When I was kid, when­ever my fam­ily and I would go on vaca­tion I’d always order the same thing at restau­rants we’d eat at. I had my Roast Beef Sand­wich phase where I’d order noth­ing but Roast Beef Sand­wiches with a side order of fries, some­times sea­soned and some­times not. Before that there was the Grilled Cheese phase, golden brown on both sides with a huge dol­lop of ketchup on one cor­ner for dipping.

It became some­thing of an inside joke; “What will Erik have this trip? Will he suc­cumb to the same kinds of food or will he try some­thing dif­fer­ent to mix things up a lit­tle?”. Never one to dis­ap­point I’d rarely break the pat­tern of not order­ing the same thing at meal time but on occas­sion I’d try some­thing dif­fer­ent. That was then, this is now, but I’ve found that child­hood quirks stay with you, no mat­ter how much time passes.

Even to this day I’ve noticed pat­terns in what I’ll order at restau­rants and most of the time it’s just food I’ve become com­fort­able eat­ing, like Clam Chow­der for instance. Noth­ing adds to a meal — at least in my opin­ion — like the sooth­ing warmth and taste of thick chow­der topped with soup crack­ers and a dash of salt and pep­per. Even­tu­ally I might grow tired of order­ing clam chow­der with every meal but most likely it’ll be replaced with a dif­fer­ent phase.

Do you have any food phases? 

There’s a Chi­nese restau­rant that my office mates and I fre­quently dine at called The China Buf­fet. The owner, a short and stocky man with pierc­ing eyes, runs the place like a spit-polished fac­tory keep­ing his wary eye on his employ­ees, mak­ing sure every penny is accounted for. We like to call him the Sama­rai and it’s not just because he’s of Asian decent, but mainly due to the fact that he barks com­mands as if he’s con­ceal­ing a sword behind the counter.

The other day we ordered three drinks and filled our plates with at least three trip’s worth of Chi­nese food. After­wards we gob­bled down ice cream to cool our palettes and then came time to pay the bill. The owner, dubbed “Samu­rai Jack”, asks for the bill and slowly scans each item as if he’s con­cen­trat­ing on a really dif­fi­cult cross­word puz­zle. He looks up, then down, and finally asks if I will be pay­ing with cash or credit. I pull out my wal­let and slide my credit card across the counter and he pauses, “I see two drinks on bill. Did you have a soda?” I nod­ded and in Chi­nese he barks some com­mands at the wait­ress who in turn barked com­mands at the bus­boy. At this point the owner explains that even though it’s not on the bill I will still be charged for the drink. I shrug and tell him, “Fine.”, then at the top of his lungs he says, “$7.84! You pay the same as all the rest. $7.84!”

I sign the receipt and walk out the door, laugh­ing to myself and think­ing that this man, “Samu­rai Jack” should have his own sit­com. I envi­sion it as a cross between Belushi’s The Samu­rai Butcher and San­ford and Son. 

After work the other day I was feel­ing a bit hun­gry. Lately I’ve been skip­ping out on lunch and break­fast because either I’m too engrossed in what­ever project I’m work­ing on or I for­get to bring the packed lunch (like this morn­ing for instance).

As I’m dri­ving down the road a thought comes to mind, “Wow, I haven’t been to Palermo’s Sub Shop in a few months. Won­der how my Sub mak­ing bud­dies are doing.” I pull up in the park­ing lot and enter the sub place and order the usual; a meat­ball sub with sliced mozzerella on top. After order­ing I casu­ally walk over and get a drink from the soda foun­tain and wait patiently while the “Sub Artist” does his thing.

Even­tu­ally the guy comes over with two sand­wiches? I was in a panic, it was as if all the air in my lungs had been sucked out of me. Why, why, two sand­wiches? That’s when I real­ized, he split the two halves. This is where this sub story gets weird.

The guy takes my credit card, slips it through what I call the “credit crack” and it takes about 15 years to autho­rize the trans­ac­tion. In the mean time we chat about life and even­tu­ally he real­izes the receipt machine has no power. I let out a laugh that exudes a mix­ture of “how funny” and “Dude, what is your prob­lem?” and finally it works.

He hands me the receipt to sign and in an awk­ward moment says, “Well, it’s been great hang­ing out with you man.” Like I said, awk­ward to say the least and yet at one point I think I wanted to give him a hug, thank him for mak­ing my sub and tip him for the ser­vice. In the end I decided not to, think­ing it might have been going against the Sub Mak­ers union.

Some­day, when all of the sub shop artists are replaced by sub-making robots I’ll miss these kinds of moments. 

Top Ramen, Maruchan, and Cup o’ Noo­dles are the pri­mary food source for a col­lege stu­dent and any­one on a bud­get. Just look at cin­e­matic his­tory and you’ll find this ref­er­ence to instant soup on the run in the movie The Jerk with actor and writer Steve Mar­tin. The slow, mild-mannered Navin John­son is the only adopted son of black share­crop­pers. He decides early on that his des­tiny awaits him as he leaves the farm and begins a jour­ney full of hilar­ity and invention.

Navin (Mar­tin) lives on Cup o’ Noo­dles through­out the extent of this hilar­i­ous mad­cap of a movie. It’s his favorite food and you really can’t blame him, he is an idiot. Yet, we as the audi­ence love him for his sim­plic­ity and good nature.

If you’re in the mood for Top Ramen, I’d sug­gest pick­ing up a copy of The Book of Ramen: Low­cost Gourmet Meals Using Instant Ramen Noo­dles by Ron Konzak.