when PositiveRoleModel and i were in high school, the buildings were so old and so inadequate for the needs of the 2500 students that the cafeteria could not serve everyone. not even close. that crappy little cafeteria may well have been even smaller than the one at our middle school. so even with everyone taking lunches in half-hour shifts between 10 AM and 1 PM (and damn, did the early and late ones suck ass) they could not have a closed campus; they had to let us forage for food off-campus.
and by far the best food available was two blocks up the hill at Hong Kong House. apparently, the cool kids called it Rats N Rice, not because it was in any way nasty, but because the cool kids were turds. (i was uncool enough that i wasn’t even aware of this nickname until long after i graduated.)
you had to walk as fast as you could to get there, because ever order was made fresh. if you were lucky, you’d have just enough time to pound your $1.85 half-pint of plain fried rice as you ran back to school without being late. even if you had to eat it at 10:25 AM, it would sit in a lump of nutritional awesomeness in your stomach all afternoon, so you wouldn’t need to buy a fundraiser candy bar from a band geek at 2 PM like you would had you chosen, say, jack-in-the-box’s “3 tacos for 99 cents” instead.
on the last day of senior year, some friends and i went to hong kong hosue and splurged… we each blew over $5 on actual entrees – garlic shrimp, sweet and sour pork – and even appetizers (egg rolls, crab rangoons.) and they were AWESOME.
and still, the fried rice is the best i’ve ever had. even our kids love it. it has visible green vegetable in it, and they love it. you will not fully appreciate how amazing this is until you have offspring that can be brought to tears by waving a forkful of salad in their faces. repeatedly. (hey, it’s funny. you don’t even know.) anyway, PRM and i usually try to eat at Rats N Rice at least once when we’re home. you walk in, and you’re overwhelmed by the smell of caramelized onions. and the prices have barely gone up… nearly 15 years later, a pint of plain fried rice is only $2.30. though we’ve made our come-up, and can now splurge on CHICKEN fried rice. by the QUART. that’s like $5! yay, resident’s salary! we cuttin a fat hog in the ass now and shittin in some TALL cotton!
i should mention here that our old high school and Rats N Rice are square in the middle of the meth epicenter of our hometown, right next to the public park where a body turns up amid the crackpipes every year or so (so when your tennis ball went over the fence in PE and landed in the park… you just waved goodbye and got a new one.) so when the creepy white chick in the pink trenchcoat stands in the parking lot and starts snapping pictures, apparently, everyone inside starts wondering aloud if they need to go beat the shit out of that trr-rr-rist out there until her husband intervenes. yep.
