ノドグロの夕食

Dining capacity restrictions meant that we couldn't dine out with the man's parents. We still see them weekly for a meal. Them being helper-less (again) meant that we would have to be a bit circumspect in what we order to be delivered to their home. It would have to be packed in a way that require minimal clean-up. For the dad's birthday, we invited them over. Cooked a simple one-dish meal of Asian egg noodles tossed with lots of vegetables, scallops and prawns, and boiled Cantonese-style soup for them. But we don't want to do this every week. Cooking for four is very tiring when we're no cooks, and catering to different tastebuds is tough.

The parents are always nice to leave to us to order dinner for everyone. Sometimes it doesn't work. Being nice doesn't make anyone happy. Although we tell them so directly, they don't seem to understand that we don't actually eat the same food or want to eat the same foods all the time. Many restaurants generally can't cater to all of us. That is not an issue unless one makes it an issue. And my solution, is for us to each order what we want to eat from different restaurants instead of ordering from one to cater for all. The pandemic has made this so much easier. Getting takeout or delivery fixes this pronto.

While the point of having family dinners (extended or otherwise) might not be about the food, it would be made more pleasant if the food is palatable too. I rarely look forward to these dinners because I abhor the social interaction that comes with it. For an introvert, it's exhausting and it's bloody annoying. So at least, I could hope that the food is something I could eat. I need a distraction so that I could hold my tongue when opinions and viewpoints differ from mine and lean towards elitism and narrow-minded point of views. At the end of the day, I'm not a team player. I never have been and I don't want to be, so don't make me. I prefer to be known as ‘not nice’. The pandemic doesn't change this. In fact, it aided me in calling out the hypocrisy. 

That night, we decided to each order our own dinners. The man had a craving- just nice. So we ordered from Man Man Unagi — hitsumabushi of unagi for the man, and a grilled fillet of nodoguro (ノドグロ) for me. There is nothing in Man Man's menu for the in-laws. Yup. NOTHING. The in-laws chose to order in from Blue Ginger. Perfect, because there's nothing we want from Blue Ginger's menu. I don't eat unagi. But Man Man always offers an option of a fish. Tonight's nodoguro hit a spot. I enjoyed it so much that I barely reacted to anything that was said. Hurhurhur. The conversation topics aren't any of my business anyway — why bother commenting or offering a viewpoint. That's not my place to do so.