Auntie Mei had run her noodle stall at the end of the night market, under a string of red lanterns, for thirty years, and in all that time she had not changed a single thing about it. Every customer got exactly the same bowl of noodles and exactly the same joke: "Careful, the noodles are hot, but my jokes are cold!" People groaned, and people came back every week, which she took as proof that the system worked.
One evening a man in an expensive coat ordered the cheapest noodles on the menu and began to write in a tiny notebook. Auntie Mei noticed the notebook, and she noticed his shiny shoes, which had clearly never met a puddle, but she gave him the same bowl and the same joke as everybody else. He ate slowly, with the concentration of a man defusing a bomb. When he had finished the last drop of broth, he put down his chopsticks and said, "I am a famous food critic. What is your secret?" Auntie Mei shrugged and wiped the counter. "Hot broth, hungry people, and I don't change for anybody," she said.
He gave her five stars. She never read the review; her regular customers told her about it, twice, with a pride that embarrassed her. The next week the line was twice as long, and Auntie Mei, who had always believed that a joke is only as good as its consistency, told the same joke.