Another one

Word on the street is that Little Paris - a staple restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown for decades - is planning to close up shop. Among the cited reasons are low customer traffic that never recovered to pre-pandemic levels, and the landlord raising the rent. Jokes on the landlord: he (I’m going to presume it’s a he) went from hopeful increase in rental income, to now having zero income. Congratulations, you played yourself.

According to the linked article, the landlord refused to negotiate. In this economy? Honestly, are folks chomping at the bits to open a restaurant in Chinatown? The problems that are causing Little Paris to close down are not going away for potential new tenants. The landlord would rather risk vacancy than coming to a suitable agreement with the proprietor of Little Paris. I know inflation is wild these days, but I highly doubt the landlord was losing money at the old rental rate. As far as I know, property taxes in California have not gone up.

It is greed. Pure greed. Anyone raising prices for the sake of it alone is shortsighted at best, evil at worst.

I can’t say I have too much memories tied to Little Paris. My family was too poor to afford me an allowance back then. There was no getting a sandwich and sugary drink with friends, no matter how cheap the banh mi is there. For my school mates with spending money, Little Paris was seemingly a popular destination. For them I guess it would be sad to see a piece of their childhood going away.

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Big fortune.

Right from the table

I am a big fan of the restaurants that do ordering right at the table using QR code. I think it is a great system, kind of a step up from fast food counter ordering. Everybody’s got a smartphone these days, right? A quick scan, order what you want, and the food arrives to the table in short order. Best of all, it allows folks to easily pay for their own meal (bonus if I can use Apple Pay right on the website). The QR code system negates the need for card splitting, or heavy Venmo calculations. Everybody gets to earn credit card points!

It’s awesome for large groups. Especially when said group is a bunch of car enthusiasts gathering once a year, most of us having previously only met on the Internet. Surely a restaurant would hate to split a bill amongst ten credit cards. Having one person pay, and then accept Venmo from everyone else, is a huge hassle as well. That’s why I was surprised and relieved to see the restaurant was the order-from-the-table-via-QR-code type.

Ordering from the table has got to be a thing borne out of the pandemic, right? Back when indoor person-to-person contact is to be avoided as much as possible. Instead of a server coming around to take orders, let people order for themselves digitally. The point-of-sale is packaged right in, too - that’s another interaction eliminated. The only face-to-face potential is when the server brings the food. But even that, I’ve seen in some restaurants, can be done by robots.

This is one of those necessary changes spurned on by the unfortunate pandemic that we are happy to see continue on. Another one is the hybrid university classroom, where students have the option of attending in person, or joining virtually from Zoom.

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It’s Klay day.

A stamp when you need one

When is the last time you sent an actual letter? The Internet have largely negated that part of the communication experience. It’s so much easier - and less waste of paper - to send stuff digitally. The invite to my friends’ baby shower is completely digital. Long gone are the days of receiving it in the mail and having to tick a box then send it back via post.

But sometimes I do want to send something through snail mail. What catches me always is my lack of stamps on hand. I mean, does anyone just have a stack of stamps at home these days? I certainly don’t. On the rare times I want to send a letter the traditional way, I have to make a trip to the post office. You would think then I would buy a book of stamps to keep at home, but I never seem to learn the lesson. The frequency is rare enough. Besides, I can use the walk.

Something else I don’t have readily on hand these days is cash. No, I have money, but hard cash is something I never carry with me. I can’t remember the last time I touched coins. Your restaurant is cash only? I guess I won’t be patronizing it. Sorry, nothing personal.

Unless of course a friend invites you to a luncheon celebrating his graduation, and it’s at a cafe that only accepts cash. Worse, we didn’t find out until we’ve sat down and ordered. Everybody in our table only carried credit cards. When said friend came around to our table to say hi, my first remark was jokingly, “Do you have cash?” Fortunately there was a Chase branch a few blocks away. While I never carry cash, I do at least have a debit card with me for (let’s call it) emergencies.

Will I start carrying some cash, and have a few stamps stashed at home? Yeah… Probably not.

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Evening stroll.

Am I the asshole?

It’s weird these days going inside shops. The mask mandate is gone practically everywhere in the Bay Area. Therefore, often times I choose to not wear one when I go the mall or the grocery store. Not because I am anti-mask or anything. Where I work - San Francisco State University - there still an indoor mask mandate, so I wear one at least 40 hours every single week. You can see why I try not to wear them outside of work.

The problem is: mask wearing causes my face to break out in acne (yes, still getting acne at age 34). During the weekend when I don’t wear one constantly, my face is noticeably less inflamed. So if I can avoid it, I don’t mask up.

Which makes for an awkward situation, because usually I would be the only one not wearing a mask. So I end up looking like one of those crazy anti-maskers who only got vaccinated to keep my job, and most likely voted for Donald Trump. It’s good to see people around here are still masking up indoors, but the bottom line is it’s no longer mandatory. Some days I simply don’t feel like wearing it. Sorry.

At least no one has hassled me for it thus far. And I do feel bad when I have to interact with a store clerk who is masked up. Massive apologies for spewing my droplets onto you so carelessly.

What I never understood is the mask mandate for indoor dinning. As far as I am concerned, that is pure theatre. What difference does it make against an airborne illness to only wear the mask when I’m walking to and from the restaurant table? Are we suddenly in some protected bubble once we’re all seated? Of course, rules are rules: I abide by the mandates just as most everybody else do. However, nowadays I don’t bother with masks when I go to a restaurant. It makes zero sense.

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We’re going home.

Galpao Gaucho review

Buffets and all-you-can-eat restaurants are great for spending a few hours with friends and gorging endlessly on food. The only downside is the inevitable food coma that comes afterwards from massively overeating. You want to get your money’s worth, so of course you’re going to eat way more than usual. Bring on the expensive stuff! Don’t fill your stomach with the cheapies like the potato salad.

Or a one liter bottle of San Pellegrino, as I did yesterday.

We went to a Brazilian steakhouse called Galpão Gaucho, featuring unlimited cuts of grilled meat and a full-feature salad bar. Time limit is two hours. There’s several locations in the Bay Area, we went to the one most convenience to us: Cupertino. Price on a weekend is about $63 dollars. Drinks and desserts are extra. That one liter bottle of Pellegrino? Five dollars.

It’s worth it because if you don’t constantly hydrate throughout the meal, you’re going to be drinking lots of water afterwards. The salt content is no joke, though the steaks are absolutely delicious, seasoned just correctly. My favorite cuts are the bottom sirloin, and the ribeye. Rather disappointing though the restaurant did not offer prime rib, in my opinion the best cut of them all.

Obviously, none of us could eat like we used to back in the college days. I purposely did not go to my limit (this isn’t a hot dog eating contest) because I still had errands to run afterwards. It was still a decent amount, and for the dinner that followed I only ate a peach and a banana. I’m going to be swearing off cow meat for this week, though honestly I’m more of a pig and chicken person anyways.

For a good time and properly done (unlimited) steaks, I highly recommend Galpao Gaucho.

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A tradition unlike any other.