Technology! Four people in two states share dinner together.

Yesterday was an interesting day in a few ways.  Quite conventional on the surface but depending on how you look at it .....  .......

When I was the age of my dinner companions the cell phone had not even been invented for general use. 

I made this comment at one point during dinner and got away with it.  When my friend in Phoenix asked why my friends would be interested in him I replied that apparently they had nothing better to do this evening than hang around with somebody my age.  That comment got me a kick under the table.

Perhaps I need to back up a little.

I have some friends that live in downtown Los Angeles.  I do a bit of work for some of them and in the process I have expanded the circle of people I know downtown.  It has been a nice arrangement as some of the work I do is compensated by meals at times and a little cash at times.

Today a few of us went out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant called Hop Woo in Downtown Los Angeles Chinatown.  I had been there a number of times before as they are open until 1am other than Friday and Saturday night when they are open until 3am.

Some people say that this place has the best Peking Duck in the city.  One of my boys thinks they have the best shrimp he has eaten or right up there with the best.......

I will probably write a review on Yelp later but I am able to say things here that paint a more accurate picture of my own perception that might be a good idea on Yelp.

The food is terrific but the staff can be a bit edgy or rude.  Being a "gringo" in a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown can be a bit of a factor in regard to service for some of the more traditional staff or the owner of the restaurant.  I have experienced this before with other people but on more than one occasion (every occasion actually) the effect is multiplied when one enters a Chinese restaurant with two Japanese girls.  A bit of tension may be an accurate description.  Well, the food is great even when the service is slow.  If I was really worried I would have made one of the staff eat some of the food before we ate it :)

In the center of the photo above are the salted crispy and slightly sticky sweet shrimp that are so great.

Here is the duck they are famous for.  If you want to learn more about this place I will post the link on Yelp.  Yelp has pretty accurate reviews for the most part:  http://www.yelp.com/biz/hop-woo-bbq-and-seafood-restaurant-los-angeles-3#hrid:9bZAFd1esV08qaecEtYZDw  There are photos there which in many cases are better than mine but I cannot believe nobody posted a photo of the shrimp and all I have is my cell shot here. 

To continue.  The three of us had lunch.  After lunch I learned what my required payment was going to be.  I had to go on a bit of a shopping trip. 

I initially tried to talk one of my friends out of purchasing this t-shirt.  I changed my mind after seeing her try it on.  An oversize t-shirt looks pretty darn terrific when it is the main part of the outfit.  This brought to mind similar events of the past....

Above is perhaps the last time I was in the company of a t-shirt being the primary form of an outfit for somebody.  By the way, this is Ashley Danielle and she usually attends the L.A. Ampshow each year.  This year it is October 2,3.  More info at http://www.ampshow.com/

I  digress.

The photo above?  This was my basic impression in regard to this shopping outing other than the t-shirt shopping and being a part of culture clashing in the Chinese restaurant where it did not come together (the only one with a problem was the hostess or owner of the restaurant).  A highpoint in a good way in regard to meeting of two cultures was Japanese girls trying on silk Chinese dresses.  I have always had two major weaknesses.  One weakness are ponytails.  Another is silk Chinese dresses with that slit up the side.  I will continue before I digress even further off tangent.

We made plans to meet for dinner.  My friends live in a newer loft downtown so we met at the loft and drove to Little Tokyo to a restaurant called Komasa for sushi.   In brief ... outstanding.  We had a combination platter with 20 or so pieces of assorted sushi, some tuna shashimi and their spicy tuna roll which is outstanding.   

We all love sushi.  I wrote a review on Yelp.  I will copy one paragraph from the review here and also supply the link on Yelp so you can read the entire review and the reviews of others:

There were four of us at dinner.  Three actually at the restaurant and a fourth who was in Phoenix for the evening working at a concert.  I call this fellow "The Weave" but others know him as Chad Weaver.  Chad is a guitarist and the tech for Brad Paisley who had a concert in Phoenix last night.  Through the technology of smart cell phones with text, chat, video, photos, voice, Internet, social networking and more Chad was able to join us for dinner as he was setting up just before the concert went on.  This was probably the best way for Chad to join us for dinner because I do not think Chad eats "raw fish". 

http://www.yelp.com/biz/restaurant-komasa-los-angeles#hrid:zoyUDNdhXrXmovQ_oh-Rvw

Technology?  The title of this bit of writing starts with the word in the title yet I have broken one of the main rules of journalism by not addressing the subject in the title.  Here is where the technology comes into the picture.

I am not sure as to the chain of events.   Three of us were walking in Los Angeles to the restaurant.  My friends were doing a bit of window shopping.  Earlier in the evening or perhaps in the afternoon I had been talking to a friend of mine in Phoenix.  He is not from Phoenix, he was just working there.  The day before he had been in San Diego and a day or two before that in the Bay area in Northern California.

At some point were were having a dialogue on the phone.  The technology at hand with today's phones puts many tools in our hands.  Text, photos, videos, voice, data, social networks, the Internet and more.  So there we were, four of us in two different states, hundreds of miles apart.  Information and communication going back and forth at the speed of communication (slower than hoped for courtesy of AT&T) but communication none the less.

My friend in Phoenix learned a bit more about my friends in Los Angeles and they learned more about my friend in Phoenix.  One of my L.A. friends wanted to cut dinner a bit short so we could run back to her place and fire up a PC so she look at some information on him and see some photos I have which are not posted publicly. 

The dialogue became so intense that I became very concerned that I just might lose a shooting partner when he comes back to Los Angeles for work which he does somewhat often. 

In the end I think the percentages on dinner conversation came down to:

20% on how I acted during the afternoon shopping and what was purchased during shopping.

10% on my observation on how Chinese people who are over 50 treat Japanese people under 30.

10% on sushi, other people in the restaurant, the small size of the restaurant and other subjects.

60% on my friend in Phoenix, lots of questions and the loss of my cell phone to one of the girls so they could carry on a dialogue with the guy who was the mystery man of the moment but who became less of a mystery from one minutes to the next.

In the end the day was great, the night was great, the meals were terrific, the shopping was offset by taking some fun photos and doing some color studies with the photos, the company was great and sharing dinner with a good friend in Phoenix as a major concert was starting was anything but ordinary.  I think everybody had a good time.

Bottom line for my friend in Phoenix (at least until midnight or a bit after) .... you need to get your butt out here to L.A. pretty soon.  I have no idea what we can all do for dinner because I don't think you eat raw fish.  Then again, everybody liked Italian a lot.

To my friend who might end up reading this on a tour bus in motion on the road .... I hope the show went well and say hello to the gang for me.