In addition to all her other ailments, Mom has a slightly fractured back or tailbone, so she’s in a lot of pain. Prescription pills approach keeping the pain under control, but she’s generally miserable, so she’s grumpy, less communicative than usual, and it’s not lots of fun for either of us, when I hang out at their house every day.

But seven days a week, I’m there, for a few hours of hoping to help.

On my way home from Katrina & Mom’s on Tuesday, I decided to treat myself to lunch at a place in Renton that calls itself The Best Pho & Thai Restaurant.

Hadn’t heard anything good or bad about The Best, and chose it on a whim, mostly because it’s right at a bus stop for my #560 bus home. On a hottish summer day, it’s better to wait for the bus in an air-conditioned restaurant than on the sidewalk.

And I figured, even if it sucked, writing a rotten review — “The Best, my ass” — could be fun. Maybe I was even rooting for The Best to be a disappointment.

The waitress said I could sit anywhere, so I took a seat overlooking the bus stop.

The menu is ten 8½x11 pages, each sheathed in plastic, plus two more pages for the front and back covers. With a binder for all the plastic, it was thicker than the book I’m reading (Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey). Took some time to flip through it, and in addition to pho and Thai, they also offer teriyaki and Vietnamese options. You need a passport to eat there.

I’ve had pho twice and I’m tired of it, and don’t know Vietnamese from teriyaki, but Thai was my wife Stephanie’s preferred cuisine and we had it often. I prefer Chinese and Korean, and haven’t eaten Thai since Steph died (8 years ago now!), so I ordered her favorite dish, tofu pad thai ($15), plus vegetarian spring rolls ($9).

Didn’t order a drink, because drinks are always overpriced in restaurants, but without asking, the waitress brought a large glass made of glass and filled with water and ice. Good water, too, not the rusty or metallic stuff that comes from the pipes at my house. During the meal, when my water ran low, the waitress was back to pour more, again without my asking.

The #560 comes only twice hourly, so I pulled out my phone to check the schedule, and found a fresh and worrisome text from my sister Katrina: “OMG, Mom doesn’t know who I am, and she doesn’t know her name.”

Well, hell. Mom’s been groggy-headed for a week or so, but not amnesiac, so this was a serious bad turn. What’s worse, I’d already ordered my food, so I couldn’t just vamoose and cross the street and take a bus back to their house to see if I could help. Anyway, what could I do to help? I was tired, hungry, and wanted my lunch.

It had been ten minutes since Katrina’s text, so I answered, “Has her name come back to her?”

Then the waitress came back with my appetizers, the spring rolls. Like the spring rolls at Blossom, they were wrapped in lettuce and edible rubber, dang tasty, with a salad’s worth of vegetables in each. At The Best, they come with a small but ample cup of peanutty dipping sauce. The spring rolls were delicious without the sauce, and delicious in a different way with the sauce, so I alternated saucy and not-saucy bites. Maybe better than being good, they were very large, and with four of them, could’ve been enough for lunch.

As I ate, Katrina texted, “She just told me who I am, but seemed unsure about it, and she knows she’s Colette, but can’t remember her last name. I ask, What’s your last name? and she just says Colette again.”

To my knowledge, Mom hasn’t lost her memory since the first days of her problems a few months ago, but Katrina lives with her, knows Mom’s situation better than I do, so I texted back, “Has this happened before? Worry, worry.”

And then, sorry, but I was two bus rides from their house, half an hour with perfect bus luck, more likely longer. I ate another spring roll, worried, ate another, and waited for Katrina’s next text.

The Best Pho & Thai is a large place, capacity 102 says a small placard on the wall, and fifty folks came and went during my lunch. Almost all were Asian, which has to be a recommendation, right? And it was my lucky afternoon, when of those 50, at least ten were leggy young women wearing shorts.

Answering my question, “Has this happened before?” Katrina texted, “Not since her episode of delirium at the hospital in March.”

There’s enough décor that you know you’re in an Asian place, but it’s not overkill. A fake roof overhangs the bar, and huge windows offer a panoramic view of the parking lot, the run-down neighborhood, a horrid stretch of Rainier Ave just before it becomes a freeway, and of course, the bus stop.

As I typed “Do you think Emergency Room?” but before I sent it, Katrina texted, “Now she’s answering a little better. She still doesn’t know her last name, but I asked when’s her birthday and she got the month right. She doesn’t know the day or year tho.”

I hit ‘send’ on my reply as the main course arrived, a mountain of pad thai on an oversized plate, with 5-6 thick slices of tofu, some chopped nuts, and a lemon wedge on the side. The noodles tasted strongly sour and compellingly sweet, with exactly perfect spices and seasoning and something else, perhaps the elusive tangy taste hipsters call umami.

After several spectacular bites, my sister texted, “Not ER but I’m debating whether to call 9-1-1. They’ve come so many times when Mom’s fallen, and they’re not doctors but they know more than I do.”

I texted back, “Oh yes yes, don’t know why I hadn’t thought of calling 9-1-1. Please!”

The restaurant’s gentle Asian pop music was occasionally interrupted by silly xylophone sounds— kids playing video games on their phones. The guy in the booth in front of me launched into a long phone conversation with his bank’s AI, very frustrating for him but enjoyable for me, listening to it. People don’t often get the frustration they deserve, and usually you can’t overhear it, so that was nice.

After too long waiting and worrying, my sister texted, “The paramedics came and they left. They tested her, and think she’s OK, and she’s coming around, and knows she’s Colette Holland.”

Amid the noodles were sliced green onions (a/k/a scallions), a few eggs worth of scrambled eggs, some alfalfa sprouts, and five large pieces of tofu that tasted like the noodles, but the noodles were the star of the show. At first I tried twirling them onto my fork, but apparently it was one quarter-mile-long noodle wrapped around itself a thousand times, so twirling was impossible. It was easy to fork through it, though, and I texted back, “Yay!” while still chewing noodle.

“They didn’t recommend an ER visit?”

The pad thai plus the spring rolls were more than I could eat, but I ate it all and licked the plate clean. Steph would’ve loved this place, and scolded me for licking the plate.

“That was so scary,” Katrina texted. “No, they didn’t think an ER visit was necessary, and Mom is smiling at me now, knows her name, her birthday, my name, my birthday. She’s here again, and Mom again.”

Along with the bill, the waitress brought an Asian candy — small, green, hard, good, and individually wrapped. “Classic Series,” said the wrapper, but the rest of the text was Asian logographic, indecipherable to me. A pity, cuz I might’ve ordered a box of ’em online.

The meal finished and paid for, I texted my sister, “Want some worry help? I’m at a good turnaround point, could be back at your house in maybe 45 minutes.”

“No thanks,” she replied. “I don’t need any worry help because I’m not worrying any more. Mom’s talking to me like she always does, wants her sweater on because she’s cold, and in ten minutes she’ll want her sweater off because she’s warm. We’re all good here. Thanks for helping!”

Well, I don’t know if I helped, but “Tell Mom I love her,” I texted back.

And then I was out the restaurant’s door, mere footsteps from the bus stop and my ride home.

I’m glad Mom is alive and mostly well. Glad she has Katrina taking care of her. Glad it’s not me, 24/7.

And I am not Thai connoisseur enough that my judgment means much, but I’ve had pad thai a dozen times, and never had better, so The Best really is the best.

7/10/2026

Cheap Seattle

itsdougholland.com
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