Paper Lantern, by Stuart Dybek

It’s a restaurant that used to be a Chinese laundry. When customers would come for their freshly laundered bundles, the cooking –wafting from the owner’s back kitchen through the warm haze of laundry steam- smelled so good that the customers began asking if they could buy something to eat as well. And so the restaurant was born. It was a carryout place at first, but they’ve since wedged in a few tables. None of us can read Chinese, so we can’t be sure, but since the proprietors never bothered to change the sign, presumably the Chinese characters still say it’s a Chinese laundry.