Kym's

Posted on 2008/05/04 19:24:46 (May 2008).

[Monday 28th April]
I left work "early" today (just after 5) so I could pop along to the hospital for a consultation about my hernia. The consultant looked over the results of the scan, got me to cough a few times, prodded by stomach a bit, and then we sat down for a chat. Like the chap who had done the scan, and my GP before that, he thought there probably was a small hernia there, but didn't think it was at all serious for the time being. He actually said my recent discomfort could be down to some kind of muscle strain instead (so the hernia may have been like that for some time, unnoticed), and his advice was to just wait and see - basically to give it a few weeks and see if it got any worse. In the meantime I should just carry on with life as normal.

So I guess that was good in a way, although I was left a little bit confused. On the one hand I'd been told it wouldn't get better by itself, whilst on the other hand I'd been told to just ignore it for the time being... but obviously he was the expert and I certainly wasn't desperate to have an operation ASAP if his advice was to the contrary.

There was some indecision over dinner this evening. When I was growing up, to make life easier Mum would often assign particular meals to days of the week, and so if we had Chinese food it always tended to be on a Monday. Presumably because of this, still to this day I often find myself fancying Chinese food on a Monday.

We both felt too lazy to cook so we did the usual perusal of the myriad of takeaway menus that get shoved through our letter box (competition locally is fierce, it seems), but nothing really grabbed me. So instead I decided we ought to eat out, and try out one of the Chinese restaurants we'd spotted near where we live.

There are two of these next door to each other (in an area where there are no other Chinese restaurants for miles around - go figure). The first didn't have a particularly inspiring menu, but the second - Kym's - had, to my surprise, a really extensive and interesting vegetarian section on the menu. I'm not sure why I'd never noticed that before.

So we hurried in and enjoyed a really interesting and varied vegetarian feast, mostly of "mock meats" of which I am actually quite fond. This commenced with mock vegetarian duck pancakes, and then we followed with a mock beef sizzling platter, some mock battered prawns with sweet and sour sauce, and a tofu and vegetable in black bean sauce noodle dish. All very good indeed, and accompanied with a warm bottle Shaoshing (good god there seems to be no wikipedia page for that!) - that Chinese rice wine that tastes a bit like Marmite.

I was very impressed, and it certainly cheered up an otherwise rather dreary Monday.

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