Thai Villa

J and I like Thai food. Or rather J likes Thai food, I dream about it on a near daily basis and love it beyond all reason. One particular lemon fish that I ate as a 13 year old in Banglampoo before the mall burnt down and had to be rebuilt will forever be my most perfect fish.

I am in the process of moving to North Carolina and we have not discovered our go-to Thai restaurant yet. We have this kind of pan-Asian fusion restaurant around the corner, Tasu, and the food is a lot better than that shady description makes it sound. It is not identifiably Chinese, or Thai or Vietnamese, but their wonton soup is a thing of wonder, and everything they send out is delicious. I love it, but it is not where I would go if I wanted Thai food.

So we decided to try something new, and ventured into Thai Villa, in Cary. Only 3 tables were occupied, which is not the best sign, but it's kind of hidden away in one corner of a strip mall, so we shrugged that off. Big mistake. On entry the place looked promising. There wasn't a single tv, which has been my major grouse about most American restaurants- why must people always be watching sports? Even when out to dinner? And why do you need a 5 screens per room to watch them on? Anyhow. The lack of screens and the friendly service were a good start. But it was all boiled socks from there.

J ordered the Chicken Tom Yum Soup and Rainforest Curry with chicken. I ordered Glass Noodle Vegetable Rolls and Kapow Chicken (chicken with basil, red chilli paste and green peppers). The soup looked and tasted as if it came from a Knorr soup cube that hadn't even been brought to the boil. The chicken smelt bad. I would find that all the chicken they served that evening was really really smelly. The vegetable roll was a small limp thing with little to recommend it. Both the chicken main courses had the flavour of nothing so much as the boiled socks of a teenage boy.

The chicken was rank, but even worse was the criminal way in which they dealt with the curries. We decided not to stay, and that's never happened before. Neither of us has left a table at a restaurant after just a few bites convinced that the meal is beyond saving.

I've been to Thailand several times, and I don't expect the food to taste like on the streets of Bangkok. It is really painful though to encounter something so rank that calling it Thai would be insulting to the cuisine, and calling it food would be an unfortunate mistake.

I keep falling asleep in different parts of the house over this horrible document that needs editing. The dog is tired of being startled awake whenever J comes upon us. J is tired of having to wake me up so that I can get this done and we can have our life of leisure and poverty back. I am tired of falling asleep in the cold and waking up covered in dog hair while being told off by an irate American.

New Year Resolutions

I am new and proud owner of a Fitbit. A little pedometer thing which counts my steps and has a flower that grows as I get closer to 10,000 each day. This means that I might occasionally be found running up and down the stairs shortly before midnight, when the clever thing resets itself to count again from 0, to try and make up the numbers for the day.

The other day I was walking Higgs; I saw him scampering about the place, running and up and down busily smelling things, going about his doggy detective work, when I thought- Higgs must do 10,000 steps a day. He runs a lot. And he has four legs. If I had four legs I would do 10,000 steps in no time at all.

This entire post is just an excuse to put up a picture of this face. 

Things I read in May and June

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell- Susanna Clarke
I felt distinctly underwhelmed. Though it was nice to go to Venice.

The Summer without Men- Siri Hustvedt
Wasn't really a summer without men, as one might have guessed.

Americanah- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I loved Half of a Yellow Sun. I am not sure this was as good, though it was nice to go to America with the author, and to look at what returning from foreign might feel like.

The Thing Around Your Neck
Yes. Much better. Short stories are wonderful. Some of these were wonderful.

It Felt Like a Kiss- Sarra Manning
I like Sarra Manning, but as I write this in December I can no longer recall what the book was about. And I am not inclined to check. She does always manage to squeeze the tear out though, much like Marian Keyes, and I would recommend this to anyone sitting in bed with the sniffles and wanting a cuddle. 

Is Everyone Hanging out without Me?- Mindy Kaling
I adore Mindy Kaling. I don't know about this thing where people in their thirties suddenly start writing memoirs, but I would happily listen to Mindy talk about her life, which she does in this set of essays, most amusingly.

The remaining four Bernie Gunther novels- Phillip Kerr
These were not as much fun as the first three, but I like things set in Berlin. I like them so much that I will even read the later books in series that started out being set in Berlin.

Things I have read in the last few months

What I Loved- Siri Hustvedt- 2003
I loved this. I shall be looking for more of her books.

The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage and My Family- Dan Savage- 2005
This was what I read in the month before I got married myself. It sat in the bathroom where all three of us in the apartment read it simultaneously, with three bookmarks marking our different spots in it.

Battle for Bittora- Anuja Chauhan- 2010
I like Anuja Chauhan. I think she's very funny.

Bride Flight- Marieke Van Der Pol- 2011
I read this while on a plane. It seemed like good theme reading. It wasn't very good, and was about some terrible relationships. So in the 1950's at some point a plane full of young brides for immigrants in New Zealand took part in an air race that KLM went on to win. That part of the story is based in fact. Hopefully the tangled and painful lives of three of the girls on board are mostly fiction. I did not have a lot of patience for this book. But I was stuck on a transatlantic flight with not much else to do.

Blood of Tyrants- Naomi Novik-2013
If it has dragons I will read it. There was a long break between the last book in the Temeraire series that I read, and this one, so I had forgotten a lot of the detail. Much like one of the principal characters in the book.

The Berlin Noir Trilogy- Philip Kerr- 1993
I read these over less than a week and enjoyed them thoroughly. In general I wish there had been a bit less anal rape, over all three books. It would also have been nice if some of the women survived. They are not as ghastly as this short review makes them seen. There are four other Bernie Gunther books and I will be starting the next one this evening as soon as I can put it on my Kindle.

Oh yes. I caved and bought a Kindle. It is lovely, light, and has turned up the dial on how much I read and when.

Domesticity

This morning while being chivvied for not getting ready fast enough I was told that I was slower than two sloths losing their cherries. 

Meanwhile here is a picture of a very sleepy dog. He's not climbing over. He just likes to sleep like that. 

This is my study break

Because Robyn is awesome, and makes life worth living.