Yeah, Not so Much

Today I'm eating leftover casserole from the other night. It kind of sucks. Trooper that I am though cant stand the thought of throwing out food so I'm eating it anyway. This was the whole wheat pasta beefy mac concoction. Maybe it's the unseasoned tomatoes or the parmigiana cheese. Something's not right. Maybe next time a shitload. more garlic and salt with skim mozzarella ?

I have to tell you, not really wanting to eat this. Like at ALL.

I give this a 1 and a NOT recommended.

Update:  so I forgot that to counteract the suckiness I had doused this serving today in marinara.  So, all in all not so bad.  definitely tolerable.  It would obviously be better dripping in mozzarella, but then I guess it would not be as good for me either.  sigh.    Marinara might move it up to a 1.5.  Maybe.

Soup's On. . . .

Ok. We have a cold front and it has been deliciously chilly the last couple of days. Very thrilled about that. I can wear a sweater and not sweat my butt off in the house. A real victory.

To celebrate, Ducky Momo and I went to Soup Cowboy down in the tunnels. I have been on vacation from SC since going on maternity leave in April because who wants soup when it's 100 out? It's like eating fire. So turns out that during my absence some rather disturbing changes have taken place at the Cowboy. Let's review shall we?

• Previously you had your choice of whole grain or wheat bread. You got a giant chunk to eat. Now you get white bread or crackers and the bread is so thin it's useless for dunking in your soup. Don't even waste my time with it.

• Cost of soup increased and was on the high side to begin with. In their defense it is good soup but a small is smaller than the standard chain (say Corner Bakery) and the cost is higher. But it is also legit Homemade soup. Still on the fence with this one.

• SC is now outsourcing the cookies. They used to carry a superior Gooey Salted Caramel cookie. You had to get there early to get one because chances are they only made 4-5 of them. Now some outfit called Michael's something or other is making them. Cookies are roughly 25% smaller and not quite as good. The salted caramel had too many like caramel chip things in it (as opposed to a handful of well placed chunks) and I think they just salted the entire cookie after baking vs just the caramel being salted.

• I don't get the sandwiches, but did see on way out that roast beef is shredded vs sliced like it was before. Can't really judge that though since I only ever get soup. Someone else will need to weigh in on that.

Today's selections included the Gumbo. Usually in the past they are out by the time I get there, but I was able to get it today. Now it is gumbo soup which is kind of like the essence of gumbo. It has the right flavors and ingredients ( but no okra to my profound disappointment ) but it truly has a soup consistency and not the body of a gumbo. Also, kept wanting rice to go with. Saltines were a nice add though. Gumbo had sausage, chicken and 1 shrimp.  Could have used more chicken and less sausage although the meat distribution could have resulted from ladeling and not the actual making of the soup.  Hard to tell.  Odds are on ladeling though.

Soup Cowboy still makes a damn good soup, but I'd be lying to say I'm not bummed about the other changes that obviously were made for better economics. I guess the cookie being not as good is a blessing too. I won't be tempted to eat one now. I more or less ate with impunity while I was preggers. Still working to come down off the food high. Going out to eat with these yahoos though doesn't help. If they weren't so entertaining it would be easier to avoid.

Soup cowboy gets a 3.5 microwaves and a more or less recommended.

I Like Tacos . . .

Woo hoo! Fall has finally arrived in Houston. Today it's in the low 60s and breezy. Chilly even. SO excited! However that has nothing to do with this post.

Sometimes on Fridays we rustle up a gang of us to go somewhere. Today was one of those days. 6 of us took the cute pretend train downtown to theTacos A-Go-Go in midtown. This trip we were about 30 minutes later in arriving over last time and the place was packed. The line never strayed out the door, but was consistently back to the door for most of the visit.

No place for 6 people to sit initially. Ducky Momo was freaking out and had Twist bird dog a booth that looked like it was ready to be vacated. Booth was successfully procured. Next he kept telling Twist to get an empty 2 top put at the end so we could all fit. DM was very especially concerned about the extra table.  Luckily it all worked out.

Since last time I had the huevos rancheros platter, which was way too much food, I scaled back and ordered a breakfast taco with eggs, refried beans, cheese and bacon., along with some chips and salsa. Oh and a Mexican Coke to go with. My Coke was the envy of the table. I guess no one else thought to get one. 

