Good food and a reason to celebrate

I have to say that this week particularly has been very exhausting. I have been mega tired, even ill on Thursday when my blood sugar crashed to a low that I didn't know that existed.
However, when Friday came I was feeling considerably more perkier and energetic.
It might be the fact that you know that weekend has finally arrived again.. you can sleep in and basically do whatever you fancy for a few days before returning to work again. I just love Fridays - there is such a sense of freedom to it!

Anyway, on Friday there was something nice to look forward to (besides the weekend).
I was taking R to a Thai restaurant called Dusit to celebrate our 6 years together!
I had been recommended this place by my colleague and had had a sneaky look at the menu online just to see what they have on offer.
Dusit turned out to be absolutely wonderful.... and very noisy too. It's hardly no surprise since it was the last weekend before Christmas and loads of office xmas parties out and about.
We asked for a quieter table and luckily there was one available.
The food was delicious, well on flavour and good quality ingredients. I had Tom Kah with prawns and seafood for starter - a soup with lemongrass, lime leaves, galanga, chilli, fresh lime juice and coriander, all flavoured with coconut milk.
The soup was really good, it had all my favourite ingredients:coriander, coconut milk and lime.
There was too much of it though, and I managed to eat only half a bowl or so.
R had a similar soup but without coconut, and with wild mushrooms
It turned out to be that the starters were the best part of the meal.
For main course I opted for Gai Dusit, which is char-grilled chicken with shallots, fresh mango and coriander dressed with garlic, coriander and chilli.
Yes, chilli. That chilli turned out to be sweet chilli, which I am not a big fan of... The chicken was great though - I loved the char-grilled flavour and look of it, but I didn't like the fact that it was swimming in sweet chilli.
R went for a dish with pheasant, holy basil and aubergine (if I remember correctly)
The sauce was really nice but the pheasant had too many fatty bits on it.

All in all, Dusit is a great Thai place to go. It's very classy and bit more on the expensive scale if you think of your general Thai place, but it's well worth it. The fish selection on the menu is definitely impressive and the service is very good. I loved the dynamic atmosphere of the place.

R still continued to process this whole Thai experience.. literally.
On Saturday morning he woke up with a rash on his stomach.. We didn't know what it could be.He found the answer after doing some searching on the internet - his stomach didn't agree with the lime juice and fish sauce used in the soup that he had.. I have never seen anything like that before! We first thought it was an extreme case of someone needing a detox badly but it turned out to be something else.. I had already prepared myself mentally for all the detox teas etc. to prepare for him (nettle tea, anyone?) while R didn't seem enthusiastic about it..
By evening, the rash had gone. So no detox, just yet...

Goodbye Samuli

Yesterday was a really sad day for me.. My father rang me in the evening and told me the news. Samuli, our family's beloved dog, had to be put down... He was old, 14 and a half. This picture is the last picture I have of him, taken a few months back since my last visit back home.

Samuli had illnesses, accumulated over the years.. He was deaf and had those little bumps that older dogs generate when the age takes its toll.. A final examination at the vet yesterday also revealed that he had a large tumour in his spleen and he was probably hurting a lot.

It all happened very quickly really, though the signs were there last week. Yesterday the poor thing could not stand on his feet anymore, so my father took him to the vet.

It's a relief for Samuli to be rid of his pains now. He just has left a huge empty space in the house.. It must feel so weird for my parents, not to hear him and see him .. always rushing to the kitchen to his food bowl when we came in from a walk, always happy to see you.. always there for you.

I miss you Samuli and I hope all is well with you now, where ever you are..