Tuesday

Friday night we enjoyed ho-hum Thai food down a little alley in the Đồng Khởi area. That trip was relevant to today's Update because we also discovered the physical location of an excellent Indian restaurant we'd previously only patronized by delivery. Almost every restaurant here delivers; those that don't are accessible by delivery service: a third party places the order and then brings it to our address. This third party publishes a comprehensive menu book, handy for choosing restaurants even when we're planning on dining out. I like this Indian place because it features southern dishes oddly missing from what I've come to regard as the standard diaspora menu. I prefer dining out to delivery. Even here, where deliveries frequently arrive in under twenty minutes, the food is still much further removed from optimal serving conditions: older, cooler, compartmentalized into Tupperware squares. I was happy to find this physical place; and with great anticipation decided to eat there Sunday night. It's a real looker too: a large, spartan, custard-colored room behind an unremarkable door off a nearly anonymous stone stairway. They didn't seem particularly busy, but the harried waiter didn't hear half of Sunshine's order and so dismissed her request for the other half: without the channa masala, why would we need the rice? What food did come arrived haphazardly. My dinner dosa came long before it's sambar condiment. Between, I got my appetizers. Sunshine ate half my stuff while waiting for food it took us forever to ascertain was never going to come. At some point this dawned on me: it's really impossible to tell how busy a deliver restaurant is. Sure, only four tables were filled, but how many customers were waiting out their twenty minutes at home? That's what we'll probably do next time, too. [Cavin]