Taco was great. Same as before-the beans were kind of bland. I mostly got them as glue for the eggs and the texture so it was fine. Bacon had a nice smokey quality. Added some salsa and we were good to go. Tortilla homemade too which I love. Simple but yummy. And filling.  There was quite a lot smashed into that one little tortilla.

Company was good too. Our wayward work traveller was back in town so he got to join plus we had the usual suspects including Twist and Ducky Momo. A nice family outing as Twist called it, and he is right.

4.5 and Recommended.

Comfort Food . . .

Even though it was hot as hell this morning and muggy I am pretending it is "Fall" in Htown. This means I'm moving towards warm and fuzzy comfort food on the lunch front. Today is Lean Cuisine roasted turkey with cinnamon apples. Say it with me now: Mmmmmmmmmm tasty!

It's only 290 calories too so I maybe can have a cookie (or Bundt cake) later.

There is actually stuffing under the turkey. Nice gravy. And the apples are the bomb. Possibly my favorite part of the meal. LC is really taking it old school with this meal. But I love it. Portion is not huge so you may need a snack later. I had brought some brown rice to eat with but wound up having the rice for breakfast. I really make no distinction between breakfast food and everything else. I see nothing wrong with brown rice in the morning.


As I approach, hopefully, being able to run again I spent (way) too much time the other day on Runners World reading up on what to eat when training and losing weight running yadda yadda yadda so I made a casserole last night. Nothing special. Beef and tomato with whole wheat penne. I'll get that out tonight. Hopefully one of the kids will eat some too.  I have also discovered that Campbell's makes a combo cream of chicken/cream of mushroom soup.  I had zero idea that soup technology had come so far!  I have a can queued up in the pantry for the next casserole.  I may go with brown rice, turkey, broc, and edamame, the soup and some parmigiana cheese.  Woo hoo!

Off for more coffee now. I may have to start bringing a jug of cafe du Monde with me. Office coffee not really cutting it and I'd go broke if I bought all the Starbucks required to keep me vertical during the day.

Oh, meal is a 4 and Recommended!

Yay turkey!

And Then . . .

Today had the good fortune to lunch with completely different crew from another floor. As the twosome I ate with are pleasant in the office it was no surprise to find that they are also lovely lunch companions.

We had Thai at Nit Noi Cafe. Love the Nit Noi by my house with its multiple menus. My fav is the "off menu" menu. Off menu is where one finds Thai dumplings my entree of choice. Cafe menu is rather abbreviated. They had dumplings but nothing called Thai dumplings. And indeed it was not the same dumpling. The dough was not as thin and supple as the Thai version but also not egregiously thick and doughy. Ginger dipping sauce was flavorful. Iced tea was awful. I think I was just drinking brown water.

Upon return to office I stumbled upon some mini cupcakes up for grabs. They were the fake Hostess cupcake variety and of course I could not resist. It was ok. The small version better than big version but I still don't care for the Crave choc cupcake. Too much of a bittersweet dark choc and not sweet enough.
Dumplings a 3.5 and recommended. Cupcake a 2.5 and for a chocolate cupcake I don't think I can recommend. Don't hate.

A Bird in the Hand. . .

Ok, good grief. I ate at this place like 2 weeks ago and am just now getting around to posting.  So whole department went off site for lunch at The Bird and The Bear.  No idea what that means.  It's a sister place to another restaurant in H-town called Ouisie's.  I didn't get the decor.  There were chairs suspended from the ceiling?  I'm obviously getting old or very uncool.

So- started with gumbo and then had the shrimp and grits.  Gumbo was the right color.  A nice rich brown.  A tad too salty and somewhat sweet tasting, but not like sugary sweet.  See, I should have done this post same day b/c now I can't entirely remember what the deal was.  I ate it all though so must have been good. 

Shrimp and grits as a dish tasted good.  However as shrimp and grits I thought it had too much stuff on it.  It came with gravy and mushrooms and scallions and I think something else too (bacon!).  The gravy was pretty rich (a brown gravy) so it really undermined the fundamental flavors of the dish--say it with me--the shrimp and grits.  Shrimp was done to right level, not overcooked.  I tried to find some grits that didnt have gravy on them.  Only managed one bite.  Not real cheesy.  Again, if you are going to call something cheese grits then I do think it should taste discernibly like cheese.  I'm on the fence about it.  It was too rich to eat much of it. And again, it was good, but it just wasn't good shrimp and grits.  Does that make sense?

yes that is upside down, and no, I don't know why.  Stupid Blogger

 

Our whole table ended up getting desserts.  We had some lemon meringue, um some other stuff I don't recall and I had a pot du chocolat.  My dessert was fantastic and b/c it was in a little bowl, best of all no one wanted any of it!  All the cake and pie people had to trade bites with people.  The lemon meringue was good.  The meringue was so creamy it was almost like a whipped cream.  Restored my faith in meringue. Dessert was overall better than the entrees I think.

ok starting in foreground, a pear tart, the pot au chocolat, lemon meringue and a chocolate cake banana thing.

