Weekend = Five birthday parties, Angry Birds 2 Movie, Lamb Burger in downtown – finally!, a good book – collection of Japanese short stories, a binging spree of Sacred Games, a stellar Burmese meal in San Jose, some odd minimalist home cooked meals, a bit of shopping, a bit of cleaning, a kitchen floor in jeopardy, two house plants from Terrain, and stuffing stuffed toys for charity, a career chat with an ex colleague. I had loads of fun, and now I am truly exhausted. Tomorrow is Monday! Cheers to that.

We are replacing the wood in our kitchen area with tile. The project finally kicked off on Thursday last week, after a year of deliberation. Very unlike most of my projects. What was expected to be a 3 day project will stretch to 7 days. I mean, how have I not learnt this lesson in dealing with contractors. Now if this was any other part of the house, I’d care less. But my kitchen is my sanctuary. And to not have my kitchen to myself on the weekends is a pretty big deal. The only saving grace was that we had 5 birthday parties to attend this weekend so we were hardly home. We did not attend all five. We punted on two.

After hyperventilating about losing access to my kitchen, I turned on my minimalist mode. And made some pretty innovative dishes – One pot vegetable curry rice. Don’t even bother with the recipe. Think of a mix of cabbage, broccoli, rice, chana dal, and tomato/ginger/garlic/onion curry. Tara and Agam loved it. I did not even bother to taste it. But they said it was nice. This morning we made an interesting breakfast – rice with soft boiled egg, avocado, pickled ginger, furikake, sesame oil, sesame seeds, and spicy mayo. Now that was quite tasty. For dinner tonight I grilled some salmon with peach, heirloom tomato and mozarella cheese salad with balsamic vinaigrette. You get the point. Melange of flavors with the goal of emptying the fridge.

We’ve also been eating out in between. So on Saturday morning we went to Nijiya Market and ate curry udon and curry rice with tonkatsu. But the mega deal was Kyusu! A small and unassuming Burmese place in West San Jose. This place was amazing! We were driving towards Los Gatos to take a walk at the Vasona Lake, and it was getting a little late, so we decided to change course and find a quick dinner option close to where we were. I yelped a few options and found Kyusu. They had waitlist on Yelp, and I signed up.

We enjoyed the tea leaf salad, Burmese rice noodles (with chilli on the side), and goat stew with parota. Everything was finger licking delicious. Agam and I were so delighted with the goat stew. One of its kind. We paired the spices with some Japanese Plum wine. I am so happy to have found this place. It is a bit far for us. But totally worth the drive.

After dinner we walked outside and found a Korean BBQ place that was packed with a long line of customers waiting for their turn. And we also saw Zeni, the Ethiopian place I have been wanting to visit ever since I moved to the Bay area. Three amazing restaurants in one strip mall. This is what’s awesome about Bay area!

Anyways, the kitchen shall be returned to me on Wednesday. Until then our minimalist menus will continue 🙂

It’s going to be an interesting week on multiple fronts. Some times all you can do is focus on the next task ahead of you. And not think of the next hour, or the next day. I am going to be doing just that this week. It is a challenge. But a good one.