Day 53 - 55 Indulgence #2: It was good.

So after having a couple near melt downs last week diet wise, I was more than ready for Indulgence #2 and some form of life involving an evening meal and one outside the home at that.  My wife and I chose to cash in the indulgence ticket at Kissako, a little french/japanese bistro close to the gratto.  The place has a nice wine list and an interesting menu - most of which is in Japanese, so it is an adventure, but a nice one.  Started off with a glass of the house white - actually, they had several, but I went with the 2006 Nicholas Joly Savennieres, which was good but not quite as good as the 2005 vintage we had previously tried.  

We ordered one set between the two of us and shared most of it, so I am not sure where it clocked in calorie wise, but I more than made up in the calorie department with wonderful, god given libations.  The first course of the evening was a paprika les amuse which was heavenly - I think I could have eaten an entire tub of it, but half of this portion was great start, especially since it followed up with french rolls and pate of an unknown meat.

This was followed by some squid, duck breast and chesnut foie gras on what tasted like ginger bread.  I suck at descriptions of flavors and will therefore save myself the trouble.  All three were excellent. 

and then,  some assorted French mushrooms and a creamy artichoke soup.

My wife separately ordered some marinated squid and peppers, which was good - the picture doesn't do it much justice, but it was nice.

For the main, we went with grilled venison fillets.  Although, I love to hunt, I have never really taken a liking to venison as it usually just too tough and gamey.  However, this was money (probably because they failed to cook it).  I had to swap up the vino to a house red Bordeaux, which I fail to remember though it wasn't anything too fancy - yes I tasted all of these first, but tasting doesn't really count as consuming, does it?

We passed on dessert, and instead went for a nice grappa digestif - the Elisi.  Very nice grappa, and one I would highly recommend if there are any other grappa lovers among us.

The dinner alone would have been a very sensible and responsible use of the indulgence, but I am neither and decided to keep it going and meet up with Blo and crew out on his indulgence for a nightcap(s) at the taproom in harajuku, where I consumed three glorious pints of Baird's seasonal beers - taste so good on the llips!.

I guess I don't quite remember much after that but did feel good yesterday. 


On another, more general note.  I am still struggling with energy levels.  I seem to have none of it late in the days for almost 2 weeks now.  I haven't been sleeping great, but am getting a requisite 7-9 hours a night.  Still, by 5pm everyday, my energy level is sapped and it is a struggle to get through my home routine of feeding and bathing the boy.  My wife is beginning to get a little concerned, as well as annoyed at my increased levels of grumpiness.  Odd urges have also come up from time to time, as I utterly caught myself scraping my wife's discarded Ritter chocolate wrapper for any remaining flecks of chocolate.  I chalk it up to wanting some variety in evening flavors as the apple, egg combo has run its course.  Like so many others here, I need some real food.

Still getting through the workouts with some challenges, but no real complaints.  I seem to have stabilized weight wise at 81-82 kg as that is where I have been now for a week.  Checked my body fat the other day and it still says I am at 19% - I feel like it is much better than that, but I probably made a mistake the first time when it said I was at 18.9% back in  week 2.