I'll give it a 4 and a recommended.  Other people seemed to like their entrees for the most part.  Someone got a dish called the Damn Eggplant and said it was fabulous.  So there you go.  It wasn't uniformly awesome but good enough that I wouldn't rule out ever going there again.

Some Pizza . . . and Other Stuff

Ate in today and had a Lean Cuisine garlic chicken pizza.  Before I get to that though I need to get caught up on last Friday.  I took the day off to go to # 1 Son's school parade and then school let out early so we went to have lunch together at McDonald's!  McDonald's is like Mecca for 6 yr olds.  He didn't get to go in and play though because we had a piano lesson to get to.  He had Happy Meal with chicken nuggets.  I had Happy Meal with hamburger.  Forgot to order it sans reconstituted onions which was unfortunate but not fatal.

So, in all seriousness, when the McDonald's is fresh it is pretty darn good.  Let's be honest. And because we went at peak lunchtime it was fresh.  And it was pretty darn good.  I also like the apple slices that come with the Happy Meal.  They peel them which is pretty fancy.  #1 Daughter only eats peeled apples so its good for her too.  The little tiny fry is just right if you want to satisfy fry craving but don't want all the carbs.  All around solid meal.  Were I not watching what I ate I would have topped it off with an apple pie.  I'm giving McDonald's a 4.

Now, on to today's pizza.  This was a white pizza.  Roasted garlic with chicken and alfredo sauce.  Not much to look at:

I mean that is one sad lookin' little pizza right there, is it not?  Fairly tasty although I don't generally prefer alfredo on my pizza and the garlic was abundant.  So much so that I just heard someone in the kitchen remark on how it reeked of garlic in there, which means I probably reek of garlic and it will prob. be oozing out of my pores later today.  Awesome.  My chewing mint gum is obviously in vain too.  Pizza crust was fine but bland.  Crisp though.  but dang, this was 350 calories?  I guess that is ok but I'd rather have something tastier for 350.  I think I will stick with the traditional pizzas going forward.  And if you work with me, you might want to stay away the rest of the day or text me instead of a F2F.

I'll give this a 3 and a recommended if you like that kind of thing, although I can't say I'll be getting this again.

Random Dinner Post

We like breakfast for dinner at our house. Tonight was more or less breakfast food of your choice. Hubs and I opted for poached eggs and applewood smoked bacon. Kids had pancakes.

He ate his eggs smashed up in a bowl. I ate mine on toasted ciabatta. Why ciabatta ? Because I like my poached eggs with toast. But I am also a notoriously bad shopper. This one lone ciabatta roll was the only bread in the house.

I Frequently go shopping with a list on paper or in my head and inevitably leave something off. The only question is what. Lately it's been bread and pool chemicals.

Any day now we'll wake up and the pool will have bloomed overnight and covered in green algae. Super. And then it's all my fault bc my memory sucks. Sue me.

Sorry, what was I talking about? I was talking about bread right? So eggs on ciabatta are good. Applewood Bacon is good (duh).

Off topic aside. Trader Joe's pumpkin pie. Really good. That is from someone who doesn't even like pumpkin pie. TJ version of cool whip superior to the name brand. Just get a spoon and eat it out of the container. Don't even try to act like you're eating it with something else. It's awesome alone. I recommend it. Highly.

#2 son crying. Guess I should go tend to that before we reach defcon 3.

Late Lunch . . .

as in, it's 4:15 now and I just finished eating it maybe 10 minutes ago.  I started it around 3 and then remembered I had to do something by COB today.  Stopped eating, did other thing, finished, and here we are.

So today was a Lean Cuisine!  yes, you read that right.  I actually ate a Lean Cuisine again.  Oh how I have missed you LC!  Today's selection was the Lemongress Chicken from the "spa collection".  By the way that is kind of a stupid name.  I get how you want to categorize all your foods but I don't know, calling it spa food doesn't work for me.  I have no suggestions for you however so I prob. should just not say anything at all.

