Is House of Nanking Going to Be in ‘The Matrix’?

Crews for what’s clearly the fourth film in The Matrix franchise set up outside House of Nanking Wednesday.

For permitting purposes, the fourth Matrix movie is known as “Project Ice Cream,” but when one sees a full film crew, Keanu Reeves (Neo), Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity), and Matrix director Lana Wachowski on a city street, one’s safe to assume that filming for the latest installment in the action franchise is underway. And that’s what happened Wednesday, as in what seems to be the first star-studded day of shooting in San Francisco, Reeves, Wachowski, Moss, and a full contingent of workers took over the corner of Kearny and Jackson Streets for much of the day, ABC 7 reports.

Multiple media reports noted that the scene was set just outside House of Nanking, a Chinatown travel guide fixture that, since its opening in 1988, has drawn long lines for its cravable peanut sauce and despite its notoriously hot-and-cold customer service.

NBC Bay Area reports that Reeves “came out of the House of Nanking a few times” during the shoot, and, at one point, was “was standing right there eating at the Nanking and also having some coffee and of course smoking a cigarette.” Photos published by the SF Examiner confirm that both stars were outside Nanking for much of the shoot.

It wouldn’t be completely out of the question for the latest Matrix movie to involve Nanking — after all, in the second Matrix film, Neo fights Seraph (Collin Chou) in an empty Chinese restaurant, and in the first one, Neo provides a brief review of a (as it turns out, pre-programmed) noodle joint. Wouldn’t it be a gas if the “really good noodles” Neo seemed so wistful about were actually those from Nanking?

And in other news...

• Before you get too upset by the slew of headlines declaring that San Francisco taqueria El Farolito “has been named” the best restaurant in California, know this: The point of origin for this claim is a January 27 item from Stacker, which says it creates “digestible stories,” a term many might suggest is a synonym for “clickbait.”
• Workers at Tartine Bakery have formally moved to unionize, delivering a letter stating their intentions to four of the company’s Bay Area locations. [Mission Local]
• Berkeley’s Fieldwork Brewing Co. has just opened its seventh NorCal location in Corte Madera. [SF Chronicle]
• Los Altos will be the first city on the Peninsula to get a food court. State Street Market is backed by 23andMe founder/Los Altos fan Anne Wojcicki, and will be located at 160 and 170 State Street. [San Jose Mercury News]
• A “classic Italian” restaurant called Il Cilentano is set to open in the 579 Columbus Avenue space most frequently occupied by Michelangelo Cafe. [Hoodline]
• The Sonoma Sheriff’s office was called to a Healdsburg winery Monday night, after witnesses saw a guy with a flashlight wandering around. The cops didn’t see anything, but the next day the winery called police to report a break-in — but the suspect didn’t take anything, just damaged a wall. [KRON 4]
• Dennis Leary, who owns SF’s classic House of Shields bar and sandwich spot the Sentinel, says he’s going to open a service called A huevo that will deliver $10 egg dishes to denizens of the Financial District. [SF Chronicle]
• As Uma Thurman’s Mia Wallace said in a deleted scene from Pulp Fiction, “there are only two kinds of people in the world, Beatles people and Elvis people.” The same is true for New York-based chain Shake Shack and SoCal burger brand In-N-Out. But what would happen if someone wore these new In-N-Out-themed shoes into Shake Shack’s new Cow Hollow location? Think this but with shakes and fries. [Sacramento Bee]