Enough Soup Already

What else can you do to ensure that your teeny tiny Vietnamese girlfriends never call you "fat" again - other than lose the weight you gained over the summer (plus more, just to make double, triple sure you never get the 'fat waist hands' again)? Try taking them out for American hamburgers, fries, onion rings and Cokes that equal a week's worth of calories for them and make them gain weight themselves. You go down, they go up.

Actually - although this may be a good plan - I took them to get burgers because Thuy had requested that I take her to eat a "good" American burger at the end of last year. The only one she had ever tasted was at KFC...which surprised me. I didn't think KFC had them on the menu, and most everyone says they don't. Whatever she had, she thought it was terrible. So I heard about a place not far from the castle that had a good reputation, and that reputation was well- deserved. The burgers were great.

When they first laid eyes on the (very tall) bacon cheese burgers, though, four Vietnamese eyes almost popped out of two Vietnamese heads. Thuy said, "Cannot!" and literally gagged when she saw me squish the tall burger into a manageable height and take a bite. But Thanh attacked hers. Thuy could only eat about a third; Thanh ate it all (and in a sisterly competitive tone, proclaimed, "I win!" at Thuy). Thuy got the rest of hers to go, along with the leftover onion rings and fries.

The verdict? Both of them loved the burger and called it "Number One! Delicious!" But, in the very same fashion that followed our Indian food outing last year, they insisted that next weekend, we all go out for Vietnamese barbecue.

As for me, after a month of lots of soup and exercise, the burger tasted good. Really, really good. So I'm going to bed feeling very patriotic (and full).