In a fit of homesickness, earlier I was thinking about surly service in favorite decrepit Chinese restaurants I have known over the years. (For some reason the two tend to go hand in hand.) In Berkeley, some of my fondest drunken memories involved Robbie's Chinese American Hofbrau, which used to be on Telegraph Avenue. The place had been there since the 1950s, and old wooden table tops in the booths were covered with carved writings, including (so I was told by elder Bohemians who "knew" about such things) stuff that had actually been carved by Allen Ginsberg back in the days before he was allegedly running around with Michael Savage. The problem was, everyone carved stuff in there, and there was no way to distinguish what Allen Ginsberg might have carved from what decades of drunken frat boys might have carved. (That sort of indistinguishability I'm sure Ginsberg would have approved.) Beer flowed, and the food was your basic Chow Mein, egg foo young, sweet sour pork fare. One day in the mid 1970s, Robbie was gone, and when I asked where he was, the other Chinese guys laughed and said, "He get too old!" Not long after that, the place closed and was abruptly sacked, the tables violently ripped out and piled in the middle, and when I went in demanding to know what was happening, a Mideastern cheapskate type who appeared to be now in charge looked at me and with what seemed like a gloating expression on his face, said "Robbies is closed. Permanently." History was gone with the wind. I never forgot it.

Then there was the Wong Star, on Haight Street in San Francisco. A few words in a passing blog post cannot hope to do justice to either the place, or its proprietor, a stout, energetic, and probably manic woman known to everyone simply as "Kim." Kim ruled. Over the greasiest dive this side of South Brunswick, New Jersey. The prices were out of the 1950s, as was Kim. Normal people would have been scared away by the shocking tackiness of the decor. I doubt the front windows had been washed since 1952, but this might have been a good thing, actually. For while you could read where "WONG STAR RESTAURANT" had been painted, the window dirt obscured the window "display" -- which was nothing but a long, bent curtain rod over which was hung plastic greasy yellow shower curtains. And between the shower curtains and the window was a vase holding plastic flowers so covered with grime and dust you really couldn't tell what color they might have been. It was wonderful.

Kim was the ultimate tyrant, and brooked no attitude. And I mean, no attitude, for Kim feared no man. (And no woman.) I'll never forget the time that some jive-ass pimp type (a man quite accustomed to getting his way) came in and ordered food to go. While he waited, he and one of his girls carried on loudly, and when the food was brought out, the bags were stapled shut with the receipt on top, per Kim's usual practice. The man paid, but suddenly decided that now he wasn't going to leave, and instead he sat insolently down and started opening up the food to eat it.

Instantly Kim launched into action.

"YOU ORD' TO GO NOT EAT HERE!" she shrieked, while literally lunging at the man. Realizing that he was out-gunned psychologically and probably physically, the guy got up and left, defensively muttering things like "crazy bitch, what she talking bout?" under his breath.

At this point, Kim turned to the entire restaurant and announced something I will never forget as long as I live --

"I ONLY LIKE NICE PEOPLE!"

Everyone got it. There was just an understanding there. Kim was so brutally right and so politically incorrect in the most innocent and charming sort of way....

The food was actually quite good, and there was no other place I had seen (least of all in San Francisco) where you could get a decent steak and egg breakfast for $2.95 in the 1980s.

Feeling nostalgic, I tried to find these places and had no luck with the Wong Star. Robbie's is mentioned here and here and I was lucky to find it mentioned here as an early 60s poetry hangout.

Where I really scored was with another favorite -- San Francisco's Sam Wo Restaurant. The place used to be (and amazingly, still is) the most inexpensive restaurant in Chinatown, and you had to walk up a skinny flight of not-to-code stairs and then through a dingy kitchen, where you would be greeted by a man who really took delight in being insane. I used to love going there just to watch his behavior. He would yell at you as soon as you got to the top of the stairs, specks of foam flying from his mouth, tell you where to sit and what to order. He was something of a San Francisco legend (who had regular mentions in Herb Caen's column -- especially when he would chase non-paying customers into the street waving a cleaver) and I figured he must be dead by now and long forgotten. But I was very encouraged when I Googled "Sam Wo" and found that not only is the place still there, but there are many reviews, mostly favorable, and one mentioned a crazy waitress who no longer works there:

sorry to break it to you guys, but the non-english speaking waitress who loves to throw chopsticks and what not at you has retired!!! Apparently the owner's daughter (who by the way, speaks English and is way awesome) has taken over her job duties. So customer service has definitely stepped up a notch.

