Urban Thought Collective

It’s another glorious Thursday night in the San Francisco Bay Area and me and the crew, or rather, the Crew and I set out to do some celebrating. It’s almost Friday and by all accounts, it has been a rough week. That’s reason enough to celebrate. But we had actually convened for a birthday. Of course, with our crew, getting everyone together is never a small feat and today would be no different. I’m just glad that I wasn’t the one with the difficult set of circumstances for once, and no one had to accommodate me. Somebody else drew that card today.

As usual, we tried to make sure that whatever our festivities turned out to be, run of the mill would not be a phrase used to describe them. Most of the time that rules out things like chicken and beer at a sports bar. If we do resort to something like that, however, we’ll throw a wrinkle in it by taking care that the scenery is way out of the norm (our norm, anyway), being perhaps a rarely visited part of town, or being a bar where that chicken is tandoori chicken or something like that, and the sport on those bar tv is of the cricket or polo or futbol variety.

This is never a tough sell with this very international group though. With two Jamaicans, a Persian, and myself, we’ve got a wide range of experiences and tastes to draw upon. Recently we got together at the last minute on a Tuesday and ended up eating at a food court. Yes, a food court. But you’ve never seen a group of guys push a food court to its full potential like we did. No one got the cheesesteak and cup full of fries, or the stuffed, cheesy crust Sbarro pizza, or even a Big Mac. When we all met back at a table in the middle of the seating area, it looked like lunchtime in the United Nations cafeteria. Afghan, Indian, Jamaican and Japanese food covered our little formica table.

Tonight it would be Moroccan food at a restaurant called Aziza and live Cuban/Reggaeton/Hip Hop music at a bar called Mojito’s in North Beach. The food was great and the service spectacular at this sophisticated, yet unpretentious and downright laid back Western Addition neighborhood restaurant. We entertained ourselves not only by marveling about the tasty treats being brought to us by our waitress, but also trying to figure out where she was from. This type of undertaking always busts me up. We always have this urge to make someone out to be much more exotic and mysterious than they really are. “She’s amazing!” remarked the birthday boy, adding, “…you see…that’s what I’m talking about… she’s very sophisticated.”

“I know,” added another, “she’s very refined,” he continued, having based his assessment solely on the way she placed the silverware on the table and the quiet confidence she exuded as she recited the evenings specials, as if these things speak to magna cum laude at Harvard and a masters in etiquette in a South Wales finishing school. “I think she’s from South Africa… that accent.. .it’s exquisite,” the coconut rum libation that she had recommended clearly taking control of his faculties at this point.

I hadn’t yet detected any accent, but I went along with the conversation anyway. She did have a very nice command of the menu and seemed very easy in her explanations of individual ingredients and how they complement one another for your tasting pleasure. Of course, any woman talking about food as if it’s a science, or religion even, makes me smile and take notice. I liken it to the way that I might recollect that someone I met in a dark club “could’ve been Halle Berry’s twin sister,” judgement clouded by her rather impressive analysis of the nuances of Stockton and Malone’s pick and roll, Jim Leyland’s ability to manufacture runs, and why the West Coast offense is dying a slow death in some major collegiate programs. But, like I said, I played along.

Finally, as she was placing the dessert menus on the table, I asked where she was from to end the debate once and for all. The wide speculation had all but dominated our conversation so I decided to throw down the gauntlet. South Africa got a vote, as did New Zealand. Feeling like I was the only one that had failed to see the emperor’s new clothes, I cast my vote for the Midwest (you know, Kansas, Illinois, Ohio,…).

“Texas,” she said, “but I then lived in New York for many years.”

They were visibly disappointed. Somehow, in our circle, accents, far off homelands, and the assumption of diverse hobbies and, um.. .the ability to… uh… read earn very high marks on the first impressions scale. “She’s still bad!,” one of them finally blurted out after a very long, very palpable silence.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog “Soufflés in Saigon” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.