Samurai Burger

Julie is quite the trip organizer. When we go out, she is usually armed with maps, bus numbers, and print-outs of assorted web pages. She even knows which exit to take out of the train station. She is very organized.

Me?

Not so much.

We have –how shall I say it?- different variable allowance thresholds. Read: Jack is willing to wing it.

Last Friday, the girls and I participated in the International Shoreline Clean-up. A big group of us from ICS spent two hours cleaning up trash on a beach thirty minutes from school. After she got off of work, Julie met us at the nearest train station so that the four of us could go out to dinner and have a look around.

A colleague had tipped me off to a cool little village with some great Chinese restaurants that was a ten-minute walk (or did she say twenty-minute?) from the train station.

She told me the name of the village –Sai’ O- and said that all we had to do was walk out of the station in a northerly direction. (Actually, she said it was more like north-west-ish.) Not much to go on –I admit- but I had it all written down on a scrap of paper.

. . . which was at home on my desk.

I’m going to skip over the next fifteen minutes. But here’s the short version: Julie and Jack are still married, and the four of us are walking toward the McDonalds across from the train station.

Ah, such is life. Sometimes things work out the way you hoped; sometimes, not so much.

Out of pure stubbornness, I order the most Chinese-y thing I can find on the menu: the samurai burger. (I know, I know. Samurai is Japanese. Tell that to McDonalds HQ.)

The samurai burger is a beef (or was it pork?) patty smothered in teriyaki sauce, lettuce, a sesame seed bun, and . . . wait for it . . . an egg sunny side up.

A burger with an egg on top. Never would have thought of that.

But actually, it was pretty good.

Next time my plans for the evening crash and burn for lack of an actually plan, and we end up at McDonalds, I think I’ll have another.

-Jack