Saturday

I see I took a break yesterday. I have no particular excuse for that. Because of it, you'll have to look back to Thursday for the roots of this Update about new restaurants. I didn't realize my thoughts were to be continued at the time; but earlier tonight we ticked Pomodoro Restaurant off the to-do list, thereby turning the previous Update into an introduction for this one. Tonight's experience was worth writing home about primarily because it wasn't. I've grown comfortable in my expectation that every new place I try around here is going to be great. Perhaps Hồ Chí Minh City is unparalleled for the predictability of its eating establishments in this way. All I know is I've begun to predict good things whenever I step out to eat, leading to grand statements about the number of new places I'm going to force myself into every weekend. Thus, I was totally surprised when I wasn't thrilled about Pomodoro, an Italian place just across that invisible line at Lê Lợi Street where Hai Bà Trưng becomes an expat ghetto. Just past that seedy pool hall with tinted windows where friendly-but-bored masseuses feign interest as long as the drinks keep coming. The restaurant, shaped like a brick oven, is filled with white guys with Asian dates. The friendly wait staff wears orthopedic twenty-four-hour truck stop breakfast uniforms. The food is fair, but simply not worth the cafeteria din. It's probably also not worth the thirty bucks we paid for an LP-sized pizza, one salad, and two bowls of admittedly good soup. I don't know what town you're from, Pomodoro, but my other prediction when stepping out is that I'm able to eat for under ten bucks here in Saigon. The body of the clientele, also from elsewhere, noticed nothing. [Cavin]