A few weeks ago one Saturday morning at 4 AM, I was driving around, looking for something to eat. Don't ask what I was doing up at that hour. You don't want to know.
But I was and I had a sudden need to eat something (anything) and not a lot of time to locate it. I remembered an "open 24 hours" diner in the area and headed there only to find that it's now a "closes at Midnight" diner. I wound up pulling into the only thing I saw that was open — a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl shop.
At 4 AM in this part of town, you can't get a prescription filled. You can't buy medicine or emergency supplies or even get Breakfast. If the future of mankind was riding on it, you couldn't get your hands on a Holy Bible. But you can get a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl.
A lot of them are open all night, I've noticed, and I wonder why. When all the other restaurants and fast food establishments have closed, why does it make economic sense for Yoshinoya Beef Bowl to be open? Do people have a lot of sudden, middle-of-the-night cravings for Yoshinoya Beef Bowls?
Apparently so because the place was semi-packed, albeit with people who looked like they had nowhere else to go. I found myself mentally asking them, "Why are you people here at four in the morning?", forgetting for a moment that if I had a reason to be there, it wasn't so impossible that they did. There was one couple there that looked like they were on a date. Is there anything more romantic than sharing a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl at 4 in the morning? Where's he going to take her when they want to go to someplace fancier? Arby's at dawn?
I bought myself a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl. In case you've never savored the experience, it comes in a styrofoam tub and part of the fun is figuring out where the styrofoam leaves off and the beef begins. They fill it full of rice and then they add in a load of fatty beef strips about the thickness of oxygen and there's also an oniony juice and little pieces of mushy onion. The onion parts are pretty good and the rest is…well, filling. Then again, so is eating the bowl, I'd wager.
I ate about a third of my sumptuous repast, which was more than enough, and pitched the rest. On my way out, I saw a homeless (obviously) fellow approaching and I immediately imagined what was about to happen. He'd ask me for a couple of bucks to get something to eat and being a generous sort but not wanting to give him cash he'd use for liquor, I'd offer to take him in and buy him a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl. To this, he'd say, "Thanks but I'm not that hungry."
It didn't go like that. He walked right past me and as I got into my car, I heard him ask the security guard out front if there was anyplace else around to get a meal. The guard told him no, not within walking distance. As I pulled out of the lot, I saw him wandering off. Even the homeless have some standards, I guess. And they're apparently higher than mine.