Family story:

The best dinner in the world

 June 3, 2008

Do you know a restaurant called Tony Roma's?

It was about 11 years ago that I first got to know that restaurant.

I married and went on a honeymoon to Maui, Hawaii.

And my wife wanted to go to Tony Roma’s restaurant so I went there the first time in my life.

Of course, it was so good to be with my wife at that time, I didn’t care about Tony Roma's or any of the restaurants. And actually I don’t remember what I ate at that restaurant.

It was about two years later when my wife was attending UCLA graduate school.

When we were living in the UCLA graduate apartment, one day my pregnant wife took a nap and woke up and came to the living room where I was sitting and told me about her dream.

She said she dreamed about eating Ribs in Tony Roma's.

I knew then that Tony Roma's restaurant was only in Maui, Hawaii. 

So I thought, ‘This woman is pregnant and what she said doesn’t make sense.’

At that time, when I didn’t say anything, my wife went to the kitchen and asked me, ‘Do you want to eat ribs?’

At that time, my wife and I often went back to the apartment after church on Sunday evenings and ate the ribs that my mother-in-law sent from Arizona with the Korean spicy noodle.  It’s because I really like the noodle.  Haha.

Since I thought my wife asked me whether I wanted to eat the ribs or not, I answered her “It’s okay” because I didn’t want her to work hard to cook for me.

Then suddenly my wife cried and went into the room.

I was a bit shock when I saw it.

I just said “It’s okay” to her because I didn’t want her to work hard to cook ribs for me.

But when she cried and went into the room, I didn’t know what was going on.   I didn’t understand.

So I went into the room where my wife was and tried to talk to her in order to comfort her who was crying.

When I talked to her, I found out what she meant.  Although I thought she said ‘Do you want to eat ribs?’, what she meant was she wanted to eat something from Tony Roma’s (this make more sense in Korean because we were speaking Korean at that time).

In other words, as she was going to the kitchen, she wanted to eat the ribs from Tony Roma’s, the one that she dreamed of eating Ribs in Tony Roma's.  That was why my wife said, ‘Do you want to eat ribs?’

After dreaming of it, she wanted to eat Ribs at Tony Roma's restaurant, which was 5-10 minutes’ drive from our UCLA graduate apartment where we were living.

At that time, that was my first time that I realized that Tony Roma's was not only in Maui, Hawaii,

but also in 5-10 minutes’ driving distance from our UCLA graduate school apartment.

Later, I found that the Tony Roma’s restaurant was in Korea as well.  Haha.

So after we resolved our misunderstanding, we went to Tony Roma's restaurant near our apartment and ordered Ribs, which my wife wanted to eat in her dream.  And we laughed together and ate the ribs deliciously.

Although the food was not a banquet dinner, when I saw my pregnant wife eating that Tony Roma's Ribs that she really wanted to eat even in her dream with cheerful smile on her face, I could say that it was the best dinner in the world.