Makes a champion.

When you refuse to acknowledge the day that is February 14, or are young, or have housemates which are you best friends... on Valentines day, you get fucked up.

How fucked up?

Well...

You know you are loved when your housemate takes you from a party in the early morning and say, "Wow, Jessica, we have to go. You're partied out and this can only end in you getting raped. Home time."

Thanks, Lute.

Cut to us struggling with both our keys to open the front door.

I wake up with my boots next to my head, still half wrapped in the metallic, pink, spandex dress from the night and I smell a little like a worn out hag.

It's half seven in the morning and I can't sleep anymore. Insomnia loves me. When all my friends left me, insomnia was there to cuddle me through it. When Germany left me, insomnia stayed. When everything breaks down, insomnia sticks to its guns.

Insomnia's a bitch.

So, when Lute forced himself out of bed at midday, you both decided that pho would be the only good option, seeing you both through the day and returning you to normal human status.

Totally the plate of add-ons.

Lute and I have a wonderful understanding with this plate. We halve everything, but he takes all the beanshoots and I take all the chilis.

I don't like how the beanshoots make the broth cold. I know you can ask them to steam them for you to prevent that, but I also like my beanshoots raw.
I know, I'm fussy.

The Small Special Beef. This translates to spare parts. See that wonderful tendon at the bottom and the tentacle of tripe swimming out?

Lute- I don't know how you do it.
Me- It's the treasure you dig for in the animal. Nomnomnomnomnom.

My chili tower is almost complete. I didn't feel it was right asking them for another bowl of chili. I have done it before and they look at me like I am trying to kill myself.


And, my dipping station. You see, Lute adds every single condiment he can to the bowl, and well, I don't. I have a friend that does that and she just ends up with sludge water and knows to not do it, but falls into the trap every time.


The thing with food that each thing that I eat regularly reminds me of a time or an emotion. Unfortunately with pho, it means I am either hungover or depressed.

Sigh.

Pho Dzung
The corner of Lonsdale and Russell St, Melbourne...next to that strange Mai Tai place that has been open for longer than I have been alive but NO ONE has ever been there.
Otherwise known by the round-eye friends of mine as "Cow and Chicken."

An Ode

to Pho.


I love Pho.

I have Pho cravings all the time, but I only ever succumb to them when I am special edition...like today.

1928 believes that Pho fixes all, and every Sunday sees him on a scooter to Victoria St for it.

I did the stumble with my wonderful housemate Lute. He woke at 1pm and I was sitting on a stool in the kitchen, hanging my head in shame proclaiming how I thought it would be the only thing to fix me, and probably the only thing I could eat.
He was in a towel on the way to shower, but as soon as I said Pho, he lit up and said IWANTPHOIWILLGOWITHYOUTOGETPHO!

So, we did. In our completely disheveled states, we not only saw a lot of poorly dressed people but realized that we didn't care what we were wearing because the CBD is our backyard. In fact, I went out without eyeliner or hair product, wearing a dress that can only be accurately described as a large t-shirt. I was full-force Asian-pineapple.

Lute, not feeling particularly brave in his state stuck with the usual rare sliced beef, but ordered it in large. When it arrived, the bowl was bigger than both our torsos put together.
Awesome.

I got the small special beef, and still couldn't finish it. The tripe and tendon freaked Lute out, but they are the best parts. We both drowned our dishes in so much chili oil and fresh chili that we completely changed the colour of the water and created a nice red slick of oil over the top of the bowls, along with the usual add-alongs. Then, I asked for a dipping bowl and mixed the hoisin sauce with more chili oil and dipped my "strange meat parts" in there. There is a science, kids.

Funnily enough, Lute couldn't stand watching me eat tendon, tripe, beef balls or otherwise...but at the end, I couldn't bring myself to eat the "normal" parts of the cow such as brisket and those rare slices.

"You are so Asian," he said.

God, I knew my hair would fail me one day.