Back in high school, sometime during the winter of our senior year, my friend Jen read a review of a Vietnamese restaurant in Northeast Minneapolis called Que Viet Village House. The critic had loved the place, and neither Jen nor I really knew anything about Vietnamese cuisine at the time. After all, we were living in Edina, and our principal hangouts (long before the days of Starbucks) were the Perkins at 50th & 100, and La Terrasse at the Hotel Sofitel, where Scott Peterson (despite his baby face) could order a glass of wine if he got the right waitress. Jen and I decided to drive up to Que Viet one Saturday night to check it out.
The restaurant was on Johnson Street, a little hole in the wall, noteworthy to this suburban youth for being in a storefront sandwiched between old houses rather than in a strip mall. I remember it being exotic, not so much for being Vietnamese but for being other than Perkins. And there were nonwhite people both working and dining there. We might as well have gone to Saigon itself. Edina High School was so monochrome that we “imported” students of color from other cities through a program called ABC - “A Better Chance.”
I don't recall exactly what we ordered. I know we shared fried egg rolls and had separate entrees. I enjoyed the meal immensely – a whole new cuisine, a whole new experience.
The next week at school, it was quite the sensation that we -- or more correctly, I -- had ventured so far from Edina to dine. I remember Mach Arom in particular being stunned that I would do something so "adventurous" as eat Asian food on Johnson Street. It stuck with me, because it wasn't until then that I fully realized the perception that the world, or at least Edina High School (which were interchangeable back then), had of me. I knew I was the safe, nerdy, boring guy who got good grades -- I just did not realize how deeply other people held that view. Yet it was liberating to realize what a small action like going out to eat could do toward shattering that perception. Maybe I wasn't trapped in my identity after all.
Yesterday, I was running errands in Northeast over my lunch hour and I drove by Que Viet. I pulled over, parked, and ran in for a to-go order of chicken chow mein with mushrooms -- a lunch special for $5.75. It was a generous portion with white rice and those crispy noodles, succulent white meat chicken, straw mushrooms, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, and celery. Bland (as all chow mein is), but delicious in a comfort food sort of way. While I waited for my order, I stuck my head in the dining area and picked out the table at which Jen and I had sat 24 years ago. I don't think the decor has changed or been touched up since then!
It was strange to come face-to-face with my 18-year-old self on Johnson Street. But it made me think of Jen and the little rebellion she inspired for me back in 1985.