Ok, back to task at hand.  This is one of my favorite meals.  Nice subtle lemongrass ginger sauce with maybe a hint of peanut.  Flavor levels are all just right.  I like the brown rice and the veggies.  Best of all this one is not overloaded with pesky red pepper for color.

Let's take a look at our entree of the day:

Besides the fact that its sideways (again!), notice anything?

Oh come on! I am disappointed in you people.  The chicken.  it has GIANT chunks of chicken!  Let's take a closer look:

You are all familiar with my obsession over the chicken in the entrees right?  To recap- there are always 5 chunks of chicken in every Lean Cuisine meal and always generally uniform in shape and size.  This entree then is in fact, groundbreaking.  Not only are the chunks gigantic, there are MORE THAN 5.  I count 7 and when you cut up the chicken into bite size pieces you are just adrift in chicken.  This was actually a fairly substantial meal.  Clearly the Lean Cuisine chicken cutting machine is broken.  Or LC is reading this blog.  ha! Not.  Obviously the machine is broken!  And a fine lunch was had by all (meaning me).

I'm trying to renew my attempts to eat better and lose weight, particularly since I can't run at the moment.  Why? Oh, did I not mention it?  I have a stress fracture in my upper tibia and can't run.  3 more weeks to go on the not running.  It is horrible.  I pretty much have to start training all over again when I'm cleared and will have a whopping 8 weeks to get ready for my half marathon.  Boooo.  That's the story I'm going with at least.

Ok- Meal gets a 5 (I really like this one) and a recommended, especially if you get one from the broken chicken cutter.

Yum!

I still owe a post on the trip to The Bird and the Bear last week.  Have not forgotten.  Hoping to knock that one out tomorrow.  Was thinking I might wait until totally recovered before I write the post.  I received some criticism on my Sambuca post for being to mad and grouchy.  Were you not entertained?  Well, too bad.  I mean for real, it sucked.  What was I supposed to say?  I love bisque and a perfectly fine soup was just ruined by some incompetent ding dong back in the kitchen.  OK- moving on . . . .

Just Sayin' . . .

oh my gosh you guys how good does this look?!



photo, Corner Bakery

That, my friends is the new Corner Bakery bacon tomato mac n' cheese.  This tempting little photo just arrived in my email.  We finally got a whiff of fall here in H-town which makes hot food actually sound appealing.  Will do my best to NOT eat this though because I can pretty well guarantee it is a million calories without even looking.  Oh well.

Follow up to yesterday, feeling a bit less cranky (yay for anyone who has to deal with me) and a bit less snotty.  No one wants to hang with the person who sounds like she is coughing up a lung.  One other humorous side note to the whole Sambuca lunch:  the dessert menu is headed, "Happy Endings".  Might want to rethink that.  And (again) on the soup, when I say it tasted buttery what I mean is it tasted like a melted stick of butter.  No, I am not kidding.  For real, if I could have choked it down I would have.  I add the extra taste predicate/modifier to convey that it was in fact THAT BAD.

ok, guess what is for lunch today?  Dumplings!!  I might go with veggie again.


Ed. note:  10/17 by the way Corner Bakery is giving this mac n cheese away from free.  I tweeted the link to your free food earlier today.  Check out @Yodiwiltac on  the Twitter machine.

No Satisfaction . . .

Oh my god, work week starting off with a super crappy lunch that just has me really pissed off the more I think about it.

Managed to get invited to a work lunch with visiting peeps from our Calgary office.  We all tromped off to Sambuca which is nearby.  In past I have had some really good lunches here and some really bad ones.  Today was some of both.  Still feeling under the weather the soup and sandwich combo sounded good.  Ordered the shrimp and crab bisque with Greek chicken pita and a hot tea.  Tea: Sambuca only had one kind which was Community brand black tea blend. ok whatever, that is like lowest common denominator tea.  Obviously their food service guy is not able to make the upsell on tea.  Serviceable at best.

