and your sister. To us, it is the reason why so many of us came to America, why we always pressure you to succeed. It is so we could give you the opportunity to create hopes and dreams of your own.”

Deep dish pizza is one of Chicago’s culinary contributions to the world, and you have many many choices when you visit. Uno, Due, Gino’s East, Rosati’s, Lou Malnati, and my absolute favorite, Giordano’s.

This is it. This is what I travelled 2,000 miles to be in the presence of. Sweet sweet Chicago deep dish pizza that tastes like more than just pizza. I mean, I could go on and on about its sweet yet buttery and flaky crust, the excessive amounts of fresh melted (and almost even minty) mozzarella, the tangy and pungent flavor of tomato, or the fresh meat-y and savory sausage, but I won’t.

Because, above all else, this deep dish pizza is not just pizza. It’s pizza that represents a city (Chicago), a region (Chicagoland), a not-so-insignificant part of the country (the Midwest), and this wonderful country we live in called America.

This pizza is America incarnate. And I ate it here.

As a country, we’re better for having this incredible museum.

I’ve been to the superstar museums - Los Angeles’ Getty, Paris’ Louvre, New York’s Met, Washington D.C.’s National Gallery, London’s National Gallery, Florence’s Uffizi. Yet, you never hear Chicago’s Art Institute mentioned in the same breath. There’s good reason - it’s collection, while amazing, doesn’t have the same breadth or depth as these superstar museums.

However, for what it’s worth, it has a very easy-to-follow layout, an incredible collection (especially of American art), a section of the museum devoted to Chicago’s architectural past, a (permanent?) exhibit on the architecture and design of Garofalo, and an impressive modernist/futurism collection (Mondrian, Brancusi, and Klee, oh my!). I felt like a kid in a candy shop, except I was… a kid in a museum. But still giddy.

Last time I was here, a planned extension abutting Millennium Park by starchitect Renzo Piano had not yet been completed, but renderings look fantastic and feature glass and ceiling panels, and an extending “magic carpet” floating roof. I’m not sure if it’s completed yet (I am lazy to do a quick Google search) but if so, it should be another architectural gem in the Chicago cityscape.

I was hanging out with a friend a while back, and she had to drop something off at her older brother’s place in the East Bay suburbs. We get to his house and she’s talking to him, I’m poking around looking at their stuff. There was a vase of dried flowers sitting on his mantle. I asked him about them.

John and Martin were one of the thousands same-sex couples who were able to get married during the period from February 12 to March 11 of 2004 under the Beaux Arts dome of San Francisco’s City Hall under an act of defiance from then-rookie Mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom. While they were waiting in line, they had received this particular bouquet from Church Street Flowers, with a sealed note. I asked him if I could have a copy of it, since I didn’t want to change any of the words of the note.

With John and Martin’s permission, I give you this note.

“To the Happy Couple,

I am a mother in Kansas City, MO and I don’t know you. My 16 year old son told me and everyone else in our community that he was gay last year. I told him that I will always love and support him but since then, he has been beaten up twice and is constantly being picked on in school. He doesn’t have any friends and he is always ditching school. I don’t know what to do and I am afraid he is depressed. My only wish is that he could live openly and happily like you do without the fear of being attacked for who he is. Thank you for being you, for both me and my son.

Love,
One Mother in Kansas City”

I cried like a baby.

Today, on June 16, 2008, on a day when same-sex marriages will be irrevocably issued across the glorious state of California, under the power of the California Supreme Court, I say Bravo.

Bravo, Church Street Flowers. Bravo.