Take Over Cupertino Village

We had dinner last night with the Parks at HC Dumpling House. A surprisingly good meal. I say surprisingly only because the hype around this place seems to have died a bit since it opened, when there was *always* a line out the door. But yeah, the best XLB / soup dumplings in the Bay Area (not that that’s saying much, but they were pretty good). The other stuff (meat roll, fried rice, buns) were good too. The only loser was the complimentary plum juice, which tasted to me like vinyl.

Anyway, the service here always addresses everyone in Chinese (I’m not sure which dialect, I think Mandarin but not sure). I used my standard Chinese phrase – wo shi han guo ren (I’m Korean). The manager was pleased but then continued on in Chinese gibberish, with Jieun (the best Chinese speaker at our table) vainly trying to keep up.

But then she pulled out a surprise – she’s also fluent in Korean. That’s kind of random. Common at Korean Chinese restaurants, but this place is pure Chinese.

For some reason, that made me inordinately happy. The Chinese/Taiwanese have too strong a stranglehold on Cupertino Village with their weirdo/smelly food/culture. It’s time for us to infiltrate it with our Korean influence and our own weirdo/smelly food/culture. With this manager and the tofu place, it’s starting. Red Mango cannot be far behind. Man seh! Dae han min gook!