I'M EATING A bowl of leftover homemade barbecued chicken soup. But when I eat it, I'm still Mr. Rogers.

I warmed up the soup in my popcorn kettle, which I hadn't washed out after having popcorn for breakfast. So the soup tastes a little popcorny. In addition to smoky, of course. But when it tastes like that, I'm still Mr. Rogers. –For dinner: eggs. With either potatoes and biscuits, or hard-boiled and cut up into a big green salad, with biscuits. Either way when I'm having dinner, I predict, I will still be Mr. Rogers.

First I thought it would only work with egg rolls, because that's what Mr. Rogers was eating when he said, famously (didn't you read last week's Cheap Eats?) ... "I'm eating a Chinese egg roll. But when I eat it, I'm still Mr. Rogers."

And I said, famously, when I felt the full reverberation of this philosophical Fred Rogers moment (as recounted to me by Earl Butter), "This changes everything." And I meant it.

And it has.

As you may know, I have a habit of getting carried away. I'm one of those fools who actually believes that if he persists in his folly, he shall become wise. Give you an example: right now I am writing this restaurant review. But when I write it, I'm still Mr. Rogers. Just like when I was eating that soup a little bit ago. Remember? That tasted like it tasted?

In short, I have become, through patient persistence, if not wise, then at least Mr. Rogers. At first, for a couple of days, I thought that I could only sustain this existentialist flea-flicker foolishness by eating egg rolls. So I was spending a lot of time in Chinese restaurants.

And that's how I found Red Jade. Not that it's trying to hide or anything. It's right there at Church and Market, next to my still favorite sushi place, Miyabi. Me and my old pal Gator Gator were on our merry way from make-up school back to the Mission, with only so much time to spare because a 6:00 sound check in the Richmond loomed in my future.

We didn't know what or where we wanted to eat anyway, so we did one of those deals where you beeline from point A through Japantown, Western Addition, the Haight, the Castro, and the Mission to point B, looking for one thing: a parking space, any parking space. And then the closest feed store to that, which all added up to Red Jade.

Mandarin-style Chinese. Nice, nice place, with a cute little orange tree, tangerine tree, mandarin tree (you gotta figure) in the entranceway. Just loaded with fruit. I wanted to pick one so bad, but this was before the revelation. (That, in picking the forbidden fruit, as in eating an egg roll, I would be able to maintain my Mr. Rogershood.)

Well, sir, having just been to make-up school, like I said, I was looking about as pretty as I've ever looked, probably. Certainly as pretty as Mr. Rogers ever looked. Probably. Except we forgot to order the egg rolls. I panicked and said celery salad instead. Gator Gator said General Tso's chicken. I said asparagus salmon with black bean sauce.

The waitressperson said, "Thank you" and left us there, and I was not Mr. Rogers.

I want to say, though, in defense of Red Jade's greatness, that it was 4:30 on a Sunday, and they let us order from the lunch specials menu. Which has 33 items, all served with a pretty big bowl of soup and a pretty big heap of rice, for $4.50 to $5.95.

The asparagus salmon with black bean sauce ($5.25) was delicious, and the General Tso's chicken ($4.50) was delicious. Even the celery salad ($4.25), which wasn't egg rolls so much as shredded celery and carrots with big fat bright pinkish orange tongues of pickled ginger ... delicious.

But the best part was finding out, to my unending amazement and delight, that when I eat any one of these things, or anything else (mango ostrich, $9.95 ... hometown chicken, $9.95 ...), or, hell, even when I'm eating nothing at all, I am still Mr. Rogers. All it takes is saying so. Try it at home. It's great fun, and not at all dangerous.

I am reading Cheap Eats in the Bay Guardian. (Say it.) But when I read it, I am still Mr. Rogers.

Pretty cool, huh?

Red Jade. 245 Church (at Market), S.F. (415) 621-3020. Sun.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Takeout available. Beer and wine. 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).