Three Weeks of Food — With Scores, and the Sushi That Took Me Out

Hi everyone!

This is the first time I'm doing what I promised in earlier posts: writing the food part and my own thoughts separately, because lately the two had blended together far too much. So this post will be exclusively about what I've eaten over the past weeks. It covers several weeks, since I sadly couldn't write the post during that time. As a new addition, I'm going to try scoring the dishes — we'll see how well that works. Let's get started!

Asian food

These dishes haven't really agreed with me lately, and as you can see, I've eaten very few of them over the past weeks — unfortunately not by accident. I'll go into more detail in the thoughts post. In short: my body can't handle sushi, and that's putting it mildly.

Sushi

Yes, my body can't handle it. I'm not happy about this, since I quite liked this kind of food before the surgery. I didn't eat much of it, but I really liked the flavors — especially since I think it's incredibly healthy and tasty too. But my body clearly disagreed, and sent me on a nearly week-and-a-half break. For the record, I had six pieces wrapped in seaweed, with rice and chicken — I sadly don't know their exact names. No raw fish at all. Plus a noodle mix on the side with chicken, soy sauce, and lots and lots of vegetables. 1/10

Sweet and sour chicken with rice

This one is an old favorite, I ate a lot of it back in childhood too. Nothing special really: boiled rice, fried chicken, poured over with store-bought sauce, done. A very quick, simple, get-away-with-it kind of meal. 7/10

Hungarian food

I don't really cook Hungarian dishes myself, so when I eat one, it's usually made for me or bought somewhere. That was the case this time too.

Egg soup

I love it. Honestly, I didn't make it — my wife's grandmother did — but it was really good. There were whole eggs in it too. Is there anyone who doesn't like eggs? There must be, but they don't know what they're missing. 8/10

Potato pasta

Also made by my wife's grandmother. This one is another childhood favorite. There's nothing complex about the flavor, nothing special, and yet it's just good. I wouldn't say I'd die for it, but I'm happy to eat it when I get it. It's potato, pasta, and a stew base — that's the whole thing. 7/10

Chicken paprikash

Again, not my cooking. A typical Hungarian dish. They say there are as many versions of it as there are households. Naturally my mother's version is the one closest to my heart, but this was very good too. You can never get tired of it — though I don't think it's especially healthy. 9/10

Breaded chicken cutlets

The last dish I didn't cook myself — but I don't mind, because I like it when someone cooks for me too. It's the same feeling as when we have to go somewhere and I'm always the one driving, but if once every ten years someone drives me, I'm really happy :D Back to the food: it's not a typical Hungarian dish, but I'd call it a staple, globally I think. Never gets old. 9/10

Chicken strips, KFC-style, with sweet potato

I made this because it had been showing up in front of me for days, even weeks, and I figured I'd surprise myself and my wife. I wasn't necessarily trying to copy KFC, it just resembles it most — not in taste at all, but completely in appearance. I simply cut the chicken into strips, then mixed it in a bowl with flour, salt, pepper, paprika, herbs, olive oil, and eggs. I put that in the fridge to set. After taking it out, I coated the pieces one by one in flour, then egg, then flour again, and finally fried them in hot olive oil. It was divine. I also fried up some sweet potato strips on the side. Loved it! 9/10

Italian food

This is a very recurring type for me, roughly the "I'll never get tired of it" category. Deep down I think I'm Italian, because I identify so strongly with these flavors.

Chicken and tuna in a sour cream mustard sauce with spaghetti

This came about completely at random. I think I saw it in an Instagram reel, and it totally works. Sometimes these pasta-sauce-chicken things really hit the spot. They're very filling, I love the flavors, and they're not complicated to put together. I fried the chicken and tuna on onions, then added the seasonings (salt, pepper, herbs, paprika, garlic powder), sour cream, mustard — mix, simmer, and that's literally it. Nothing fancy. At the end I mix it with the pasta and that's that. 9/10

Recovery food

Unfortunately the sushi — or at least that's my suspicion — messed something up inside me and put me out of action for a week, so I had to live on a very gentle diet. When my gut isn't well, these foods automatically come out, whether I want them to or not. There's no choice, sadly.

Almost nothing (ham, toast)

This is what it was for a few days. Ham can lift it a bit. It's strange, but when you eat only such simple food, you start to appreciate how good ham is on its own. Normally it gets lost among all the other ingredients. Odd. 1/10

Gradually (egg, cheese)

A few days later we raised the stakes: scrambled eggs with a bit of cheese. Needless to say, it felt roughly like eating steak with cheddar-loaded potato and all kinds of good things. 2/10

Finally, sports drink and cheese scones

In the end — as strange as it sounds — what got me better in the last few days was drinking an isotonic sports drink and eating cheese scones with it. It sounds silly at first, but the drink contains a lot of electrolytes that are genuinely useful for the body. This is literally what saved me from a week of suffering. Thanks to it, sincerely. 3/10

Trash food

This category will always be an interesting one for me, because I often don't consider things trash that communities label as such. You can eat these better — for example if you make them yourself at home instead of ordering from every random place.

Hot dog (homemade and ordered)

Right at the start I'm contradicting myself here, because now I have to defend ordering: this is a very particular place in Budapest that sells hot dogs made from artisanal, quality ingredients, and they're brutally good. I had a Greek tzatziki version and a cheddar cheese one. Simply divine. 10/10

The homemade version I made at my parents' place on the grill plate. Simple in its own way, yet divine. 9/10

Smashburger (homemade)

Also a grill-plate homemade version. I perfected this over the years, well before the smashburger craze even hit. Double meat, double cheddar slice, lots of fried onion, BBQ sauce, done. 10/10

Pulled pork in pita (homemade)

My dad made this on the grill plate and it's also perfect. Put in pita with vegetables, onion, and BBQ sauce, it's impossible to ruin. The only reason I'm not giving it 10/10 is that pork isn't my favorite meat to begin with. Other than that, 9/10.

Summary

The scoring doesn't rate the dish type itself but the specific instance — not the general reputation of the flavor, but the thing I actually tasted at that moment, and how much I enjoyed it. As you may have noticed, I only gave 10/10 in one or two places, and that's deliberate: I reserve a ten for something that genuinely gives me a wow feeling.

This food section may have run a bit long, but this time I wasn't describing one week, but roughly three. In the end, though, separating thoughts from food was a good idea — everything has its proper place now. Unfortunately this post was delayed by the 1-1.5 weeks of illness, but at least the material piled up and there was plenty to write about. I'll be back sooner next time.

Eat well, and pay attention to what you can eat if you've been or are in a similar situation with surgery or bowel disease. Sadly it's not a game. A few meals simply aren't worth suffering for weeks over. This was a lesson, and the conclusion is that you really do have to be careful with the Asian line — with sense, but it's doable.

See you!