The next time you find yourself in line at a Beef Bowl (aka Yoshinoya), please make sure you’ve read and understand this terminology first:

Combo: A rice meal with shredded beef, chicken and vegetables
Value Meal: Any number of options that include a main serving with a drink and side option (like strawberry shortcake or flan)
Idiot: The guy working behind the counter

Anne’s out of town again, so I’m fending for myself and as you know, I can’t cook. So after doing a quick cache, I tried to think of where I should grab some food on the way home. I got a hankerin’ for some beef bowl, so I headed down to the one not too far away in Cupertino.

Maybe it’s because I was the only white guy in there, but they had changed the menu and I couldn’t make sense of it. After staring up at it for a while, I asked for “a large beef bowl; a combo”, looking at the picture of a large beef bowl with a drink and side. He took my order and asked for $9.02. I thought that seemed a little high for taxes, but I went with it.

He took the next order while I waited and then he said my order was ready. I looked inside and saw two large boxes, no drink, no strawberry shortcake. I explained to him that it was not what I wanted, I wanted just the “large beef bowl combo”. He asked for my receipt, my change back from my $20 and then gave me back another $4. $4? The meal was $6 without tax. I thought I’d be a good boy and told him that he had given me too much money back.

At this point he explained to me that I had ordered the combo which was the rice with beef, chicken and vegetables. Of course I didn’t want the combo, I wanted the beef “meal” with the other stuff. #5 on the board. “Oh, you want a number #5” Maybe this is why asian restaurants number all their items. Even when they’re in English, they’re impossible to understand.

So now he asked for all the change he had given me and we started over. I paid my $6.99, he gave me the large beef bowl, an orange soda and my strawberry shortcake. He gave me my receipt and I checked it this time.

Maybe I should just stick to Wendy’s.