Good Phô What Ails Ya

Whenever I get sick and maudlin I want soup. And not just any soup - I want phô, a Vietnamese beef noodle soup that, if you spice it right, burns your eyebrows off. We had a favorite phô house not too far away, but it seems to have closed -- one too many vermin infestations, Stacy expects; it admittedly wasn't the sightliest of places. But I was bummed nonetheless, and I wasn't thrilled with the idea of recovering without my secret Asian mystery concoction. Phô-tunately for me, I remembered a second phô restaurant a couple blocks away that I'd seen before but never had the guts to check out.

I think there's something in the Los Angeles legal code that requires phô noodle houses to abide in only the scariest looking of strip malls. This particular place is wedged between a tacqueria and a liquor store that looks to have seen its fair share of drive-by shootings. I mentioned it to Stacy and she shuddered when she finally figured out what place I was talking about. She refused to go there to get me soup. I was on my own. Phô-tunately N was driving her nuts at the moment, so she agreed to let me take him into the hood with me.

Though the outside looked a little like an exterior from a Spike Lee film, the place actually looked pretty decent inside. The Vietnamese waitress at the register was all giggles and blushes over N, who instinctively saw the opportunity and started laying on the cute with a shovel. (Three-year-olds are incredible chick magnets that break down all racial, linguistic and socio-economic barriers!) We ordered our soup and N chit-chatted the waitress while we waited. It was a toss-up who had the better grammar. I simply sat back in my chair and let him entertain her, trying not to sneeze or let my nose run to demonstrably. Pretty soon another waitress had joined the first in cooing at my son. Eventually we got our order and headed out to the car. Now all the kitchen staff were in the doorway, blushing and giggling and blowing kisses to N.

Safe at home, we dug into our phô. We were quite happy with it. I guess you could say phô-tune had smiled on us. We'll have to go back, but clearly we'll always need to go with N for protection.