Don’t you just hate when you get a quart of Pho from your favorite pan Asian restaurant, i.e. Viet-Thai, and you bring it home and you go to re heat it and you heat the broth nice and gently, waiting patiently for the simmer, then you gently squeeze the box of noodles, coax and wiggle, deftly (and patiently) avoiding a giant back-splash of beef-broth-in-the-face ker-plop, and then you cross-cut the coagulated snow-white noodle-block to minimize the later rogue noodles-slop-on-your-shirt dining casualty, and then, with building anticipation you evenly layer the sprouts, and the cilantro and the meatballs and the tripe and the brisket and the beef shavings so the softly rising steam begins to warm the final stages–and you turn the heat up just a little bit because the anticipation is growing as the patience is thinning… and… you get the Sriracha, the roll of paper towels, the Asian-perfect paddle-spoon, the fork (chop-sticks be damned, patience gone, hunger maxed…) all lined up… and… and…. the phone rings….and you have to answer it. This one, you have to answer…
And…” So hot yesterday, and pina coladas at the pool, and went to down and met up with D and C and couldn’t get into the beach club so watched the sunset from the Ritz and then went for drinks downtown and some guy got mad because we wouldn’t dance with him and did you get the mail and can you run an errand for me and….. ok, ok bye, ok, love you too… bye..ok bye”
SHIIIIIIT!! THE NOOODLES!!!! 15 minutes later and you are left with a big pan of goopy noodles and brotheless beef-slop… even a double dose of Sriracha can’t save. Don’t you hate that…
***And don’t you hate when you are ordering from the Asian girl who gets paid to do the orders, and, you try to be cool and proper and use the actual, as reported, pronunciation of PHO (FO) and PHA (FA), and you say, “One order of FA” and she looks at you like you have a speech impediment and waits, and you say “FA”, and she stares, and tilts her head a little (picture the dog, waiting for you to throw the ball… head tilts…” When?” will you throw the ball…) and I finally say, “FO?” (PHO) and she says”’ “Oooooh, FO” (PHO), pronounced FA (That’s what a white girl told me any way… but she’s a sensitive and smart white girl so I believed her…). What the PHOK.
***So, I challenged the Chef the other day to make a bomb-Ramen and she said, “I don’t have the proper noodles”, and I said, “Yea man, but you have noodles, and it’s more about a sick broth”, and she said, “It’s about the noodles”, and I said “Broth”. And she tilted her head….
Read this if you have time. Please share it in the interest of peace and love.
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