This Place Doesn't Try

It's almost always empty.

Ten tables, two dozen seats.
It doesn’t invite settling in.
Utility chairs fold around bare wood.
The lights feel halfway between hospital and hallway.

It’s the kind of place you find once and forget how you got there.
It doesn’t ask for attention, and it doesn’t reward it either.

But the soup at Shanghai Wonton Noodle is always hot.
The broth carries weight. Not salt, not smoke — weight.
It lands with the quiet gravity of something made from memory, not measurement.

You don’t ask for substitutions. You don’t ask for the wi-fi.
You don’t ask much of this place, and that’s part of why it works.

No one is taking pictures.
No one is talking about it.
No one ever seems to finish their bowl, but they leave slower than they arrived.

I’ve never asked the name of the chef.
I hope I don’t have to.

Some places aren’t trying to be discovered.
They’re just open.