Oblique Strategy: Revaluation (a warm feeling)
Everybody has their Christmas traditions. Ours is to have lunch at Bistro B. I checked my blog archives, and I wrote about Christmas at Bistro B six years ago. You can read it here. It hasn’t changed much and my 2011 description is still good:
The place, as always, was packed. We waited for a few minutes, which I enjoyed. I stood by the little altar with the burning incense spiral, the electric-powered prayer wheels, and the little shrines decorated with offerings of change. I looked around at the tables to see what other folks were ordering. There were a lot of butane portable table burners heating hot pots that were being shared by a whole family – three generations or more – packed around the big round tables. I love watching a family eat, the heads bent, concentrating on the food, with a ballet of chopsticks dancing in a circular chorus while everyone picks up their food, talks, and laughs.
Its a noisy, happy place, with an army of black-clad waiters rushing, cleanup crews pushing a big square cart, a thick crowd at the registers – some clutching inscrutable bills, but most there for take-out. Some odd genre of electronic dance music pulses… loud but barely audible over the conversations, and a phalanx of flat-screen televisions incongruously simultaneously shine out an NFL documentary. The kids reported that the restroom was, “Like a nightclub.”
We were earlier than we usually were – so the place wasn’t completely packed. The menus were new – the numbers only going up to 494. And in the last six years the restroom extravaganza has been toned down more than a bit.
As always, the Christmas-day service was a little rough. There is a new “Taco” section in the menu – Candy ordered one of those. “Oh, I’m sorry, that’s new, we haven’t learned how to cook those yet,” was the answer from the waiter. Candy ordered chicken, Nick, Lee, and I ordered Pho. The chicken arrived quickly, but no Pho. A while later, the waiter came by and asked how everything was. “No pho,” we answered. He looked flustered and our three enormous bowls of soup came out in a minute. That’s cool – usually we don’t even get what we order – a busy place with a book for a menu and 494 items – you have to chill a bit.

The soup after I added sprouts and other vegetables. Those little eggs were hiding down in a little nest of rice noodles. I don’t know what creature they originally came from
After our food we drove across the city for our second Christmas Tradition – to see a movie. It’s getting so that we will only see films at the Alamo Drafthouse (their no phone-no talking-no arriving late or you will be thrown out is a game-changer) and we took in I,Tonya at the Alamo in the Cedars. They have a nice bar upstairs with a killer view of downtown Dallas.
A nice way to wile away a Christmas day.
That looks Pho-nominal.
It was Pho king great.
I usually go for the “traditional” meal of Chinese food on Christmas day, but pho sounds like a great variation on the concept.
Yeah, I don’t always order Pho (Bistro B isn’t our go-to Pho place, the menu is too large) but Bistro B is such a fun spot – crowded and crazy.
Look delicious!
Sounds fun!
Good memories made!
YAY! 🙂
One Christmas, in Denver, we had Chinese food and then saw a movie. My friend Brian said we had a Jewish Christmas that year!
HUGS!!! 🙂
The Chinese restaurants and movie theaters were packed.
I learned a new word today. Pho.
Those were the last pair of eggs from the last mating pair of the endangered Fee-Fi-Pho Pheasant, a giant of a bird that lived (extinct now, thank you very much), on an island off the coast of North Korea. KJU is very upset.
They didn’t taste like those. Maybe Platypus eggs.
Excellent post, loved it. Well-written, humorous, casual. If Yelpers approached reviews like this, the app might be worth something.
Thanks. Though Yelp is fun when you read one-star reviews of good places.