Last week was the twentieth anniversary of my heart valve operation. I wouldn’t have died on August 5th, 2002 when I had the operation, or the day after, or even, the month after August 5th, but it is doubtful that I would have lived for another year without the benefit of modern medicine. It is enough to make one a modern medicine believer.

While I was whiling away my day in the hospital, Seton Medical Center in Daily City, Michele, was having lunch – or dinner, I have no idea – at the local Outback, and she noticed a new-to-us Chinese restaurant tucked away at the back of the parking lot. And that’s how she found Koi Palace, a huge – 450-seat huge – traditional Cantonese seafood restaurant. Koi Palace became one of our go-to restaurants but it sort of faded in our consciousness as newer Chinese restaurants, opened, most of them much closer. Then, the Koi Palace people opened another restaurant, Dragon Beaux which has great Dim Sum in a much newer style and we fell in love again.

During the quarantine, I think on our way home from Olympic Valley, we got some takeout from Palette Tea House in San Mateo and it was terrific. Somehow, I got the impression that this was a Chinese chain like the Din Tai Fung chain which has super Dim Sum restaurants in both the LA area and at Valley Fair in San Jose. It turns out, though, that the Palette Tea House was part of the burgeoning Koi Palace chain.

It seemed like it would be natural for a celebratory dinner. And it was. Actually, it may have been the best Chinese meal I’ve ever had. I was astonished and thrilled in the same way as my first meal at Cecilia Chiang’s Mandarin in Ghirardelli Square in the late 1960s or Alice Water’s Chez Panisse in 1972. It was such a great way to celebrate that we went back with Peter and Ophelia.

It’s nice to still be alive.