The trigger was the wonderful mixed seafood with tofu soup 海鲜豆腐汤 from the Amazing Wok in San Carlos, a couple weeks ago (and then several times since). which sent me back to lunches on my own in Reading PA roughly 75 years ago, after I was finished with the program of Saturday morning for boys at the Reading YMCA. I was then on my own in the city (browsing in stores, just walking the city, sometimes going to a movie, mostly ransacking the Reading Public Library), until late in the afternoon, when I went to my parents’ store on N. 5th St. — the Memo Shop, high-end costume jewelry — and the family did a little grocery shopping and my dad drove us the 4 miles home to West Lawn.
The lunches were sometimes sandwiches or other diner food at one of the lunch counters in town, but usually were Chinese (American) or Italian (American), at two little restaurants that I remember as being in basements on S. 6th St. (but these physical details are quite likely to have been altered in memory). There wasn’t room for a lot of menu adventure at either place. Typical lunches:
Chinese: egg drop soup or hot and sour soup; plus beef and broccoli, chow mein, or egg foo young
Italian: spaghetti and meatballs most often, sometimes veal parmesan or fettuccine Alfredo or a lunch special of the day
I had money from my parents to cover these cheap lunches, plus a 15% tip.
I don’t remember the decor at the Chinese place (probably minimal), but the Italian place had an impressive painting of what I recall as the Bay of Naples, with Mount Vesuvius in the background.
