A few months ago, for reasons that I do not recall and could probably never explain, Amanda and I stopped at one of those crappy little Chinese Restaurants stuck between a dry cleaner and a dollar store in some out of the way run down strip mall in Andover.¹ We were very hungry; I remember that. We ordered the usual: Egg foo yung for Amanda (I personally don’t know why anyone would eat that) and Kung Pao chicken and something noodly for me.

We were expecting to be satiated by the food, but to be made somewhat ill from the low quality ingredients and poor cooking one usually finds in a hole in the wall Chinese takeout place. Amanda, of course, would hardly notice because she is a born and bred Minnesotan which pretty much disqualifies her from identifying quality Chinese food. (I hope she doesn’t read this particular blog post!) But seriously, we do have a bit of a difference in opinion on what constitutes good Chinese food, and this opinion does seem to be shaped by our regional origin. My opinion is, of course, more correct, not because I grew up in Albany, New York (where there was exactly one Chinese restaurant at the time) but because I lived for 17 years in Boston, where Chinese Food is as good as it is in, say, San Francisco.

But then we ate the food and it was shockingly good!

So one day when conditions were just right for ordering pizza, we ordered Chinese food from Wok 88, the aforementioned hole-in-the-wall. This time we ordered something different, and it was also outstanding. Since then we’ve ordered food from this place a few times. I am very impressed.

But then the unthinkable happened.
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