Doson is a small Vietnamese restaurant whose existance I had not noticed before this project. (Granted, even though I live in the area, I had not noticed most of the restaurants or shops here.) One evening in February, my older sister Natalie, her three-year-old daughter Rita, and I decide to try it out.

The exterior is fairly plain, but the interior is decorated in an Asian theme with accents such as a fat Buddha and Asian writing on the windows and menues.

When we enter, there is one group of 3 UNO students whom I recognize but do not know personally at a table near the door, one middle-aged couple against the right wall, and one young Asian girl doing homework at the table nearest the kitchen. She looks bored.

Our waiter is an Asian man in his late teens/early twenties. He is extremely friendly and attentive to everyone in the restaraunt and speaks English with no accent. The only other employee that we see is another waitress. We do not hear her speak much, but she does not appear to have an accent, either.

The waiter sees that I am carrying a child and starts to ask if we need a seat for her, then notices that she is sleeping. We tell him that she will not need a seat. He directs us to a four-person table against the left wall.

The waiter brings us water and takes our drink orders. (We try to wake Rita. She is shy of the waiter, who tried to talk to her, nods to indicate that she is, in fact, hungry, and immdiately falls back asleep.) Once we order, our rolls are brought out fairly quickly, but the noodles take more time. When the waiter brings us the rolls, he smiles, gives a friendly comment, and leaves. The waitress happens to pass just then and sees that we do not have chopsticks and offers us some.

The noodles are served in very generous proportions. As a broke college kid, I am excited that I will have leftovers, though I begin to regret eating almost an entire tray of brownies that afternoon. We try once more to wake Rita enough to eat something, but she remains slumped in my lap and mostly unresponsive.

The middle-aged couple left before we had even ordered. The college kids left in the time between recieving our rolls and our noodles. While we were eating our noodles, another group of two, who I did not get a good look at, was seated at their table. They were served water, but slipped out before ordering in a moment when the water and waitress were in the back. The waiter jokingly pouted at having been abandoned.

We eat as much of the noodles as we can, but there is still a bounteous amount on our plates. We ask for the check and go-boxes. The check comes with fortune cookies. My sister pays and we leave. The waiter bids us a friendly farewell. Rita doesn’t wake up until we put her in the car.

Overall, the restaurant had a quiet but friendly atmosphere. I can’t attest to its busier hours, but it was a very pleasant place to have a quiet meal with family.