Diary of a Quarantined Boy part 2, day 5

We are now in the latter half of our prison sentence so things are looking up. I started the day with more dim sum for breakfast.

Vegetable and shrimp dumplings ∙ steamed rice roll ∙ fish congee (鮮蝦菜苗餃 ∙ 蒸腸粉 ∙ 鮮魚粥) - I was surprised to see the dumplings and they were pretty tasty, with some garlic in the filling. The congee had a few decent-sized chunks of fish.

This morning's coffee was Ethiopian Guji Hambela Wate Natural from Simple Kaffa. Definitely still elegant, but with more depth and slightly stronger bitterness, and a long finish. Red berries in the nose, and the acidity came out later.

Lunch today was still the Chinese option for me:

Sautéed eggplant with salted fish ∙ steamed minced pork patty with salted egg ∙ sautéed cabbage in miso sauce ∙ steamed rice ∙ carrot and radish soup with pork and sweet corn ∙ Vita Cold Brew No Sugar Jasmine Tea Drink (魚香茄子 ∙ 鹹蛋蒸肉餅 ∙ 味增炒椰菜 ∙ 絲苗白飯 ∙ 粟米青紅蘿蔔老火湯 ∙ 維他冷泡無糖茶香片) - the cabbage was a little weird in terms of flavor, with fermented soy beans.

The steamed pork patty was very thick, and was still moist inside. Pretty decent.

Afternoon coffee was Catamona South America. This was a little heavier, slightly more bitter, a little smoke, but not much fruit nor acidity.

After tea cookie was the seaweed crispy cookie (紫菜脆曲奇) from Imperial Patisserie (皇玥). Reminds me of the Taiwanese laver cookies I love and just had a couple of days ago, but much more buttery. 

I switched back to the western option for dinner. Coincidentally, Fat Donkey is quarantining in another hotel not far away, and he's also having salmon for dinner.

Mixed green salad with balsamico ∙ pan-seared salmon filet with lemon butter sauce ∙ green asparagus ∙ mashed potato ∙ HealthWorks sugarcane, rhizoma imperatae and sea coconut drink (健康工房竹蔗茅根海底椰飲料) - the amount of asparagus and green beans I got was downright pathetic, and the mash was nothing to write home about.

The salmon, though, was still pretty moist despite being fully-cooked. The lemon butter sauce was decent, too.

The hotel dinner was not quite satisfying, so I decided to spread some of the Le Vieux Chêne duck rillettes from The Cheese House on the quinoa sourdough from MONO. So gratifying.

I also took care of the red bean sweetened soup (陳皮紅豆沙) that was part of Sankala's dinner. Still pretty good and not too sweet.

After a couple of nights with decent wines, I decided to go back and try another bottle from Weighstone. That turned out to be a big mistake.

WE by Weightstone Pét-Nat W° 2 - 64% Mehone, 29% Kyoho, 7% Black Queen. O-M-G. What have I done?! This was practically undrinkable. Fizzy as expected, but this smelled like manure. Minerally and soapy, with sweet candy notes on top of acidity. The stenth faded a little after a few minutes, but this still tasted like bubbly cough syrup. Sankala called it "cow shit-flavored soda (牛屎味汽水)". I tried to drink more of it, but chose to pour half the bottle down the drain.

Given the disaster that just happened, it was imperative that another, more reasonable bottle, be opened immediately.

2017 Jean-Grivot Vosne-Romanée - nose of leather, a little soapy, violet, fruit was very ripe and almost jammy. Still got the tannins, of course. Pretty nice.

Moral of the story? No more fucking bongwater if I wanna live. Gotta do what I can to make it through another 2 nights.