Eat Drink Play:
Guide to Oakland’s Chinatown, from dim sum, dragons, tai chi to a business that makes fortune cookies.
“This is where the residents shop. This is where people really live.”
— Alicia Wong, owner of the Fortune Cookie Factory
Oakland’s Chinatown is a small village wrapped in a big city, and it seems like another world. Many worlds, in fact.
As you wander the 16-block area — roughly from Sixth to 12th streets and Broadway to Oak — you’ll hear Cantonese and Mandarin, but also Vietnamese, Korean, Filipino, Japanese, Mien and more. The sidewalks are packed with people toting shopping bags and pull carts. Workers tie up bundles of bok choy, and cardboard boxes overflow with dried mushrooms, conch and sea cucumber. And there’s a sweet, earthy smell of dried herbs everywhere you go.
This Chinatown is not a tourist trap. It’s a neighborhood with bakeries, schools, cultural centers and people doing tai chi in the park, chatting in courtyards, buying fresh produce for tonight’s dinner and going about their daily lives.
“This is where the residents shop. This is where people really live,” says Alicia Wong, who grew up in the neighborhood and is now the fourth-generation proprietor of the historic Fortune Cookie Factory on 12th Street.
That doesn’t mean Oakland’s Chinatown is no fun for tourists. Instead, its authenticity enhances the cultural journey. Settled in the 1850s, it’s now home to about 3,300 residents — and some famous ones over the years, too, like Amy Tan and Bruce Lee. It’s known for its annual events, such as the Lunar New Year Bazaar held in January and the Chinatown StreetFest held in August.
But even on a regular old day, there are pleasures in abundance. Here are a few not-to-miss experiences:
Eat
Before you do anything, you’ll need sustenance. Tasty sustenance. So hit one of the many delis and bakeries along Franklin Street between Eighth and 10th. Try Tao Yuen Pastry at 816 Franklin St., where people stand in lines out the door for grab-and-go dim sum, sesame balls, peanut mochi or sweet rice cakes.
For an elegant, white tablecloth, sit-down dim sum experience, you must go to Peony Seafood Restaurant on the second floor of the Pacific Renaissance Plaza at 388 Ninth St. You’ll find The Sweet Booth there as well. It was the first to serve boba teas in Oakland’s Chinatown. (Tip: Try the avocado smoothie!)
Around the corner at 328 10th St. is Shan Dong Mandarin restaurant, which is famous for its hand-pulled noodles. And word has it that Cam Anh will open soon, replacing the long-beloved Cam Huong at 920 Webster St. for delicious banh mi.
Shop
Storefronts on the main drags of Eighth, Ninth and 10th streets offer ornate vases, lucky ceramic cats and tasseled Chinese lanterns, but those are often just in the front displays. Peek inside, where you may find everything from kitchen gadgets to hardware and knickknacks. For produce, seafood and meats, jump into the stream of focused morning shoppers at stores like Ming Lai Market on Eighth for dried bamboo leaves or fresh squid.
Be sure to visit Draline Tong Herbs at 1002 Webster St. at 10th with its wall of wooden drawers filled with medicinal astragalus and rhododendron extracts and more. It’s been there since 1979, run by Henry Lau, who comes from a long line of herbalists and acupuncturists.
At the From the Heart florist on Webster, Tiffany Fang can often be found sitting outside the door, guiding customers to the inner forest of tangerine and kumquat trees. “These are all for Lunar New Year,” she says. “They’re to symbolize good luck, good health, prosperity.”
Meet
Chinatown bustles with activity all day long, starting early in the morning as people gather in Madison Square Park. They move their bodies in slow motion, in unison — with each other and with the universe. They’re practicing tai chi or qi gong. It’s calming and centering just to watch them.
Later in the day, the meetup hub is the center courtyard of the Pacific Renaissance Plaza, the multistory shopping/apartment complex where older folks and businesspeople sit on benches around the fountain, snacking, chatting and people-watching. There’s a library and various businesses — and upstairs, the Oakland Asian Cultural Center with a trove of arts performances, ongoing exhibits and classes on things like calligraphy and Mongolian dance.
Hunt dragons
They’re all over the place, so it’s not too hard — on a school, on a bank, on the side of a market. There’s a curvaceous blue, three-story-tall dragon on a building at Jackson near Ninth. A mischievous pink one at Alice and 10th. This is purposeful “graffiti” — murals from the 99 Dragons Project which began in 2015 with the mission to cover Chinatown’s public walls with 99 of the mystical creatures. Take a walk and see how many you can capture by camera.
Find your fortune — and eat it too
So you think you know fortune cookies? Not if you haven’t been to the historic Fortune Cookie Factory in a small storefront at 261 12th St., where
Alicia Wong and her family create traditional and custom cookies for walk-in customers, as well as for weddings, banquets and companies like Uber and Facebook. They’ve been hand-folding sweet, crunchy admonitions since 1957.
“Most people don’t eat the cookie for the cookie anymore, just for the fortune, because most machine-made cookies are pretty awful,” Wong says. “Ours are bigger, from original recipes, the way they’re supposed to look and taste.”
That said, she takes them to a whole other level, designing elaborate cookies with edible beads and sprinkles.
Factory tours are $2 a person — can’t beat that! — but you need to book online or by phone. If you want to stop in to buy some, be advised it’s only open from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
Want more?
For a deeper exploration of Chinatown and its history, try the free walking tours offered by the city of Oakland. Go to www.oaklandca.gov and search for tours.