It has become a tradition at Lincoln Lutheran for the teachers (the ones who are interested) and the Vietnamese students (the ones who are interested) to go to a Vietnamese restaurant on the night of the High School Christmas Concert. The students pick a vietnamese restaurant and we provide the transportation.
I wasn’t able to go last year and this year it was a different restaurant. I, like most of the teachers, didn’t know what to order, but the students steered us in the right direction. However, we may have made some tactical errors along the way. First of all, there were way too many appetizers ordered. We just didn’t anticipate how much Spring Roll was in an order of spring rolls. That should have tipped us off about what was in store by way of main dishes. 
I’ve seen goldfish bowls smaller than the bowls that the Pho came in at that place. We didn’t even order the biggest bowls.
I can’t remember the name of the thing that I ordered. I was assured that it was good and it was so, so very good. There was just so, so much of it. The students told me that to eat it I should tear off some of the lettuce, use the lettuce to grab some of the, um, other stuff, and then dip the whole thing into a sauce before cramming it into my mouth.
I’m not sure if that’s the actual way to eat this thing or if they were just making fun of their stupid American teacher, but it was so good that I didn’t care. I couldn’t eat it all, and so I boxed it up (lettuce, thing, sauce and all) to bring back and have lauren try.
We all had a great time and the choir concert was good too (also sneaky way to get vietnamese students to attend christmas concert). Due to a transportation mixup, I had to drive a van back to school and leave my car at the restaurant. We were taking Joel’s very fancy, very new car back to the restaurant to get my car. My to go box was sitting on the dash until Joel accelerated and then it was on the floor. The very fancy, very new floor. I got it cleaned up pretty well, but Lauren didn’t try it after that.
There’s a pho place near my school. You’re inspiring me to give it a try. I don’t know if I’ll try to order the lettuce-thingy dish without knowing its name though. Maybe I’ll just stick with pho.
Dang it. I’ll never get to try your fancy floor food.
So fun to try new things. The thought was right, the food just ended up in the wrong place.