I needed a Noodle fix.

And I didn’t want to go alone. Since Elvis was out of town, I called Kriston.

Kriston agreed to go with me, having never been to Aihua Market before. I don’t know if she read my last Noodle piece, but she trusted my judgment on good food. Plus she, like me, is always looking for an adventure.

An hour later we were standing in line at the restaurant.

“What should I order?” she asked.

“I just ask mama what she wants to make me,” I said.

Just like that, Aihua (who I call mama) walked over to the line and asked me, “You order for here or to go?”

“Here.” We both said and laughed.

“What should we eat, mama?” I asked.

“I make Pad thai today,” she said.

***

“Um…there’s cabbage in that?” Kriston said just after Aihua dropped off two bowls of steaming Pad Thai to our table.

“Uh huh,” I said. My chopsticks were out of the red paper package in my hand, ready to plunge into the bowl of spicy rice noodles before she brought our lunch. My face was inches from my bowl. I slurped a more-than-polite mouthful of stir-fried noodles, shrimp, fresh mint, tofu and minced, crunchy pickled radish into my mouth when I realized Kriston was still sitting in her chair, shoulders back, pushing her food around.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I can’t eat cabbage,” she said out of the side of her mouth, “I’ll get sick.”

“You should get a bowl of noodles,” I said and got up to get Aihua.

“No, it’s okay,” she said. The look on her face said, there’s a snake in that bowl and I’m not moving.

“You can’t eat that and we didn’t drive an hour so you can skip lunch. We came here to eat Noodles and that’s what you should eat.”

She ordered Vegetable Noodles.

I told her to pull her hair back and cover her white blouse. After her first bite, her eyes widened. “This is what I came here for,” she said.

I went back to my Pad Thai and everybody was happy.

***

I learned years ago, the hard way, which seems like the story of my life, when I had the restaurant, people don’t want to complain. Although I never think twice about sending a meal back, if it’s not properly prepared, or ordering something else if I don’t like what’s brought to the table. But I know not everyone wants to be that person. You know, the one that complains and sends back the dish if everything is not perfect?

I get it that Kriston ordered it, and when we saw an order go out, before we placed our order, it didn’t look like there was cabbage in the dish. Of course with all the red sauce on the Pad Thai, and the nature of the dish itself, there’s no way to tell what shredded, minced, chopped vegetables are in Pad Thai. It’s one of those dishes that has a lot of leeway. Kriston never mentioned she couldn’t eat cabbage.

I trusted Aihua to make my food, just as Kriston trusted me.

I was willing to make it right because I knew she wouldn’t.

***

Kriston is one of those people who won’t say anything, won’t want to go for Noodles again, nor will she take her kids and friends to this little gem of a restaurant.

And I’ll want to go to lunch with Kriston again.

“Cuz I’m gonna need a Noodle fix.

Soon.