Chinese New Year Revisited...

Did you know that San Diego had a Chinatown and a Chinese Historical Museum? I certainly didn't. You don't immediately associate San Diego with Asians and/or especially Chinese. According to the San Diego County Government report on Demographics, Asians and Pacific Islanders make up 11.19% of the population. You might be surprised to know that Filipinos make up the largest ethnic constituency with 145,421 citizens that represent nearly 5% of the total population of San Diego County. Chinese (I'm combining Chinese with Taiwanese here) is the next largest population with 51,000 citizens represently 1.54% of the total population. 

Maddie and I went down to visit the 35th Annual San Diego Chinese New Year Fair located in the historic San Diego Chinatown District. Who know there was a historic Chinatown in San Diego? I certainly didn't. The San Diego Chinese Center (SDCC) has been serving the Chinese and immigrant community for more than 38 years 

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Photo of early 1900's Asian run grocery in San Diego

The history of Chinese in San Diego is pretty much the same as the Chinese in many other cities. They were merchants, operated laundries, supplied produce and other essential services. Both of my grandparents ran grocery stores and served everyone they  touched  with grace, equality and sense of caring. 

The CNY Fair was a nice community event and it gave us an excuse to go downtown and enjoy a day outside to walk around and find out all about the Chinese in San Diego.

We enjoyed the stage acts especially the Red Panda Acrobats (Well really acrobat, just a single dude) He had a great show and did some amazing things I didn't know an older dude could contort like that! There were the usual martial arts groups and a Lion Dance group. All great fun and great support from the community that came out to see them. We'll certainly come back to visit the Chinese Historical Society Museum and Sun Yat Sen Garden. We did have a Filipino snack some vegetable lumpia and turon (banana lumpia). 

​OK I know this is supposed to be the foodie blog post! so in honor of Chinese New Year Redux, we went to Spicy City for Dinner. Spicy City is an old school, no frills, family style Sichuan Cuisine spot located at 4690 Convoy St. Suite 107, San Diego, CA 92111. The portions were generous and flavorful and service was very efficient. The Seafood Hot Pot had fish, squid, shrimp, shiitake and white mushrooms, bamboo shoots and carrots in a light brown sauce. The Fish and Tofu in brown garlic sauce had whole cloves of garlic in it with bamboo shoots and carrots and mushrooms, Actually they were pretty similar. The spice eggplant was very flavorful and spicy, it was a good contrast to the fish, it featured all the tastes of classic Chinese cuisine, spicy (hot) sweet, sour, bitter, salty, it had visible chunks of chopped garlic and red peppers and was delicious.