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Bill Brown

A complicated man.

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Yesterday, I was jonesing for some pho and planned on going to Saigon Healthy Deli. I drove down Mill Avenue but couldn’t find it. So I stopped at a Circle K and called the restaurant to discover that they’re remodeling presently. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to wait to taste pho.

Completely forgetting that I had an excellent selection of California rolls in the refrigerator back at work, I drove around Tempe looking for some culinary action. I found an unassuming little restaurant called Little Szechuan and thought that it might be worth a try. It had the makings of a dive and was atrociously decorated in the standard, over-the-top Chinese restaurant way.

Waiting to order, I was surprised at all the IT talk I overheard. I’m used to hearing the normal banal banter of lunchtime conversation so I was pleasantly surprised. The surprise was heightened when my waitress came to take my order.

She was holding a PDA of some sort with a wireless nub to connect with some kitchen-based server. She tappity-tappity-tapped my order in and moved on to the next table. The strangest thing is that it was literally the first time I had ever seen a restaurant use such an ordering system. It made me wonder just how deep the technology permeated the establishment.

Oh and the food can best be described as “enh.”