Yum

I had the good fortune today of being post-call after a pretty easy call day at Norton's. My two surgeries with the department chair yesterday morning went surprisingly well (from a pimping standpoint, anyway; one of the surgeries itself was pretty horrendous), I was done with my duties at 10 pm, and got a full 6 hours of sleep on a pretty comfortable bed (by call room standards). Home by 8 am, another 3.5 hours of sleep, and I had a full day ahead of me to do whatever I wanted.

Plus, tomorrow is my "weekend" day off (each student gets one per weekend, as mandated by the clerkship director), so I had two days in a row to do whatever I wanted with!

I ignored the pile of dirty clothes waiting to be washed, the even larger pile of clean clothes waited to be folded and put away, and the general disaster area that is our apartment and instead I went out to eat and go shopping. Pure bliss.

For lunch I tried Pho Binh Minh, a Vietnamese hole in the wall that's been open for almost a year down in the South End. I've heard good things about it, and they were all true. I had the best bowl of pho tai I've had in Louisville. Delicious! I'll definitely be going back.

After a full afternoon of shopping, I went to Oriental House for dinner. I've been there before, and while they have an "authentic Chinese menu" (translated into English, thank goodness!) that's pretty good, they never before had my #1 comfort food dish, shrimp dumpling noodle soup. But today when I walked in, I noticed a little piece of paper taped on the wall and I actually could read the handwritten Chinese that said they now have shrimp dumpling noodle soup and wonton noodle soup. That was a huge victory for my Chinese skills, first of all. Second of all, the noodles were delicious. It was no Sang Kee, but it was BY FAR the best Chinese food I've had in Louisville. (Surprisingly, for all the great restaurants this city has, from every cuisine/ethnicity you can think of, we do not have good Chinese restaurants.) I need to go back with more people so I can order more dishes and have a real meal. In fact, tonight's experience made me wonder about a Chinese wedding banquet... it's something to think about, anyway.

Yay for finding comfort food! When I'm in a hungry-and-tired mood, I always want either 水餃麵, pho, or Qdoba/Chipotle. I also often want this one sandwich I had when I lived in Taiwan, from Finga's Italian Deli (run by a New Zealander in Taichung), that I am pretty sure I will never have the opportunity to eat ever again. So sad. At least I can now satisfy choices 1-3 whenever I need to.