Bisque:  THE WORST SOUP I HAVE EVER HAD UP TO THIS POINT of my LIFE.  LIFE people.  I have eaten some bad food in my time.  This was so appalling I had about 4 bites and left it.  Even more appalling, the server didn't ask me if it was ok or why I didn't eat it.  So while on the one hand I wanted to tell him how bad it was, on the other I didn't want to bring it up and be an ass about.  For real though, this soup sucked.  Big time.  Greasy tasting, very buttery. No flavor whatsoever.  Granted I am getting over a cold so maybe, maybe my taste buds are a little on the fritz but when I say this had no flavor I mean none.  The little shrimp and crab meat that I did manage to fish out of the cup of soup was also devoid of flavor.  I don't know if this was previously frozen and then washed off or what but it didn't even taste fishy.  Nothing. Nada.  The base didn't even have a hint of sherry.  Seriously, Sambuca whoever your sous chef is FIRE HIM IMMEDIATELY because he will take you down if left unattended like this.

On the flip side, the pita was delicious.  chicken cooked well with good flavor and a nice pita to boot.

However half of a pita was not much of a lunch so I opted for dessert to make it through the afternoon.  Chocolate toffee torte was right out of the fridge, which i guess is fine except it means you cant really cut into it at all to eat it b/c the choc is rock hard.  And there was not enough toffee to warrant being in the dessert name.  I like toffee so that was a real bummer.  Again, standard food service.

And speaking of service.  I was super annoyed by our server.  Not sure why, just found his manner off putting and he never asked if I wanted more hot water for my tea. 

One other note, clearly my photos suck.  Not sure why for lunch service the place had the lights so low but it was dark in there if you weren't by a window.  Naturally we were seated in the back where there was no light.  Used flash on the dessert pic and it just looks gross doesn't it?  Also- can we not do a chocolate dessert with raspberry sauce?  I'm over it.  Move on and garnish with something else please.  What would have been good with a toffee dessert:  caramel or butterscotch sauce.  Another clear sign that whomever is back in the kitchen doesn't know what he is doing.

The pita gets a 3.5, dessert a 3 and the bisque a 0.  That bisque is an embarrassment to bisques everywhere and should be ashamed.  Overall NOT recommended on Sambuca.

Not Much Lunch Happening This Week

I've been sick and was called to jury duty on Tuesday. Lots of meals at home that really don't meet the definition of "meal"

Today #1 son home sick with me. I'm having Perfect Fit turkey chili with a little cheddar and crushed saltines. Reminiscent of the chili elegante Moms used to make in the pressure cooker. Needs some salt and the black beans aren't quite cooked through, but it's good enough. Little Dude is having juice, and Ritz crackers and a Ninjago marathon.

Yesterday was real food at a Westheimer restaurant (Bird and Bear, Bull and Bear, something like that). It will be a longer post so more on that later. Short version. Good dessert. Not bad entree. Too much going on with it though.

Anyone have a Kleenex?

Blah blah . . .

As # 1 son is fond of saying now about everything. Came home sick before lunch with raging sinus infection. Ate leftover grilled pork chop and jasmine rice. Several hours later my stomach is flipping around like I have food poisoning. Awesome for me. What the hell? I'd like to think it was bad meat vs my cooking. At any rate. Boooo. With as many sick people as we've had lately it could be anything and nothing to do with pork chops.

Tomorrow is Jury Duty. Will keep you posted on lunch opportunities!


Ed. note: stomach issues perhaps due to Z-pack?  Pretty sure it was not the pork chop.

Palak Paneer . . . .

Not enough brain power this morning to come up with what to name my post other than the food I ate.  Friday I enjoyed a Trader Joe's frozen Palak Paneer.  Palak Paneer is my all time favorite Indian food.  Many a visit was made to Pakistani Tea House on Church Street downtown in NYC for an order of palak paneer and naan for dinner prior to night classes in law school.  All palak paneer and lentils are judged based on the Pakistani Tea House standard.  Some curry, a bit of spice, good ratio of spinach to cheese.

The package is supposed to be 2 servings.  Again, I guess if you are serving this as part of a meal that is cool but for someone like me who eats this as the meal (and whose family would never ever ever in a million years eat this) the two servings in one package is annoying.  Calories are 250 per serving which is pretty good.  I solved the two serving problem by just eating the whole thing.

this whole photo rotation thing is really starting to irritate me.

4.5 microwaves and recommended.  My favorite versions of this though are still the single serving with the brown rice. 

Quick Hit . . .

Ok so I actually ate a Lean Cuisine this week.  I just can't recall what day it was.  Maybe Wednesday.  Yesterday I didn't have lunch so nothing to report there.  I did go to a networking thing in the afternoon though and had some snacks there.  No photos though.  It wasn't crowded enough for me to snap a pic and I didn't know anyone there.  Don't want to wave the freak flag!

