Next time, I'm getting Kung Pao shrimp, pho sho.

"Hello? Yeah. We're at Pho 20."

I know it's just the name of the restaurant, a Vietnamese joint on Broadway St. in Galveston, but it's impossible not to laugh when the person next to you says that on the phone. Especially when it's a beatnik like John. He is the opposite of that guy who periodically pronounces certain words in a ghetto fashion. Things like "fo sho," and "da," and ending sentences with "yo."

Being out-ordered is possibly the most frustrating thing that can happen to a person. It happened to me last night at Pho 20, and I'm still a little bitter about it. When you get out-ordered, you are getting dominated. Your unhappiness with your menu selection is simply amplified by the sense of fulfillment you pick up from your dining partner. Not only is my food bad, but look at his food. It's awesome. You become almost hungrier with every bite, because you know what you could be eating, had you not been so stupid. It's right in front of your face -- its aroma, its sight, its temptation. To ask for some of your neighbor's dish when you've been out-ordered is to sacrifice your honor. You just don't do that. And when they can tell you're pissed that you didn't go with the money selection -- in last night's case, the Kung Pao shrimp -- and offer you a bite, you are duty bound to decline. "No, I'm good," you say through clenched teeth.

The double whammy becomes a triple whammy when your friend asks for a to-go box. Talk about a kick to the nuts when you're already down. "I love Pho 20 because I always have a little extra for lunch tomorrow," John says, as you stare at your hardly touched bowl of Pho soup and noodles, and whatever mystery meat (allegedly "meatballs") floating around in it. "Or for later tonight, if I get hungry again." You smile, and pretend that you are happy for your friend. The triple whammy: not only are you paying a ton of money for a dish you feel you should be paid to eat, and not only do you get hungrier with every bite you watch the victor shovel into his mouth, but then you learn that the man who dominated you on the menu tonight will be laughing all the way until tomorrow's lunch, when he reheats his Kung Pao shrimp and goes for round 2.

I hate being out-ordered.

It's why, when I find something on the menu that I like at a particular restaurant, I almost never stray from it. (See: four consecutive years of buffalo chicken sandwiches at The Virginian, where one of the regular waitresses who knew my face came to start asking me not what I'd like to eat, but whether or not I wanted a menu.) I like what I know, and I know what I like. More importantly, I know what I don't like: and that is taking a risk on something you don't know for sure is good, and thus opening up yourself to the possibility of being out-ordered.

My panic option is the burger. If I feel rushed by an overeager waiter or waitress at a place I've never been to before, I always go with the burger. It's hard to go wrong with carbs and beef. My opción del pánico at a new Mexican restaurant is its burger equivalent, fajitas.

But an unfamiliar Vietnamese restaurant doesn't offer any panic options: no burgers, no fajitas. The risk of being out-ordered is therefore especially high at a place like Pho 20.

I went with the Phở Bò Viên, also known as the beef noodle soup with meatball.

"How do you say that in Vietnamese?" I asked the Vietnamese waitress.

"I no know."

"This word," I said, pointing to the menu, since she clearly hadn't understood my question and was trying to act like she had, "how do you say it, in Vietnamese?"

"I no know. I Chinese."

Okay then, false advertising.

"Sheh sheh, sheh sheh," I said, clasping my hands together and bowing my head. That's all I know in Chinese: "thank you, thank you." Not very applicable in this situation.

Mark that up as the second time in five minutes last night that I embarrassed myself in public. The two fat women at the table next to me started giggling uncontrollably after that unintentional display of racism on my part, but the guy who had been walking right behind us on the street outside hadn't find my littering too funny.

"This is the greatest thing about Ike," I said, as I threw the remnants of my lunch and other random trash I'd cleaned out of my car onto a big pile of garbage on the curb.

John, a Galveston local, blew up my spot. "Dude, don't do that. The city's not picking that stuff up anymore. They announced two weeks ago they're not doing it anymore." The stranger five feet behind us was definitely a local. "The people are gonna be the ones cleaning that up," John said, as the local walked by. He never said a word, or even looked at me. I felt like a horse's patute.

So maybe it was karma, me getting stuck with garbage in bowl after throwing my garbage on the ground, on an island that is still looking pretty post-apocalyptic in certain areas as a result of Hurricane Ike.

It was my own fault, I suppose. I broke the cardinal rule of how to order at Asian restaurants: trying to go cheap. When you're eating at any Asian restaurant -- Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, whatever -- you never want to read the menu according to price, like you're buying a used book on Amazaon or something. People from that part of the world will eat anything. And unless there's an Italian in the building, it is incredibly stupid to go with "meatballs" in your Pho soup, even if you do save two whole quarters in doing so.

Rachel, John's girlfriend, was horrified when she heard later that night that I'd gone with meatballs at a Vietnamese place. She's an Asiaphile, and never eats food from that part of the world if she can avoid it. "Gross! Bayless do you realize what that means at a Vietnamese place, 'meatballs'? I'm sure it was just a combination of like five different bodily organs, mashed into little 'balls' or something."

Of course, I wasn't thinking about this fact when I ordered it. I should have; I have experience with Saigon street food. But I guess I'm just getting forgetful in my old age. As soon as I took a bite of one of the "meatballs," I swallowed it and resolved not to swallow another. This stuff was either a) dog food or b) dog as food. One bite was enough. John confirmed my thoughts on the matter when he tried a piece.

Later that night, when we were sitting around with Rachel, John got up and went to the refrigerator to get his styrofoam leftover box.

"Give me some of that," I demanded, no longer caring about my out-order honor, or trifling concerns such as dignity.

"It pisses me off that this is so good," I said as I destroyed the remainder of the leftovers. "I was really hoping this would taste bad, too."

Such is the humiliation of being out-ordered.