P.F. Chang's

Yeah, yeah, another restaurant. Another, um Chinese restaurant. Just know that had I cooked in the last 24 hours, I would have wanted to cook this. It is reminiscent of the tangerine egg foo yung at Jasmine Chinese/Thai restaurant in Memphis.

Anyhoo, I started out with the spring roll appetizer. Yum. It's really hard to screw up a spring roll though. It's shredded veggies wrapped up and deep fried. Not difficult, but I'll say I enjoyed them. Just so you know.

For an entree, I had a little trouble deciding between the coconut curry vegetables and Buddha's feast stir-fried. The server warned me that the coconut curry was spicy, so I opted for the feast.

The selection of vegetables was pretty good, as you can see from their menu. It was in a light sauce that I augmented with the leftover sweet and sour sauce from the spring rolls. I think I tasted a hint of lemongrass in the oyster sauce, but it could have been some pungent ginger. It was good, but there wasn't a whole lot of the sauce (and what was there didn't have all that much flavor). But the portion of vegetables was large enough that I had a good amount left over (along with some brown rice) for another meal. I added some edamame and some sesame garlic sauce to it and viola!--dinner was uh-served.

The real story here, though is not what I did with the leftovers when I got home. It was what happened between lunch and dinner.

After lunch, there were errands to do. My leftovers sat dutifully in the floorboard of the car, patiently awaiting me in near-freezing temperatures, so I did not worry about them.

When I returned to the car from the first errand, a woman was getting out of her car right next to my door. When she passed and I opened my door, I was met with the most unbelievable foul smell. And I thought to myself (because I spend a lot of time thinking about bowels), "That woman really needs to get to a restroom."

When I got in the car after the second errand, though I smelled that smell again. Shoe checking commenced. No. All clear. Hmm. I noticed that the bag with the leftovers had fallen over, so I checked to make sure the Buddha's feast was not leaking. It wasn't leaking sauce, but it was leaking that awful smell. How could this be? It didn't smell in the restaurant! But sure enough, that container was emitting a powerfully, overwhelmingly disgusting smell. That quickly dissipated. So I don't know if it was the sauce, the lone remaining black mushroom, the asparagus, or what. I just know that not only did it smell, but it made me smell. I was informed--in no uncertain terms--that my breath was nearly as bad. And just a couple of hours later, my urine smelled pretty objectionable as well. And I'm not talking about your garden-variety asparagus pee. I'm telling you it smelled like, well, #2 instead of #1. But a #2 created by a constipated meat-eater, not yours truly, of optimal colon health.

Regardless of that, I had the remainder of the feast for dinner (as mentioned above). Luckily, it's just the cat and me, so no one has to endure this stench. But my mouth...yuck. I think I'll spray down with some Chloraseptic or maybe some bleach before I go to bed. Yikes.