April 17, 2005

• Unidentifiable Floating Objects
  © The Author, 2005

  I ate a snake egg today.

  It all started with me waking up sick of the city. For those of you who are city dwellers without cars, you know what I am talking about. No matter how much you love your city, you are bound to wake up some days and feel like the masses of concrete, the sidewalk dog shit, the spilling over garbage cans, and that general smell is threatening to suffocate you. And you’ve got no car to escape it.

  At first, I thought I could cure my unrest with my typical treatment; one bakery cookie and stroll about the neighborhood. But the bakery cookie was chewy today. And my sandal was slip siding around on the sidewalk due to some restaurant grime I’d acquired on the sole of it from a leaking garbage can that was being pushed along by a dude in front of me.

  “Let’s just rent a car today and get out of here,” I turned to my partner and suggested with a smile. I checked my checking account online that morning—I had zero in my account, $8.00 owed to “checking plus,” and a grocery list for the veggie stand. And we were already blowing a portion of my $13 allotted cash for the produce market on cookies. I’m guessing his checking account was similarly doomed because my partner laughed out loud.

  Being broke sucks.

  “Do you want to go to Stanley’s?” my partner asked me, referring to the afore mentioned produce market.

  I glared at him.

  The bus was coming—which never happens at convenient times. And we were right near a stop. “Let’s get out of here and find somewhere new.”

  Thirty minutes later we were in Vietnam, located conveniently off the Red Line at Argyle.

  A small strip of noodle shops, bakeries, and waving lucky cat and potted bamboo stores lined street. Our eyes were glued to the neon signs, our noses were tickled by a new stench (a fishy one). We went into a local grocery store and browsed the strange items; rows of whole fish on ice watched us from cloudy round eyes, red bloody sausages encouraged us to breathe from our mouths, and rows of exotic candies made us smile. A bag of 75 cent Jackfruit chips seemed the perfect purchase after a fun twenty minutes or so of marveling at all the strange and funky smelling goodies.

  After munching the jackfruit chips—which differed only in color (these were orange) and slightly in texture (there were airier) from dried banana chips—and nosing about the shops, my husband was getting hungry.

  We moseyed over to the restaurant that had the least amount of white people in it, which was a big lunchroom type of place whose sign was a green army tank that curiously read, Tank Noodle.

  We entered Tank Noodle and were seated at a huge, round table with a lazy Susan center cluttered with hot sauces and cups filled with plastic chopsticks.

  “Isn’t this a big table for just two people?” I whispered to my husband.

  Indeed it was. Soon, two hungry Vietnamese guys were seated at our table with us. We took our clues as to how to eat our delicacies from them.

  The worst thing about Tank Noodle is its impossibly huge menu. I have never seen a menu with so many offerings. There were about 200 entree’s to choose from and over thirty different smoothies. After the waiter asked us twice for our order, we finally chose at random. Shaun picked a familiar, Asian standby, cashew chicken. I chose some sort of noodle bowl at random. We ordered spring rolls and a pineapple smoothie to share.

  The first thing our waiter brought out was a plate piled high with bean sprouts, basil, curry leaves, and lettuce. At first we feared that the waiter had brought us the wrong order, but then we looked around and saw that every table was complete with a heaping bowl of greens. Then we deduced that it might be the equivalent of receiving a breadbasket at an Italian restaurant. Luckily we had the hungry men at our table to spy on, and it seemed that the pile of greens was designated for heaping on to the entrées that would come shortly.

  Soon our spring rolls came. Unlike the spring rolls that I am used to—small little parcels with dry rice wrappers the consistency of philo dough containing veggie stuffing—these spring rolls were wrapped in a moist and chewy rice dough, and to my delight and my husband’s dismay, they had three magical shrimps in them. The Tank Noodle spring rolls were also much bigger than the Americanized spring rolls I have grown accustomed to. They were a good six inches long and stuffed to the gills with goodies. They were more like burritos than spring rolls.

  Next, our pineapple smoothie came out, complete with tapioca balls at the bottom, and sliced strawberries and mangos littering the top. The drink was so cute in its presentation that it prompted the hungry men that we shared our table with to order smoothies of their own. The drink was cool and refreshing and not too sweet, but perfectly icy and delicious.

  When our entrée’s came, I was surprised at the size of my bowl. It was closer in size to our bathroom sink than to any bowl I’ve ever seen. Along the top, beads of red grease danced above a tangle of thin rice noodles. Following the lead of our dining companions, I dumped some greens and some spices atop my soup and dug in. The noodles were perfect; they were warm and slithery perfection. The broth was pretty vague in flavor, but perhaps that was the point, as there were so many condiments to dress it up with.

  My partner’s dish was predictable and familiar looking, but delicious nonetheless. I nibbled a cashew from his plate every now and again, appreciating the damaging delirium of MSG.

  As I munched away at my noodle dish, I began to unearth some pretty startling food items buried within the strands of noodles. The first item that I discovered was a red cube, that looked vaguely like a beet, only cloudier, with a bit of a grayish tinge. I severed a bit of it into a small, testable chunk and popped it into my mouth. It was completely flavorless, and it had a texture that was a bit firmer than tofu.

  The purple chunk was not the only unidentifiable item in my noodle bowl. Soon, I harvested a pink bit of what appeared to be an animal part. It was porous and spongy and it tasted porous and spongy. But otherwise it was pretty mild.

  I continued on with my noodle munching for a time, watching a large piece of what I am pretty sure was the whole tongue of a goat-sized animal dodge my chopsticks. I was working up the nerve to try another prize.

  As I stirred my pot further, my chopsticks fished out an egg—and not a chicken egg. I am fairly accustomed to fish eggs as well, and it was no fish egg that I have ever seen. It was about the size of an egg you might find in a small birds nest. Or, as my wild imagination suggested, a snakes den.

  I skirted the egg for a while before I declared, “I’m trying this egg.” I popped it into my mouth.

  After crunching through a layer that seemed the consistency of freezer burn, the yolk exploded in my mouth. A gooey, thick coating surged between each and every one of my teeth and I hurriedly forced a swallow, praying that I didn’t have a rude, all-American grossed out look on my face.

  “I’m full,” I said, gulping greedily at my water.

  Leaving the restaurant, I thanked my husband for spending the best $20 we have spent in a while.

  “I hope you don’t think it’s a waste just because I didn’t finish,” I said, “because it was exactly what I needed.”

  How do you escape?

  Pho Xe Tang – Tank Restaurant
  4953 N. Broadway
  773-878-2253

  • 9:45 pm
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