Al Perez's Chow Fun SF Spotlights Asian Culture With Food

The all-things-Asian-cuisine event Chow Fun SF is back for its third year of drawing neighbors out of their homes for all kinds of foodie fun.

Its creator, Al Perez, has pulled together more neighborhood restaurants and bigger raffle prizes for participants.

Perez, a graphic designer and member of the Filipino American Arts Exposition, created the Asian food festival in 2022 while volunteering at the nonprofit Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage, where he and his peers were challenged to bring Asian celebrations to all corners of San Francisco. He launched Chow Fun SF in the Excelsior, but this year the event has expanded.

“Our goals are to promote AAPI culture and community in this district that's often forgotten, and support the AAPI dining establishments,” Perez said.

Over 50 establishments from across the south side of San Francisco, including restaurants from Visitacion Valley, Sunnydale, Excelsior and Ingleside, will participate for nearly two weeks. There will also be three events with performances from lion dancers, a ukulele player and more.

Chow Fun’s opening reception is at The Halfway Club on May 7 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. It will be followed up by a community kickoff on May 10 at the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco Excelsior Clubhouse from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and will conclude with a closing culinary event at the Kapuso at the Upper Yard from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on May 18.

“We have such great cuisine and diversity of food choices in our backyard,” Perez said. “Please go out and explore and discover something new. Just be adventurous.”

The Ingleside Light caught up with Perez to see what this year’s celebration had in store.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What can the public expect this year?

First is this dine around passport. Every time people make a purchase [at a participating business], they get a stamp on their passport. If you get four or more stamps, you get a chance to win fabulous prizes. Last year, we asked for five. It's only seven days and people felt so stressed out to eat out every night, so we made it just four this time — and it's 12 days this year. It’s longer and a lot easier. They can get any combination of four. If they keep going to the same restaurant four times, that's totally OK.

This year, we're going to reward people with the most stamps. Maybe the two or three people with the most stamps will also get prizes. The point is to encourage people to support as many businesses.

We have three featured events. Our opening reception will be at The Halfway Club, so we're inviting the stakeholders, elected officials and some of the business owners to just have a kickoff.

Originally, we were just going to start this Saturday for the community kickoff, but Small Business Week ends on Friday and we want to be a part of the energy and the publicity around Small Business Week because we don't have a lot of resources. I’m trying to maximize the outreach, but then you have to have an event during Small Business Week. We’re doing an opening reception on Wednesday. Then we're going to have the big community kickoff on Saturday, May 10th at the Boys and Girls Club and then we'll have the closing culinary event [with a raffle drawing] at the Kapuso Community Center on May 18.

Prizes are gift certificates from the local participating restaurant. Rocks Den is providing a $1,000 gift certificate. That's one of the big-ticket items. I'm getting gift certificates from the Giants and Sharks. I'm still looking for prizes. We might even have a cash prize, which could be a nice motivation.

What have some of the highlights been? 

I think for me it's like having non-Asian restaurants offer Asian-inspired dishes. It warms my heart because it means that we're all really celebrating culture and community and cultural performances. It's just inspiring people to get out of their homes, go to restaurants, see each other, and say hello. It's really kind of building that neighborly goodwill. Hopefully, it will increase the quality of life in our neighborhood, then more foot traffic to our merchants and people get used to eating out more.

Why is an event like this so important for the community? 

It breaks my heart that local restaurants like Gentilly and Dark Horse Inn have closed up shop. Since Chow Fun's inception two years ago, a total of six neighborhood restaurants have closed and more are struggling to keep their doors open. That's why I think community events like Chow Fun are critical to provide much-needed support and foot traffic to the dining establishments in our neighborhoods. Chow Fun can enhance visibility, attract new customers and build stronger connections with the community.