Mission Chinese Food

                                                          

Food Politics

We wrote a book about food. It’s more about the taste of food than the politics of food, but the process made us think hard about our values, and we decided to donate a portion of our book sales to food activism. We still believe in the importance of consumer choices, like buying locally, but food policy in this country is so messed up that we need a more direct and systemic approach--especially now, when Congress is preparing to work on the 2012 Farm Bill, which will affect the way we eat as a nation for years to come. We need to put our money where our mouths are, literally.

Together with our publisher, McSweeney’s, we’ve worked out an arrangement to benefit Slow Food USA in their campaign to make the next Farm Bill feed our nation, and not just the bank accounts of agribusiness. For every pre-sale purchase of our book through the McSweeney’s online store, a $10 donation will go to Slow Food USA. Copies purchased later or from other booksellers will result in a smaller donation.

And by the way, our book is called Mission Street Food: Recipes and Ideas from an Improbable Restaurant and it will come out this summer. Here’s a description from McSweeney’s:

Mission Street Food is a restaurant. But it’s also a charitable organization, a taco truck, a burger stand, and a clubhouse for inventive cooks tucked inside an unassuming Chinese take-out place. In all its various incarnations, it upends traditional restaurant conventions, in search of moral and culinary satisfaction.



Like Mission Street Food itself, this book is more than one thing: it’s a cookbook featuring step-by-step photography and sly commentary, but it’s also the memoir of a madcap project that redefined the authors’ marriage and a city’s food scene. Along with stories and recipes, you’ll find an idealistic business plan, a cheeky manifesto, and thoughtful essays on issues ranging from food pantries to fried chicken. Plus, a comic.



Ultimately, Mission Street Food: Recipes and Ideas from an Improbable Restaurant presents an iconoclastic vision of cooking and eating in twenty-first century America.

***THIS IS A PREORDER. If you order now, your book will ship in late July, and a full $10 of your purchase will be donated to Slow Food USA.)***

New Hours at Mission Chinese Food

In an effort to maintain quality and consistency, the staff at Mission Chinese Food and Lung Shan have made a joint decision to adjust our operating hours. The new hours will go into effect starting Monday (January 10th).


We will also no longer take reservations, though we encourage you to call if your party is larger than 4 people so we can best accommodate you. There is no wait during off-peak hours and during peak hours the wait time is typically no more than 20 minutes.

We just don't have an English speaking reservationist or hostess and are sick of making people wait outside while other people are late for their reservation, then get mad at us when there's no table for them--which happens enough to necessitate a policy change.
Thanks for your support.

Thanks

I was recently the winner of an award given by Eater.com for the “Empire Builder of the Year, San Francisco.” I know it's just an internet award, but I'd still like to take this opportunity to thank everyone with whom I’ve worked over the last couple years—guest chefs, cooks, servers and especially the staff of Mission Street Food whose good intentions were as important as mine. Copious thanks are due to investors and kickstarters in Commonwealth and general supporters of benevolent business.

Specific credit should go to Jason Fox, Ian Muntzert, Xelina Leyba and the Commonwealth team, and to Danny Bowien, the Mission Chinese Food staff and the owners of Lung Shan, though I am happy to accept on everyone's behalf as kind of the den mother/crazy uncle of the two operations.

Special thanks to my wife Karen Leibowitz without whose love, support and expertise, none of this would have been possible.

The Proverbial Dragon in the Room...or Webathon as Community Building/Art Installation

I recently received an envelope depicting a child with a disfigured face. It said something like, “donate and we’ll stop sending you images like these.” As noble as cleft palate surgeries are (literally enabling children to smile), that kind of guilt trip is unconscionable and just makes me want to ignore the problems in the world.

I’m fundraising to purchase a sixty-foot-long cloth dragon costume/chandelier. On the surface it’s highly frivolous, but the dragon represents the opposite tack: the solicitous equivalent to positive reinforcement. “Chip in a few bucks and you get to see this thing.” As our business increases, it was worth its price in charity. Even though the vast majority of worldly problems will have gone unaddressed, unlike the elephant in the room, we’ll have done something—created a mascot for optimism.

Like Christo’s The Gates in Central Park, this dragon can be a memorable gesture that enriches the texure of a city. Well okay a city block, but without using 10 million pounds of steel, 1 million square feet of nylon and 900 workers. As we approach the goal, I can’t help but feel a sense of excitement for the tangible evidence of community building—sort of an urban barn-raising in the age of Twitter.