Day 43: Attempting Restaurant Food

Trying to eat out at restaurants has become somewhat of a joke. It is no longer about what menu items sound appetizing or might be in my price range…it is all about narrowing things down to the 1 or 2 items that we can eat. Last night my husband and I went on a little “date night”, and we chose a fairly nice French restaurant for dinner. It always seems that at first glance there appear to be quite a few things we can order off the menu, but once we sit down and take a closer look we have to keep narrowing things down further and further. This is some of our conversation at dinner last night…

• The lobster cake sounds good…oh, but those usually have breadcrumbs in them
• We could get the cucumber/tomato soup, but oh the French Onion soup would be a nice treat…wait that is usually served with bread in it
• Mmmm, warm brie salad…oh wait that is on a fig chutney baguette (that is surely not a whole-wheat baguette) and there is probably sugar in the chutney
• The seared sea scallops with maple grapefruit glaze sounds delicious…but that comes with white jasmine rice and a shrimp crispy wrap neither of which we can have

This doesn’t even include all of the questions we had to ask in order to come to the conclusion that we did which was to share the Orange Tomato and Cucumber Soup, Roasted Beet and Goat Cheese Salad with Walnut Dressing, and Potato Crusted Halibut  with Miso Hollandaise Sauce, Mushroom Duxelle & Haricot Vert….

• Does the soup have any sugar in it?
• Is the goat cheese on the salad just plain goat cheese? It doesn’t have any breading and isn’t deep-fried or anything?
• What is in the walnut dressing on the salad…just walnut oil?
• Is there anything in the potato crust other than potatoes, which comes on the fish? No breadcrumbs?
• What is in the miso hollandaise sauce exactly?
• And the mushroom duxelle?
• Just to confirm nothing is added to the haricot vert (green beans) like a sauce or anything?
• Also, in the sparkling wine/pomegranate juice drink does the juice have any added sugar or is it just plain juice?

As you may have gathered eating out has become a very pleasant and relaxing experience (ha ha ha). I will say that despite not being able to order exactly what I’m in the mood for, what we did end up eating last night turned out to be delicious. This experience has forced me (in a good way) to branch out a little from items that I would typically order at restaurants. I said to my husband last night that between the cucumber soup and the beet salad I was certainly eating a lot more vegetables than I would normally be eating. Which is of course very much a good thing and part of our desired outcome with cutting out the bad stuff!