If It's Good Enough for the Empero, It's Good Enough for Rai

Among that long list of 'famous' spots to see in San Francisco is Chinatown, the largest outside of Asia. We live just two blocks from it. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. To put it more correctly, we live two blocks from a Chinatown.
Like those Chinese restaurant franchises that pop up around the city with names like 'Happy Garden 2' or 'Green Jade Palace 3', Chinatown too, offers sequels that allow the visitor to get a taste of Chinatown without having to venture all the way to the original one in downtown San Francisco. Chinatown 2 stretches for many blocks of Clement Street in the Inner Richmond. Then there's our Chinatown, the third incarnation. It may be a fraction of the size of the other two and offers far less glitz, but what it lacks in grandeur, it makes up for in authenticity. We don't have red and green lamp posts with golden dragons wound around them. We don't have phone booths with curved and tiled roofs. What we do have are some Chinese community centers, a fencing hall, some martial arts centers, a bakery, and a handful of Chinese restaurants that are packed with local Chinese families nightly.
Just across the street from us is a restaurant that occupies the space once inhabited by the legendary 'Panda', a restaurant known by every Chinese family in the city. The new name is: 'Empero Taste'. Just to make sure that all visitors know that this should not be confused with Emperor's Taste, the owners have added a new sign beside the old one that boldly spells out Empero, minus the 'r', a second time. We figure that Panda's chefs are still chopping bok choi and steaming rice in the kitchen because Empero Taste still keeps those families lining up on weekends.
With Rai in our lives, we have a perpetual excuse to do new things or to even repeat old things and call them new. These days, anything we do can easily be labelled, 'Rai's first this...' or 'Rai's first that...'. So, although we've been longingly glancing over at the red, yellow and green facade of Empero Taste across the street from us for months now, we finally went there for dinner last night. After all, Rai had to have his 'first Chinese restaurant experience' and surely if the food is good enough for the empero, it's good enough for Rai.
Rai loves to be the life of the party. Only minutes after sitting down, he was up to his usual antics. He grabbed some chopsticks, got up on the table, and starting spinning himself around on the lazy Susan. The entire staff and clientele were powerless against these charms and he soon had everyone gathered around or looking his way. Still uncertain what needs to be done once the audience has been drawn in, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
For us, as the tabletop spun, two choices whirled in front of us: tea or Rai. The choice was easy.