>>6165224They are indeed, Agent. They are indeed. You see. . .
Ahem.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, two noodle chains, united in acrimony, united in little sticky broth packages that never open right, each golden, glorious, resplendent, each tasteless, boring, trite.
Look, agents, since B-Rothskies is... temporarily closed... I've been exploring alternatives. And these two? They're fascinating. You've got NDLE - that's N-D-L-E, but everyone calls it 'Noodle' - all chrome and neon and 'customer experience optimization.' Their thing is they somehow always know what you want before you do. I walked in last week feeling like spicy seafood, hadn't told anyone, and there it was, already being prepared.
Then there's Nodularity. Looks like your grandmother's noodle shop had a baby with a quantum computer. But like, you know, sleek "look at the pictures" kinda baby vibes. They've got these ancient ordering machines that should've died decades ago, but they're still running. The owner swears the recipes are 'digitally inherited.' Whatever that means. But I've got to admit, they make these flavor combinations that shouldn't work but absolutely do. I'm having some right now, but I don't think I could tell you what Blackeer Bean Wok Fried Mild Anxiety Attack Side Of Fried Shrimp is.
Actually funny sidenote unrelated to anything we're doing. Both places have been requesting increasingly odd ingredients from their suppliers. Like, deep-sea fungi and herbs that only grow in abandoned subway tunnels or choice bits of the Brazil Climate Zone. And their customers? I've noticed them all humming the same tune. Different tune at each place, but everyone in sync. So obviously I figure, alright, advanced viral memetic marketing, no news there, at least it's not burger or burritos this time, but as it actually turns out it's just because both places give you 18.43% off your order if you hum their fairly rapidly evolving marketing jingles. Sure, sure, alright, but if you hum the NDLE notes in the Nodularity shops, your order comes out in a little blended vial 'To Go'. Which is pretty passive aggressive for a noodle shop. So I did a little peeking, just, a, uhm, a routine security scan! And both places somehow knew. The next day, NDLE served me nothing but plain broth, and Nodularity kept playing early 2070s boy band music whenever I walked past. But I still have the receipts I have for 'black bean boyband broth'. It's an NFT (noodle fungible token)
. . . So I've been ordering there like every day for the past week. You never quite know what you get, it's great, and the social feeds for both franchise are hammering, metrics all over the place, it's a whole *thing*. They sell t-shirts, Agent! They have these adorable little serving-bots!
Whoever's running these pop-up bars have a viral hit on their hands.
