Sam Ting’s Family Restaurant

I told my daughter I didn’t want to cause any awkward moments at the family Christmas dinner so I’d booked a week in Hawaii for the holidays. It’s better to be lonely in Waikiki than in my newly rented, snow-bound bachelor apartment in Denver.

During the drive to International Airport, Haley and I avoided discussing the looming divorce. I wanted to explain what was going on, but how could I? Ever since she and my son, Jack, Jr. went off to college their mom, Darlene, and I had been just two people with nothing to keep us together. I’m in my mid-forties and needed to pursue the dreams I had when I was their age. I wanted at least the opportunity for excitement and romance in my life.

I couldn’t talk about those things with our daughter, so we drove mostly in silence. When we got to the curb at Departures, Haley leaned across the front seat console and gave me a hug saying, “O.K., have a great time, Dad”.

There were no problems in Denver, but the connection from San Francisco to Honolulu was delayed. I collected my bag and boarded a bus that took me and about thirty other stranded travelers to a downtown hotel. The group was in a good mood, laughing it up ─ ready to make the best of a bad situation ─ trying some restaurant or seeing some show they’d heard about.

The others were couples and there were four little kids. No one made any inviting gestures my way. Darlene, my soon-to-be ex, was always the one who engaged with fellow travelers. She always made friends and companions along the way. I’m not shy or unfriendly I just find it hard to engage with strangers. I stared out the bus window until we were double-parked in front of a hotel in a run-down part of the city. Half the group got off the bus. The rest continued to some other stopover.

Inside, the carpeted lobby was neat and clean with upholstered furniture and a fichus tree but with just one clerk the check-in was taking forever. I slumped in an overstuffed chair trying not to feel dejected until it was finally my turn to register. The clerk gave me room 306. With no bellman available, I had to walk up three flights of stairs lugging my suitcase. A sign taped to the elevator door saying “temporarily out of service”, caused me almost as much aggravation as the delayed flight.

It was already dark, and I didn’t know a soul in The City of Fog. Nevertheless, I had to get out of that dreary hotel room which was nothing more than a bed, three pieces of functional furniture, and a bathroom that smelled of disinfectant. I broke the paper tape on the toilet and took a leak then went to the sink and splashed cold water on my face before walking downstairs and out to the chilly street, where I flagged a cab.

I climbed into the back seat and asked the driver if he knew someplace I could eat alone without feeling conspicuous. He looked toward me for an instant, and answered, “Yes I do. Please fasten your seat belt.”

We squealed away from the curb into stop-and-go street traffic. He drove as if he was in some sort of competition - jolting stops and starts for traffic lights and a blaring horn for any pedestrians who were indifferent about crosswalks.

We zipped around like that for several minutes and then slowed turning down a street that had buildings with green tile xieshan roofs and street lanterns. He drove cautiously for two or three blocks before coming to a narrow side street with a cast iron archway spanning its entrance. We turned under the leafy, vine-covered arch, and drove a short distance to the end of a cul de sac where we made a U-turn. The cab’s headlights lit up the facades of old brick buildings as they swept through the misty arc.

Now headed in the opposite direction, we stopped at the curb behind two other cabs that were unloading single passengers in front of the only building in the alley with light behind its windows. A lacquer-red sign above the front door said Sam Ting’s Family Restaurant in English characters. There was a Chinese sign, too, and I presumed it also said Sam Ting’s Family Restaurant. A lone streetlamp illuminated the swirling mist in the night air and formed yellowy ripples in the sidewalk puddles leading to the front door.

I asked, “Are you sure this place is O.K.?”

The driver answered, “Trust me” while handing me a card with his name, Luka Kanali, and a number to call when I was ready to go back to my hotel. The restaurant looked as forlorn and lonesome as I felt, but I was too beat down and too hungry to bicker. I paid the fare, got out, and walked up the wet sidewalk to Sam Ting’s Family Restaurant.

The entry door was the street-front type with an old-fashioned thumb latch handle. When I pushed it open and stepped inside, I saw a drab, linoleum floor with well-worn traffic patterns, and heard a bangy steam radiator endeavoring mightily to maintain heat in the dining room. Fluorescent fixtures, hung on chains from the high ceiling, emitting a bluish light that shifted the red Formica tabletops into an odd shade of violet. The chrome-legged chairs had red plastic seats and back cushions that were yellowing in their well-worn centers. The interior decoration consisted of a framed silk painting of an Asian landscape, and a bamboo plant struggling for its life in a dragon-decorated pot near the take-out counter.

The décor was uninspiring, but when I closed my eyes and drew a long breath, I smelled the most splendid, aromas imaginable. Layered fragrances like the flavors within flavors in vintage wine brought memories within memories. I was transported to the tropical garden court of a restaurant in Pataya where, after a delicious meal of Massamam Curry Chicken and green papaya salad, Darlene and I went back to our cabana room and did our part to prove that Thailand deserves its name, Land of Smiles. I savored the exotic scents along with the erotic memory before opening my eyes.

There was neither a hostess nor anyone else up front, so I seated myself at an empty table with no tablecloth, dinnerware, or silverware. I counted ten of us quietly sitting one each, at empty tables for four waiting for something to happen.

