Monday, December 21, 2009

Bad Chinese Food...


For the most part, most foods haven't really bothered me too much during the pregnancy. I can handle the smell of most food, the thought of most food, and even the site of most food. I haven't had any of those experiences where I see a food commercial and immediately make a bee-line to the bathroom...except when it comes to Chinese Food. On a few rare occasions, Jason has brought home Panda Express and the smell of the food sends me into a gagging convulsion (Jason's favorite part of all of this!). Some nights Jason will call me on his way home and ask if I want him to bring me home some Panda...the thought just makes my stomach flip (Even now, as I type this- I can smell it and my gag reflexes are in full effect).
For the most part, I've been able to avoid having to be really close to any Chinese food, and I've definitely been able to avoid having any of my own...until today.
For a couple of weeks now, my team has been dying to take me to this one Chinese restaurant in China Town...I keep saying that Chinese food doesn't sound good, or that they can just go without me- but they wouldn't give up. Finally I came up with a response that they seemed to buy; I told them that "Chinese food is Dinner Food, not Lunch food." Apparently wtih an Ashleigh-Answer like that, they figured they had no room to persuade me. But today, they were relentless- they all were craving food from this restaurant, and one of the guys even offered to pay for my meal if I agreed to go. My stomach was feeling pretty strong, so I gave in. Bad idea. BAD idea.
We arrive in Chinatown and as soon as we get out of the car, my tummy is doing flips. I can smell things that my pregnant nose is NOT liking. We make it to the restaurant and the guys just start ordering their usual items (They order family-style so we can all share the food). They order Hot/Sour Soup (*gag), Slipper Shrimp (*gag by the name alone), Steamed Rice (Phew), Lemon Chicken (*gag). I think my face must have been green the entire time we were in there. The Hot & Sour soup came first- and this was not good. Those of you who know me well know that under normal circumstances I have an issue with soup so being that this soup looked as though it was just a mixture of every dead or leftover thing they'd found in the kitchen did not help. I made the mistake of asking the guys what was IN the soup, and they pretty much confirmed that it was all of the scraps from the kitchen. Yum. Brian suggested that rather than eat the items in the soup, I just concentrate on the broth- that actually helped, if it hadn't been so dang spicy...and hot for that matter. Luckily, the rice came next and I grabbed a LARGE helping of that and dove right in. I was hoping that as long as the guys noticed food going into my mouth, they wouldn't notice I wasn't eating anything else. Not the case. They kept asking "Do you want some Slippery Shrimp? It's SO good!" Gag, Gag...gag. I did try 3 pieces, and yes it was good, but I couldn't enjoy it because I was concentrating so hard on keeping everything else down. Next a huge plate of BEEF showed up- that probably would have made me gag even if I wasn't pregnant, luckily they were all ok with me passing on that. Last, the lemon chicken came which actually looked really good. But, my nose was smelling SO many horrible smells by this point that i couldn't fathom putting ANYTHING else in my mouth...except more rice. Garrett shoveled a piece of lemon chicken on my plate and just sat there, waiting for me to eat it. He could tell I wasn't digging this meal, and he actually felt bad- but he wasn't giving up on me trying that damn chicken! Finally, at the end of the meal I took 1 bite of the chicken- and after chewing it for a good 5 minutes, it stayed down.
It's now 4 hours later since that meal and I'm still fighting back the gags and anything else my body is trying to make happen. Ugh. I am SO glad that this big secret will be revealed to my team in 2 weeks. Not that i want them to change their minds about where they want to eat on my account, but at least this way I have a WAY better excuse for NOT wanting to go to their crazy restaurants for lunch.

Blgh!

1 comment:

  1. That non behaving nose.... That is a horrible experience Ash!
    I had an issue w/ broccoli which seems to be the one veggie everyone wants to put on a vegeterian's plate!

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