But what I really remembered about Sam Wo was the man who took delight in being insane -- a truly immortal San Francisco character with the unforgettable name of "Edsel Ford Fong." When I saw that the place still existed, I thought maybe there'd be a mention of him somewhere, so I did what modern people do. I Googled him.

To by utter astonishment, not only did I get hits, but the man (who died in 1984) has his own Wiki page. A Wiki page! The last thing on earth I would have expected. In all these years of blogging, never have I been more surprised to discover the existence of a Wiki page, yet no one is more deserving of a Wiki page than Edsel Ford Fong.

Edsel Ford Fong (May 6, 1927 - April 1984) was a Chinese American restaurant server from San Francisco, California. [1] He was often called the "world's rudest, worst, most insulting waiter".[2]

Edsel Ford Fong was born and raised in San Francisco's Chinatown. He worked the second floor of the Sam Wo Restaurant on Washington Street. (The restaurant name means "three in peace", a reference to its founding partners.)[3] As head waiter, Fong greeted visitors with an admonition to "sit down and shut up".[4] He was known for calling patrons "retarded" and "fat", criticizing people's menu choices before telling them what they should order, slamming food on the table, complaining about receiving only 15% tips, and groping female patrons.[2] An imposing man with a crew cut hair style, he also was notorious for seating people with strangers, forgetting orders, cursing, spilling soup on customers, hazing newcomers, refusing to provide forks or English menu translations, and busing tables before diners were finished.[5]

I have to agree with all the other yelpers and say that if you want a clean, rated-A Chinese restaurant, then don't come here!!! Entering through the dirty kitchen and seeing random poultry parts everywhere might be enough to make anyone turn in their tracks... and yes, I was rather grossed out, HOWEVER the food is scrumptious. The service isnt too fabulous or attentive by any means, but I was rather disappointed to not hear any yelling or screaming or see any chopsticks thrown.

All the tables are pretty small, so the four of us smushed in the back corner. We ordered a bowl of bbq pork noodles, and a plate of chow mein with beef and sprouts. The bowl of soup was huge, definitely enough for the four of us to share. Very tasty on a cold, rainy day. The chow mein was nice and greasy, and I had to add some soy sauce to give it some more flavor, but it was also very tasty. The bill came out to something like $12, which you can't go wrong with!! Cash only though, so be prepared.

The Wiki piece recognizes that the man's style was an art form:

Sam Wo Restaurant continues to operate (as of 2009) in Chinatown, and is still listed in tourist guidebooks as being where Fong practiced a "wicked sarcasm [that] took on aspects of performance art".[12]

A Chinatown institution for over 100 years, Sam Wo's is a ramshackle speakeasy of a restaurant where you are more likely to get yelled at and berated rather than unctuously served. As you walk directly into the kitchen, a waiter yells at you, already exasperated, to come up the rickety stairs to the meager dining area. Saw Wo's was the home of the legendary Edsel Ford Fong until he passed away recently--this surly, rude "waiter" would treat you like a recruit at his own private Chinese restaurant boot camp. The tradition continues: you are most likely told what to eat, instead of choosing the food yourself--but its eternal redeeming quality is the fact that Sam Wo's is some cheap, cheap eats.

"But it was a despotic head waiter known as Edsel Ford Fong that made SAM WOH such a formidable Babylon-by-the-Bay institution. Edsel, big for an oriental chap at 6' 200 lbs. in his whitewall crew cut, long apron and omnipresent game-face scowl. If you walked in at prime time and didn't know Edsel you were in for some first-class abuse taking. He was the Pol Pot of noodledom and when it came to insults, he took no prisoners."

I think his customers enjoyed the treatment he meted out, and it was probably well deserved. Look at this picture:

The caption is Edsel Ford Fong and some "abused" customers, 1982

Hmmm...

(I'd say he wasn't rude enough, except I don't want to be disrespectful.)