What the pho?
Students arriving at the CoHo this morning were confused by the crime scene tape bedecking the pho restaurant Mandalay Express. The reason? Campus police received an anonymous tip that Mandalay Express was serving faux pho to the good people of UCD.
“The campus chief of police sent me to investigate this crime against flavor,” Officer Minnie Stroney said. “We kept getting complaints that the CoHo pho was an embarrassment to the culinary world. One caller even described it as ‘the La Croix of pho.’ We got complaints by the thousands, but we didn’t have probable cause to investigate these claims until yesterday.”
Stroney then went on to describe an anonymous caller, who insisted on calling himself the ‘Pho King.’ The Pho King told the police that the ‘broth’ was actually just boiled water.
“If these souper juicy rumors turn out to be true, the CoHo could be found guilty of fraud,” Stroney said.
Later that day, pho-rensic chemist Bonnie Mee tested the broth for its chemical composition. After the results came in, Mee tutted, shaking her head.
“My kit said this ‘broth’ is 100 percent water, zero percent pho,” Mee said. “Not a single grain of salt. These noodles aren’t the real deal, either. They’re impastas. And don’t get me started on these ‘meat’balls. I’m not sure we can legally call these ‘meat’. Lock ‘em up!”
Stroney handcuffed the CoHo employee who had been making and distributing the phoney pho.
“I would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for you meddling pigs!” the disgruntled employee huffed at the police.
Fans of Mandalay Express found themselves hot and broth-ered at the closing of their favorite food stall. This anger, however, quickly subsided when students realized they could drink water out of hot tubs to get pretty much the same flavor.
Written by: Madeline Kumagai — mskumagai@ucdavis.edu
(This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
