Thousands filled Grant Avenue this weekend to sample neighborhood restaurants, take in a lion dance or dance themselves beneath the warm glow of dēnglóng lanterns at the Chinatown Night Market.
Who was there? Everyone. Hipsters, techies, tourists — “does San Francisco do this every weekend?” — dogs in backpacks, newcomers, oldcomers, parents and grandparents with strollers and kids in tow. A man calling himself “Captain Alex” graciously showed folks his rattlesnake head pendant, “I used to kill them for a living,” he told me.
And don’t worry: the huqin-player outside Old St. Mary’s, a permanent Chinatown fixture, was there too. The allegro from “Eine kleine Nachtmusik,” in case you were wondering.
Even the Highway Patrol got in on the fun, with folks taking pictures in a gleaming pursuit car: as good a recruitment tool as any. Also recruiting was the Asian Firefighters Association, who brought along a turntable and beats — call for house parties or house fires.
Equally hard to ignore: the aromatic cloud of peanut sauce, stir fry, sweet buns and noodles from the 20+ vendors. I got off to a good start with fried rice from Far East Café (// 631 Grant): rich, salty, fatty fried rice and eggs, still fresh-in-the-middle peas and carrots, just gummy enough to be devoured with chopsticks.
Followed by: wings from New Golden Daisy (// 1041 Stockton), so temptingly fragrant I forgot to take pictures. Wings sometimes seem like a dim sum cop-out, but I always change my opinion once I bite into the crispy batter peppered with garlic and into the piping hot meat.
Sticking with savory, I ended with stuffed noodle rolls from Sam Wo (// 713 Clay) with a side of modestly-named “spicy mustard.”The noodle rolls were perfect, that ideal just post-al-dénte rubbery texture that makes them delightful to bite and a sweet, spicy chicken shreds beneath, with a dab of mustard adding an outsized punch of horseradish.
Clatter of drums announced the lion dancers of LionDanceME club, whose big blue heads enthralled the crowd with impossibly athletic leaps and twirls. A rising crescendo for the dragon: a grinning head followed by a serpent body slithering vertically in air, its mouth bobbing open and shut mischievously while it changed colors. If there was an evil doom loop lurking in the shadows, it was frightened back to the offices of Fox News.
The crowd was feeling jiggy after the lions left. Happily, DJ Ebony Slam was nearby to drop grooves like James Brown’s “Sex Machine,” prompting young and old to shake their moneymakers, so to speak. Overhead, dēnglóng lanterns dangled softly in the breeze, not quite to the beat but very much on the scene.
In case you forgot: more can happen in two blocks in San Francisco than two miles anywhere else. Here’s to many more night markets all around town.
M. T. Eley is a San Francisco-based writer.
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