there is a place two or three suburbs away, where you make a call and they bring you chinese food. i never make the call. well, i did, once, several years ago, and then again, tonight.

can i just say, the home delivery menu is your standard A4 folded down into thirds setup, and not counting the six special budget packs and the three party set menus on the back flap, there are 179 items listed. actually, i’m just looking at it again, and if you count the un-numbered item, All Sauces 80c, there are 180 choices for dinner.

it’s just that i was really quite hungry at five this afternoon, and hungry in particular for sweet and sour pork and fried rice. the more fluorescent the red of the pork, and the more glistening the rice, the better. the boy said, “why don’t you call new addison?” i fetched the menu from the bottom of the menu drawer, and it instantly became clear that sweet and sour pork and fried rice had to be deprioritised. under the “chef’s suggestion” heading, for instance, i really wanted the Deep Fried Brocolli [sic] in Batter with Mushrooms and the New Addison Special. what was in the Special? dunno, but it was the second most expensive thing on the menu, right after the Imperial Queen King Prawn.

after much deliberation and debate on whether two out of three dishes ordered could be deepfried (boy: yes; me: no, surprise) the boy made the call. Fried Salted Chilli Squid, Garlic Lamb and sorry, what?

the Deep Fried Brocolli [sic] in Batter with Mushrooms hadn’t been on the menu in three years; our menu was dated july 2000. we ended up with a much more sensible Bean Curd with Special Combination Vegetables, which when it arrived, turned out to be broccoli, choi sum and snow peas, all a lovely shade of green.

the nice delivery man also thoughtfully brought us an up-to-date menu. it is a bit shorter than v.2000, and in fact most of the missing items were specialties that the (previous?) chef had suggested: the Deep Fried Brocolli [sic] in Batter with Mushrooms, New Addison Special and the lesser Mok Lee Special. also gone were All Sauces and the entire section known as “western dishes”. which is a pity, because what i had actually most wanted to get from it was the Hot Chips $2.