Wasted stomach

My father, who suffers from high cholesterol, is not one to "waste" his stomach. While he realizes that he shouldn't over-indulge, he often does, much to my dismay. It is of very little comfort to me when he turns down sub-standard ice cream (i.e. in his mind, anything that is NOT Haagen Daaz) saying that he won't waste his stomach eating things he doesn't truly enjoy....like the vast pats of butter on his breakfast rolls.

As a family, we use the term wasting stomach ("sai tou" for those of you in the know) a lot for eating things that we didn't really enjoy and actually regret as it wasn't worth the calories and effort of eating it.

Last night was a case in point. A friend and I arranged to eat dinner at Thai Basil, a particular favorite of mine, especially for the desserts. A few hours before, the friend said she had a particular craving for string beans and asked if I minded going to Sichuan Garden (right next door) instead. I agreed with the caveat that dessert was going to be at Thai Basil.

We ate:

- Green beans with spicy minced stuff (pork, maybe?)
- 1 bowl of Tan Tan noodles
- Beef in pungent sauce (I was attracted by the name and the 2 chillis next to it)
- 2 bowls of steamed rice

The green beans looked wilted and stringy and just awful, like the remnants of someone else's dish. The beef was swimming in oil with chili and smelled nice but tasted of over tenderized, flavorless beef pieces. The tan tan noodles were acceptable and rice, unless you're utterly incompetent, you can't screw up too badly.

Bad meal, good company.

Unexpectedly bad as it was supposedly a nice restaurant and not cheap to boot. Too full and disgusted to have dessert, we contented ourselves with a walk around GREAT, the supermarket in Seibu and bought junk. Talk about a wasted stomach!

Luckily for me, I went home and found my lovely father had made my favorite, chicken in rice wine, a popular Hakka dish and one of his best dishes....unfortunately the wine was not the brand he usually uses but a piece or two of the chicken was enough to satiate me after such a disappointing meal.