Last night I went to bed around midnight. I was up at 2 AM, and never really succeeded in getting back to sleep. While the ibuprofen seems to be doing a good job in at least containing my back and leg pain, I was just incredibly thirsty, drinking bottle after bottle of water all night long. I had no fever and got some sleep in the morning but still felt completely meh.

This morning the doctor called. He wanted to know if I was eating. Um, er, no, not really. What had I eaten so far today? Uh, a cookie? At that point he didn’t explode, merely explained that I wasn’t going to get better if I didn’t start to eat and that if I didn’t do it on my own, he’d put me in the hospital on an IV. Okay, okay.

So a bowl of chicken, veg & rice soup. Canned. But I managed a full serving. Then in the afternoon a fresh mango.

Flashback a few days ago ….

We were lying in bed watching Anthony Bourdain, the episode he did in Vancouver. He highlights three chefs he calls the “three amigos” – one Italian, one Indian, one Japanese, all of whom have made Vancouver their home. (And yes, all their food looked pretty freaking amazing.) And he also went to some restaurant on an island where everything was locally grown or raised; the salad had colors in it like you wouldn’t believe. The episode ends with a dinner party, all three amigos at one of their homes, cooking their favorite dishes for each other.

That night, I dreamed that I went to that restaurant on that island, that all three amigos were there. That once you got to that island, if you knew them or they knew you, you were “in.” You passed a boundary into a shadow world, where you could stay forever and want for nothing as long as you didn’t ask for anything – you’d get what you need, to quote the Stones. (Yes, my gf, told me later, the Japanese omakaze concept!) If you actually asked for anything except water, you’d be thrown back into the real world and off the island. You were invisible to the normal guests, they’d pass right through you. And I was lying there, Chef Vikrim Vij was making these little morsels with paneer and veg and shoving them into my mouth and it saved my life.

Anyway, back to today, we’re sitting around this afternoon, and my gf is asking a million questions about what I want to have for dinner. And I keep shaking my head. Until she says she really wishes she could have a curry. Yes! Maybe that’s one reason that I’m not eating, that a piece of toast, a piece of grilled chicken breast, it’s okay but not knocking my taste buds down and not making me want to eat.

I bolt up in bed. I want Indian food. And Dia delivers!

There are 3, maybe more, Indian restaurants in Sai Kung. The local branch of Jojo’s is so bad it’s unbelievable. The Village is okay but not worth a special trip. Dia may not be the most authentic Indian restaurant in the world, or even in HK, but they use a large variety of spices, their sauces are great, their chicken comes from the US, their lamb and beef from Australia.

I grabbed the menu. I ordered 5 favorites. No vindaloo, milder stuff (they do a lot of northern India dishes along with all the usual suspects). I thought, maybe I’ll have a bite or two of each and that will be it. But the food came and for the first time in a week I actually came down to the ground floor for a meal. We opened the containers and it smelled so damned good, I ate an actual human sized meal. Beef, chicken, bread, rice, veg.

Now maybe some of the experts out there are gonna tell me that Indian food ain’t the best thing to have when one is recuperating from hepatitis. (So what do Indians eat when they’re sick then?) All I can say is, the smell, the taste, once I started I couldn’t stop eating and I’ve been tired since then but also feeling stronger.

So, yeah, it wasn’t world famous chef Vikrim who saved my life tonight, but the anonymous chef at a tiny hole in the wall local joint, a place which I normally like when I’m feeling okay but which right now I absolutely love.

(Coming to Sai Kung and want to try this place instead of the waterfront seafood? Dia is located on the wonderfully named Fuk Man Road, just a few feet away from The Duke.)