Thursday

I'm still talking about yesterday, which was an excellent day for loitering around town. I finally dropped back in at the nice little convenience deli at Virginia Square metro stop. I used to shop for sandwiches and six packs there when I'd come up to visit Sunshine. She lived three blocks back toward Ballston, around the corner from Thai Terrace. I really like that deli. I believe it's Korean owned, and no one can understand me the first time. "I would like a cheese sub," I told them yesterday. "Cheese?" they asked me, for clarification I thought, so I told them, yes, I wanted muenster and dill havarti. They waited politely until I was finished ordering, then looked at each other and said "cheese? Cheese?" I pointed to the word on the overhead menu (they had to come out from behind the counter to see it): Cheese Sub. "Oh, what kind of cheese would you like?" Eventually I got a great sub, though. Then, later, while I was waiting for my movie to start, I ate in a pan-Asian bistro right out of an allegorical sci-fi movie. It's called the Asian Bistro. The menu is split into three categories: Japanese, Chinese, and Asian. Inside there are faux-lacquered Oriental tchotchkes and burbling plastic Zen waterfalls. There was a lit plate of frosted glass seeping novelty fog at the front counter. I was seated by the woman who took my order. She shouted everything she said at the top of her lungs. There's something magical about washing down several fistfuls of possibly harmful sushi* with a beaker of sake in the thirty minutes before a movie rolls. I ate steamed somethings called "wasabi shumai" that were like damp horseradish matzah balls. "Come again," she shouted at me. I just might. [Cavin]