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!
Don’t be afraid to as restaurants to omit something. You can always have to french onion without the bread but just with the cheese or just no toppings and have onion soup. Substitutes or omitions are normal especially at high end restaurants.
Hey I really like your blog and looking for rss to get regular updates..thanks
These spam comments are crazy! Do you know why they seem to end up on some posts more than others?
Laura – Ha ha who knows? I deleted all of them on this post – thanks for pointing that out! Starting in May of 2012 we hired Jill to help us review and filter comments, and most of those spam comments were left prior to her coming on board.
Are there any places that exist today (I see this is an old post) where you can go out for food and have a guarantee that there’s no added sugar, refined or processed ingredients? Sit down or take out? It’s really exhausting to try to find something that isn’t loaded with those “undesirable” ingredients in some way!
Hello Michelle. It is very difficult but farm to table and organic restaurants are popping up more and more.