I did something really bad last night. There�s a restaurant near my school, it�s called Mix Bowl. And it is disgusting. It�s what late night drunk college students order for delivery when they tired of the endless parade of greasy Dominos and Round Table. Mix Bowl sells bad Thai food laden with enough MSG to give you an awful migraine, stomachache and great pains all at once. When I first transferred to Claremont McKenna, a girl who I quickly became friends with (now my roommate!) invited me to dinner at Mix Bowl. I was so excited at the prospect of getting off this enclosed campus, and gladly accepted. She said, �They have good Thai food, and it�s cheap!� Cool. Sounds like the type of place I�d like. And then we arrived there. The restaurant was painted in awfully bright shades and the big plastic plates came every single color in the rainbow. The whole place had a pee-like yellow tinge. And my beef noodle soup tasted like a salt bath with poop and gelatin mixed in. Needless to say, I never went back.

Students would get delivery every other day, twice as often during exam times, and I could always SMELL that Mix Bowl smell in my dorm hall. It was so distinctive, that scent of sodium, greasy, unwashed chicken and old shrimp. Occasionally I would crave Thai food, but never, I told myself, would I dare succumb to Mix Bowl. I have standards.

However you might have noticed that I�ve been frustrated with the fact that I can�t get around any where without a car. I can�t even get to the supermarket and that is ridiculous. So I�ve had to rely on people for rides and it gets pretty tiring to depend on people for food. You can�t always get what you want, and sometimes, if the only place they want to eat at is the Cheesecake Factory or Macaroni Grill, then you gotta go (or sit quietly in your dorm and fume over the unfairness of it all). Frustration, especially over a matter of food if you�re one who�s live revolves around what to eat next, builds up in a funny way. Last week, I decided I was sick of depending on people for rides and told myself, if I need food I�m going to get around on my own two feet or with LA public transportation (a highly inefficient system). And it worked fine, I took the Metrolink downtown last weekend, I walked to the Claremont farmer�s market on Sunday. But then, I started to crave pad thai. I was craving it so bad. I saw it all over food blogs and that�s all I could talk, walk, and think about. I was willing to sell my soul. There are many good restaurants in LA serving pad thai. But none within walking distance. And I was not going to ask anyone to drive me. I was surrounded by pizza deliveries, but only one place in this city served pad thai. And would be willing to deliver. Oh god. Mix Bowl.

So I did and that�s what you see above. Shameful isn�t it? I made such a big deal to my friends about never touching Mix Bowl crap and now I�m a victim of my own words. Sadly, in my desperation, I ate the entire thing (over two episodes of Willl & Grace) and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I�m a little dizzy now, the shrimp and chicken tasted old and dry, I think there was about 50 grams of sugar in there, and I don�t even want to think of what other strange substances they might have mixed into my dish. It came to $7 with tip, and it�s not half bad for a loooot of pad thai. But I feel really guilty. I�m never going to do it again.

Mix Bowl
1520 Indian Hill Blvd.
Pomona, CA 91767
(909) 447-4401