What kind of soup did you say that was?

So the hubby met me for lunch today in what is reported to be the best Chinese (Laosian) restaurant in town. We walked in and there sat three of my co-workers (also known as bung holes if you read my FB). We walked over and said hi and we were told to try the Coconut Curry Soup – it’s the best. I got really excited because I love curry and so got myself a very large bowl of the soup.

Boy, were they right. That soup had the delicious depth of flavor that only curry can add to food and the hot kick from ground red pepper. Even the coconut milk added a layer of flavor that made my taste buds sing. There were also veggies and chicken – oh, those potatoes! They absorbed the flavors of the curry and salt and crumbled deliciously on my tongue. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a better bowl of soup, and firmly vowed right then and there to figure out how to make that soup at home. Yum!

In spite of being rather full I knew I couldn’t leave the restaurant without another bowl of that soup. I eagerly went over to the large sunken pot of the soup and began to delightedly fill my bowl anticipating all the foody loveliness in store once I got back to my table. About the 3rd ladleful I saw something unrecognizable flash into my bowl. Surely – that could not be a shirt tag?!?!?! Oh, indeed, it was! An XXL no less!!!!

Staggering with a combination of shock, amusement and disappointment, I hurried back to the table, put my bowl down and said, “Honey, look!” He took a look and said, “Is that a shirt tag? Or is an underwear tag? I think that’s an underwear tag!” Now please understand, as wildly unlikely as it is to get a shirt tag in your soup, I just can’t buy getting an underwear tag in your soup. I’m sticking with the shirt tag.

Now my hubby tends to be quite the assertive complainer. However, the tragi-comic element of the situation had him in a uncharicteristically congenial attitude about it. He calls the waitress over and shows her the soup. She says, “What is that, a tag!? Oh, so sorry!” and she takes it away. I watch her walk over and dump my soup out, and as I’m praying she takes the soup off the buffet, it is with relief I see her walk over and lift the lid to the soup pot. She stirs it a few times, replaces the lid and walks away. Walks away!?!?!??!?!?!? I could hardly believe my eyes. Before another moment passes, a man walks up and fills a bowl and then another man walks up. All in all, after the discovery, I saw six people walk up there and get soup – including the bung hole co-workers who each had two bowls apiece.

Even still, I gotta say, that was damn good soup.