Late night in Chinatown has the atmosphere of a film noir. With shops and restaurants closed so vanished the crowd. Freshly sprayed sidewalks smell of fish. Garbage cans and wet cardboard boxes are the still lifes. Walk uphill into the neon-sphere. A couple tumble out of the Buddha Bar. Our car is parked on Washington and Taylor. I need to fill my stomach before taking on the hill and Sam Wo’s dirty red sign blinks at me.
It has been some years since I went to Sam Wo. I am no longer the young wide-eyed tourist, nor the tour guide when friends came to town, nor the music shop owner who needed a bowl of won-ton soup at one in the morning before driving home. Sam Wo hasn’t changed in all its one hundred years. The slapdash kitchen at the entrance, the narrow stairs, the rectangular tables with slanted red legs, the dumb waiter, the thin film of grease that get swished around by the waitress’ rag…food is still priced no more than $6.25. Time stops, where the good Sam Wo stuffs the bellies of poets and wanderers. I finish a third of my chicken chow-mein and box the rest to go. Outside it is darker still.