The dining room was silent, but chatter and racket were coming from behind a swinging door that led to the kitchen. That clamor, as well as the marvelous aromas, partially relieved the uneasiness of being in an odd dining room among ten total strangers who all seemed intent on avoiding eye contact.

Then, the door to the raucous kitchen swung open and a slim, handsome Asian man in starched whites, a chef’s toque, and a blue-and-white checkered neckerchief strode in wearing a smile that took in the whole universe. He spread his arms and said, “Welcome, everyone, I am Sam Ting.”

We answered his gracious greeting with dead silence and vacant stares. His radiant smile remained as he swept his arm toward a table that occupied the center of the room. “Please everyone; sit together at the big, round, table. You must observe the family style of dining,”  

He said we needed heartening table talk, for spiritual health, harmony, and happiness. “Eating by yourself is the major cause of C.C.D. which stands for Convivial Conversation Deficiency, a malady which is just as dangerous to our minds and our spirit as lack of nutrition is to our bodies.”

We chortled at the mock-serious way The Chef smiled as he stated this principle, but we also recognized its underlying truth and knew he was right.

We all got up and moved toward the big table as he returned to the kitchen. The fellow who ended up next to me was Jack. It was easy to remember his name because it’s the same as mine.

The only woman in the group was Jacqueline. She said she was ready to kill her Uber Driver when he stopped in front of Sam Ting’s, but he convinced her to go inside, take a whiff, and listen to the spiel, while he waited.

“If the food tastes half as good as it smells, the Uber hack lives,” she said, and the room erupted in laughter. Jacqueline’s honeyed, humorous voice reminded me of the way Darlene could make people laugh.

Soon, without any menu checking or ordering, food servers arrived with dish after dish of hearty, delectable Chinese food: Won Ton Soup, Kung Pao Prawns, Manchurian Beef Hau Fung with broccoli, Cashew Chicken with leeks, Tea Smoked Duck, Dan Dan Noodles, shredded pork with vegetables, and other delicious dishes with no menu name I know of.

We passed these along while uttering some version of “Mmmmmm” while placing portions on our oversized dinner plates. With the ice broken, there was cheerful tableside banter between the ten of us, who had been sad and lonely strangers until we sat down and began eating, chatting, and laughing together at the big table.

Jack asked how I came to be in San Francisco. I didn’t give him a straight answer at first, so as not to spoil the moment, but as the night wore on, I leveled with him about giving up on twenty-five years of marriage, and about my plans to start a new life on my own and go for my dreams. When he said, “Well, good luck with that,” it was hard not to sense some degree of skepticism.

The Chef comped all the Gewürztraminer wine we could handle and made several visits to the table to make sure everything was OK. I suppose Sam Ting, like everyone else, enjoys praise, and our group did not let him down. We had crossed a threshold into that unmatched state of contented buzz that only fabulous food, alcoholic beverages, and lively, genuine, happy conversation can bring about - ready to show appreciation and gratitude - to raise a toast to whoever has one coming. I thought about Darlene and resolved to let her know, if we ever spoke again, that I realized I had taken so many wonderful things for granted.

When it was time to go, we each left our forty-dollar tab, plus liberal tip on the table, and said goodnight with handshakes all around. Sam Ting came out of the kitchen, this time to a hearty round of cheers and applause. He bowed and gestured toward the dining room staff ─ like the star he was ─ sharing the curtain call spotlight with the supporting cast.

I found my cabby’s card and called the number. He said he could be there in ten minutes, so I asked Jack and Jacqueline if they wanted to split my cab. The night was still foggy while we stood on the dimly lit sidewalk, but the air felt brisk and refreshing, not chilly, dismal, and damp, as it had when I arrived. The taxi rolled up, and as we piled into the back seat the driver said, “I see you made some friends”

“Yeah, I had a great time. You brought me to the right place.”

He said, “Želim da ti udovoljim.”

Jacqueline asked, “What was that, again?”

The cabby said, “That means ‘We aim to please,’ in Bosnian.”

All four of us laughed like hell, I’m not sure why. Everything was funny – everything simpatico - between the world and us, just then.

When the taxi stopped in front of my hotel, I reached across the front seat and handed the driver two twenties saying, “Keep it all, Luka. Thank you.”

He said, “Anytime, man.”

Jack, Jacqui, and I promised to stay in touch, and I got out. I waved goodbye thinking that the three of us probably would not see each other again, but that the two of them would probably start staying in touch within the next half hour.

When I trudged up the stairs and got back to my room, I sat down on the lumpy bed and took off my shoes. I looked out the window into the cold, drizzly city and contemplated the bus ride back to the airport in the morning - boarding that smelly airplane and going off in the wrong direction. The reasons for leaving my life behind, which seemed so logical before dinner at Sam Ting’s Family Restaurant now made no sense, at all.

It was after midnight in Denver, but Darlene picked up her phone next to the bed we shared for twenty-seven years. When I heard her say, “Hello,” I got a lump in my throat, so she filled in the silence, “Is that you, Jack?”

 “Yep.”

She asked if I was calling from the hotel in Waikiki. When I managed to say I was delayed in San Francisco. She said, “Is everything OK?”

 “No, it’s not, Darling. Nothing will ever be OK again unless I’m with you.”

There was a pause - a moment of apprehension - and then she said, “You’re the one who left . . . I’m still here.”

The End