I'M NOT THAT into numbers, but sometimes I do think about them. I have my favorites. Used to be zero, and I still like zero very much, because it looks like donuts, and for other reasons. But now I'm going back I think to my old old favorite number, 3. Three was my uniform number in Little League. I'd wanted to be 8, like Ray Fosse, but some bigger kid already had that number. I had to be 3. It took me all of about 5 seconds to change my tune from "8, 8, 8, oh-my-god, I've got to be 8," to "OK then, 3; 3 is me. Yeah, 3. Cool."

However old I was then, I was at the height of my philosophical resiliency. It was the age of reason. And 3 worked for me. I went on to have an illustrious Little League career – except for that thing with my cup that time.

Nowadays 3 speaks to me for different reasons. Namely for not being 1 or 2. Three opens the door to 4, brings 5 alive, and throws a line to 999,999. Three launches infinity. Three says, Fuck you, 1 and 2, with all your petty bickering. Fuck you, this and that, I'm the other thing, and I'm outta here. Three breaks away.

But I'm not into numbers.

But if I were, 99 would be another good one. Not only is it a multiple of 3, it's 33 times 3! Better yet: Barbara Feldon. She was Agent 99 on Get Smart, in case you forgot or aren't old enough to have seen it. "Oh, Max," she used to say, and I used to want to be Max, Maxwell Smart, Agent 86. For 5 seconds. Then I wanted to be 99.

Then I wasn't allowed to watch TV anymore.

Then I was riding in a car in California with Yo-Yo and Lord B.J., on our way to a recording studio in Oakland, and the big news was a brand-new Target. Or was it Kmart? No – Target, I think. In Richmond.

Or was it Albany?

Anyway, we were on 80, and we had a little time to kill, so we got off, thinking, Target (or Kmart), but then one of those beautiful things happened where instead we wound up in this crazy all-Asian-everything mall, which included a gigantic all-Asian-everything supermarket called 99. And they had a café! Called 99!

It was surreal. There's still a chance I dreamed this. But I think that we were kind of hungry and we ate dinner there. Cafeteria-style, of course. They have Hong Kong-style barbecue, dim sum, and "express combination meals."

They also have noodle soups. That's what Lord B.J. ordered: roast duck with vegetables ($4.25), and it was probably the best call. The roast duck was served on the side, and it was succulent and tasty. The broth needed work, but you can always work on broth – given soy sauce, salt, pepper, red pepper ... Hell, there's a whole grocery store right behind you. Go get some MSG.

Me and Yo-Yo went with the combination meals. Three items – that's what I got – for $4.85. You can get 2 for $4.15, or 2 barbecued things for $5.25. But why stop there? Three beckons.

The items for the express combo meals are laid out in a steam table, of course, behind the glass, and you have to point because nobody there speaks English, or vice versa. I pointed to one thing I thought I wanted and the woman just laughed.

"What?" I said, pointing again. It looked like thin strips of pork with vegetables in soy sauce, the fullest bin and therefore, I thought, fresh out of the kitchen. "This one." She shook her head no. She wouldn't give it to me. "Why?" I said.

She consulted with a younger woman working behind her, came back, and said, "Sto-mack." Still laughing.

"Stomach?" I said. It was tripe. I can't tell you how hurt and offended I was by her racist assumption that, being a whitey, I wouldn't like tripe. I fumed for about point-five seconds, which was how long it took me to remember that I don't like tripe. I hate tripe.

Laughing myself now, I gave in and pointed to the whitey delight, beef and broccoli, a couple bins over. Besides that I ordered greens, and I ordered these "pepper fish" rings that I assume were calamari, fried.

The combination meals come with rice or noodles, and a dollop of the most god-awful disgustingly gloopy soup I've ever witnessed. If you've ever dreamed of turning a bowl of hot soup upside down over your head and waiting 33 years for the first drop of it to land on your hat ...

Here is your chance.

99 Ranch Market. 3288 Pierce (near Central), Richmond. (510) 769-8899. Daily: 9 a.m.-9 p.m. (Also six other Bay Area locations.) Takeout available. No alcohol. American Express, Discover, MasterCard, Visa. Wheelchair accessible. Dan Leone (cheapeatsguy@yahoo.com) is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).

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Dan Leone is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).