SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Just outside San Francisco’s City Hall, Connie Chan begins a walk she has taken for decades, one that she says connects the work she does to the city she calls home.<\/p>\n
“I’ve walked through this since I was 25 because I’ve been working in City Hall since then, as a policy aid, I have seen how it was and how it’s been. And I know that there’s still a lot of work to do,” Chan tells CBS News Bay Area.<\/p>\n
Chan was born in Hong Kong and immigrated from Taiwan with her mother and brother before moving to Chinatown, a neighborhood that became central to her upbringing. Early in her career, she worked as an interpreter, translating for immigrants navigating the legal system.<\/p>\n
“In Chinatown, for a new immigrant, that’s really where your community is, food and snacks and that, that is home,” she said.<\/p>\n
Over the years, Chan says she developed another skill along the way: knowing where to find the best food across San Francisco’s many neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
“Everywhere, every corner in the city, I know where to find good eats,” she laughingly explains. “You can draw me up in different spaces in different neighborhoods in the city, I know where to find that one dive bar or like one tiny, tiny restaurant and find good eats anywhere,” Chan said.<\/p>\n
She pops into an unassuming noodle restaurant a few blocks from City Hall, Hai Ky Noodles, a small restaurant on Ellis Street, and is greeted like family.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I do have my special order. It’s a combination of number 11 and number 14, and it’s fish balls and pork kidney,” she says of her off-menu order. “This is what I love about San Francisco. It’s not quiet once you come in here, but on the outside, you can’t quite see like, Is this a good spot? No one could tell. But if you are a local, you come in here and you know this is good eats,” she said.<\/p>\n
Chan is now running for Congress to succeed Nancy Pelosi, and says she hopes to build on Pelosi’s legacy by giving a voice to San Francisco’s marginalized communities.<\/p>\n
“You can take a girl out of Chinatown, but you can’t take Chinatown out of the girl. It is really who I am deep down. Like, I think if I am here, or if I’m in Washington, DC, I’m going to be like, ‘Where can I find good Chinese food, or good Asian foods and good Asian eats’ that just that, just part of who I am,” Chan said.<\/p>\n
For Chan, meals like the one she orders at Hai Ky Noodles are about more than food. They are moments of connection with the community that helped shape her.<\/p>\n
“I get to see my community and talk to them and hear them and learn from like what they care about. And I think that’s really part of who I am,” Chan said.<\/p>\n
This story is part of “Behind the Ballot,” a series introducing voters to the people behind the campaigns in the race for California’s 11th Congressional District.<\/p>\n