Aiden W.
Yelp
I walked into Wok Up on Ocean Ave in San Francisco on a fog-draped Wednesday evening, the kind of weather that makes you crave warmth deep in your bones. I didn't come here expecting much maybe a quick meal, a brief distraction. I certainly didn't expect to leave feeling like some old wound had been gently, surprisingly tended.
I ordered with a kind of reckless hunger, as if I was trying to feed something far older than my stomach. From the menu I chose:
* A1 Soup Dumplings XLB - Pork, their delicate skins stretched thin over fragrant, molten broth.
* A4 Shrimp Dumplings Ha Gow, almost translucent, little parcels of the ocean.
* C17 Braised Beef Egg Noodle Soup, a steaming bowl big enough to cradle between my hands like a secret.
* D1 Portuguese Egg Tarts, golden and warm, because I wanted to end on something sweet and nostalgic, even if my childhood was never filled with desserts like these.
* And a hot milk tea, rich and creamy, sweet enough to soften the edges of the day.
What I didn't know until halfway through my meal was how much of my past I was carrying into that tiny restaurant. I grew up in a house where dinner was more about tension than comfort. Silence sat at the table with us, heavy as another plate. Arguments could spark over something as trivial as who forgot to set out the soy sauce. I learned early to eat quickly, to clear my plate and disappear. To treat food not as pleasure, not as a moment to connect, but simply as fuel to survive.
The soup dumplings were the first crack in that old armor. Their hot broth burst into my mouth, forcing me to pause, to breathe around the burn, to actually experience the taste instead of rushing through it. Each bite was like a tiny act of kindness I didn't know how to give myself.
The shrimp dumplings were so tender they nearly fell apart on my chopsticks, their sweetness mingling with a faint ocean saltiness. It was such a gentle flavor, so careful, that I found myself unexpectedly tearing up. It was like these dumplings were telling me that gentleness exists that it's allowed.
Then came the braised beef noodle soup. Its broth was deep and earthy, laced with spices that tasted like stories from far-off kitchens. The beef melted under my chopsticks, the noodles slick and perfect. Each mouthful felt like it was coating old scars inside me with something warm and forgiving.
Finally, the Portuguese egg tarts were soft, custardy, with caramelized tops that cracked under my teeth. They were a small, golden promise that sweetness can come at the end that not everything closes on bitterness.
By the time I drained the last of my milk tea, I realized I was sitting there in a kind of stunned calm. This meal hadn't erased my childhood. It hadn't rewritten those long, tense dinners where I trained myself to expect the worst. But it had offered me a small revelation: that food can be tender, that it can say you deserve to be cared for. That maybe the table doesn't have to be a battlefield.
I left Wok Up lighter. Full, yes but also gently reminded that healing sometimes looks like steam rising from a bowl, or a flaky tart falling apart between your fingers. That maybe I'm allowed to savor comfort. Maybe I'm allowed to stay at the table, and breathe, and simply be.
