Just Desserts

Earlier this year, a Vietnamese restaurant opened up a mile away from my work. I've convinced a bunch of my friends to go there (some hesitant and others not), and they are now hooked on Vietnamese dishes. Hardly any of them order the Pho. And I'll admit, it's not the greatest, but it's the only place I can get my fix unless I want to drive 90 miles up to the Twin Cities.

Today, my roommate treated me to a lunch at Pho Hoa for helping him mix and pour concrete for the footings of the deck to be built (a.k.a. Ewok Village...but that's another story). The owner there recognizes my friends and me, and he always tries to guess how many we have in our party. Usually we have 5, and he seats us at our usual round table. But today we had 7 in our party, including a newbie to the restaurant. As with most Vietnamese restaurants, it's not uncommon to find people ordering by number rather than trying to butcher the name of the dish. Well, here's how one of the conversations went as we scanned the menu:

Ryan (the newbie): "What's good on this menu?"
Tim (Michigan co-op): "Whatever you do, don't order 99."
Ryan: "Really, what's that?"
Tim: "Oh? There's a 99, I was just making a number up, didn't know there was even a 99th dish."
Me: "Tim, you idiot. But seriously, you can't go wrong with #41 or any of the 50's or 60's if you don't like soup and prefer noodle dishes or rice dishes."
Ryan: "Hmm... Ok. What's a Meat Pie?"
Me: "Actually, it sounds kind of funny, but it's really good. It's like a Vietnamese version of a meatloaf. Sort of."
Dan (my roommate): "Do you get ice cream with that?"
Everyone else: "What?"
Dan: "Ice cream?"
Everyone else: "Why would it come with ice cream?" Puzzled looks on everybody's faces.
Dan: "You know, ice cream with pie."
Everyone else: *laughing at Dan*
Me: "Wow, someone was snorting a bit too much of that concrete powder yesterday."

Yeah, it's really not a funny story unless you were there. Thanks for the free meal, Dan. But sorry, no ice cream. On a lighter note, my fortune cookie read: Your income will increase. Now that would be just desserts.