PicoBlog

Eric Kim has invited me to interview him! We’ll be in conversation about his book, Korean American, at Omnivore Books on April 2, 2022. His book is scheduled for release on March 29 and is already in its second printing!!

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Mami Maisonet
5960 S Land Park #222
Sacramento, CA 95822

Opened in 2010, Happy Takeout is a Chinese restaurant located in the gentrified neighborhood of Oak Park. One of the few restaurants in the area, it sits across the street from an Oak Park legacy restaurant, Flower’s Fish Market. Happy Takeout is a step above a hot wok. In 2018, a new Happy Takeout Instagram account appeared, showcasing photos of homemade egg rolls, crab cheese wontons, foil wrap chicken, bright green veggies and huge chunks of barbecue pork in chow mein.

The former owners had moved on to open a Fire Wings location and in 2017, a new family had taken the reins. Cindy Boc (who used to work at Alonzo’s Coffee Shop, simply known as Alonzo’s, in the 1980s) and Sinh Dich are of Chinese descent, but lived in Vietnam before they fled in the ’70s. Diana Dich is their daughter, the youngest of five siblings. Although the whole operation is still guided by the parents, Diana is at the restaurant every weekday from open to close. She’s also the one often doing the dry goods shopping and Jenga’ing the boxes into her tiny 2008 Honda Fit hatchback; she “murdered the transmission from work” on her 1989 Ford Festiva, which she previously used for the restaurant’s tasks.

“I’m the cook, cashier, whatever needs to get done,” Diana says. Diana is a kind-hearted person who will go out of her way to ensure her best customers have access to masks, dish soap and toilet paper when there’s a mob-led shortage by selfish humans. She’ll often leave little drawings on the takeout boxes when she knows it’s your order (she’s got an amazing memory and knows customers tend to repeatedly order the same thing). Not only does she somehow cope with the struggles of operating a small business during the pandemic, threats to her life are common, she’s been physically attacked by a customer (eventually apprehended for assault and battery), a shattered front door thanks to an irate civilian, with a constant revolving door of employees who just can’t seem to manage the brutality of restaurant life. And this is just in the last two years!

I had not been to Happy Takeout since 2010. But love at first sight brought me back. I saw a photo on Instagram of its Green Bean Beef ($8.75) over Veggie Chow Mein (with locally sourced noodles) and the dish proved every bit as delicious in real life as it appeared online. I didn’t bother to try to sit at the metal tables in one of the few uncomfortable chairs inside the “dining room.” Instead, I stood out front. I happily, if awkwardly, balanced the weighty container of sweltering, sauced, soft and chewy egg noodles, crunchy green beans and tender beef slices. The flavor of soy sauce deepened by the quick dance with the wok hei (breath of the wok).

The Cashew Chicken ($7.75) with stir-fried zucchini is loaded with meaty cashews that still retain their crunch, plus crisp water chestnuts. The Walnut Shrimp ($9.75) contains actual candied walnuts that take more than an hour to make from start to finish. For vegetarians, the Hot Garlic Tofu ($7.75) is a combination of carrots, green bell peppers and sauteed chunks of tofu cloaked in a spicy soy-based sauce. The fried prawns ($5.95) are hand-breaded and butterflied, resulting in a large, flat surface covered in crunchy breading leaving the shrimp protected inside.

“She didn’t know anything. She managed to get a job, take the bus and be productive while not speaking English,” Diana says about her mom. Cindy Boc worked for Alonzo’s in 1984. “Alonzo’s let her cook “chow mein” by using Top Ramen. The Alonzo family was so kind to her,” Diana continues about her mother.

Alonzo’s is where Cindy learned to make chile verde, Jaime’s Bar and Grill, a Sacramento restaurant featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Cindy getting her start at Alonzo’s isn’t the only connection Diana feels to the historic business. Diana stated, “Sam [Alonzo] is probably like me. Ultimately, we’re just trying to take care of our parents. I feel like as kids of immigrants, we feel obligated to give back.”

The good news is that you can have all of the deliciousness delivered to your house on those blustery windy days. Dive into the satisfyingly crispy salt and pepper fish without having to deal with traffic, bad weather or getting out of your pajamas.

This article was published on 11.07.19 | The version above is my original unedited draft before the Editor took a lot of the personal human story out of it.

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