After the last song at a party, says Hsu, she merely needs to ask someone, "Kong?"

Or before the last song, if the party sucks," Scocca adds.

Jordan S. Ellenberg '93 appreciates the comfort of the Kong after a long, hard night of socializing. "If something traumatic happens to you at a party," he says, "you just bite into a platter of Peking ravs. There can't be more than that, can there? Other food doesn't do that. Even if you're sober, it still works."

"The food just intersects so well with what you want when you're drunk. It's greasy, it's salty, it's hot," Scocca agrees.

After an evening at a Weld Hall party and the Crimson Grille, Vietzen and his friends Walter E. B. Sipp '95 and Cristian S. Torres '95 arrived at the Kong around 1:30 a.m. yesterday. Torres, after a quick glance at his Zodiac placemat, introduces himself as "Cris Torres, Year of the Buffalo," and explains that he and his friends are there to satisfy some "alcohol-induced munchies."

"I gotta get rid of these hiccups," says Sipp.

And Torres advises him, "Twentyfive swallows of water without taking a breath. That's what my second grade teacher told me."

The food arrives. Sipp exclaims, "Oh yeah, here we go! look at the food, baby." All conversation ceases as they dig into plates of noodles, sweet and sour pork, and Peking ravs. John Lennon's "Imagine" comes over the stereo system, and Sipp, Torres and Vietzen begin to sing along softly.

Jong H. Lee '93 says he ordinarily tries to avoid restaurants in pink buildings. But Thursday night he couldn't follow his own advice.

Lee says he and a friend originally intended to get ice-cream, but somehow ended up at the Kong. "We never plan to go here, is the thing. We just kind of end up here, and we don't know why," Lee explains. "Kind of an inevitable force," his friend Jason S. Horowitz '93 adds.

Although other students say they enter this building on the "spur of the moment," not everyone "ends up" here. Many students make sure that their evening plans include a visit to the Hong Kong.

And for the serious Kong goer, a visit is made almost every night. Some go so far as to say it is an obsession.

"It's like a state, a state of Kong," Ellenberg explains.

The "groupies" have many words to describe their favorite nighttime eatery: "Community," "An institution," "Culture" and "Sub-culture."

Hsu equate the Kong with the famed TV hangout "Cheers."