Back to Wednesday.  I went with a LC Sesame Chicken.  This is another one of my go to meals.  It's vermicelli with breaded chicken chunks in what purports to be an Asian style sesame sauce.  Does any Asian food really have a sauce like this or is it faux?  I will need to consult with faux-Asian Chungry and find out.  It's good though so I'm not complaining.  Meal has some sliced green beans and red pepper for color.  We know my rule about red peppers so obviously I could do without those.  Green bean is nice for flavor.  No surprise it also has the mandatory 5 pieces of chicken.  Someone must have been asleep at the conveyor belt though when my meal went through b/c I actually had some additional tiny chunks of chicken.  I should have bought a lottery ticket that day.

330 calories too so you can actually have something to go with it if you wanted.  Since this meal is in my rotation obviously I like it.  4.5 microwaves and a recommended.


Who knows how to rotate photos on blogspot?  Do I have to do it in my image editor and its too late once it gets posted?  if that is the case, that's dumb.

Twinkle Twinkle. . .

Tuesday's lunch was an off campus foray to Sparkle Burger. I'm not sure who first stumbled on this little gem of oddity but after seeing its impressive breakfast and lunch menu I knew it was destiny to one day eat there.

Since this is Houston it's hot until well into October. I don't mean Indian Summer hot. I mean legit over 90s sweat dripping down your back hot. Not ideal for eating a burger outdoors. Sparkle burger is about as big as my office with only outdoor seating. After a very thorough discussion on the pros and cons of eating in the car, Twist, Ducky Momo and I knew we had to bide our time for cooler weather. Tuesday the waiting was rewarded with a glorious sunny day in the low 80s. We rejoiced in our good fortune but our hopes were cruelly dashed when it was learned Ducky Momo could not attend in person. He would have to experience by proxy and get takeout. That left Twist and I to take on Sparkle Burger with no elder statesmen.

First. Let me just say nearly everything about Sparkle Burger is crazy, starting with its name. Really I only say that because the only businesses I know of named Sparkle are car washes. It doesn't sound very burger-y to me. Next is the size of the burger. For $4 it's got to be bumping up on 1/2 a pound. The picture doesn't do it justice. It is ginormous. I couldn't even eat half of it. Not to mention the inelegant shape of my patty which had me cracking up. I will call it Frankenburger.

Fries also HUGE. So big you can't even call it a steak fry. Just giant potato wedges. The eating area was also interesting. Dubbed the Sparkle Chill Spot it was a small wrought iron fenced-in area of misshapen iron picnic and patio tables on the side of the building in the parking lot. The best part about it was the crumpled up astro turf.  It looked my 2-yr old had come by and dropped her blanket then someone decided to put tables on top of it.  Lemonade was homemade which is always a plus. On the down side I think the lemonade was a bag of sugar in a pitcher of water with a shot of lemon. The sugar coma hit me around 2.

Don't misunderstand my calling it crazy. By crazy in this case, I mean crazy-awesome. Twist and I decided sparkle burger was more an overall experience vs. just looking for a good burger. My burger was good by the way. Fresh bun, nicely seasoned meat. I'll prob find out later it was soylent green, but whatever. Until I do, I would go back. Tots on the other hand were just meh. They tasted like when you get some tots and try to save them and put them in the microwave the next just to be disappointed b/c now they are kind of soggy.

Rookie error we made was not calling ahead. We had to wait 25 min for our order bc of the stream of people coming through to pick up. And there were a lot of people coming to pick up. We put in our order for Ducky Momo and it was ready by the time we finished eating. He wasn't very awed by his giant burger patty, but then he was at his desk and missed all the ambience.

Sparkle Burger gets a 4 and a recommended. We will be going back. I can't ignore the sheer quantity of items on its menu. And, they serve breakfast. Giddy up!

Eating Gluten Free Can Be Fun!

But not in every instance.  #1 Son for example likes gluten free pancakes from Trader Joe's.  I have not eaten them, I admit, but just based on my making them for him they look disgusting.  They are so gooey I just can't handle it.

In this case however I am dealing with the PF Chang gluten free Singapore Street Noodles.  I love the original street noodles, my only real complaint is they put too much other crap in there, scallions and tomatoes and the real stuff does not have all that nonsense.  I wish I had a photo of the place where I used to get noodles when I lived in NYC.  I worked in the garment district on a pretty crappy and depressing street.  Best thing about it was the great variety of Asian food available.  The place across the street from the office had the best street noodles ever.  It was a total dump too and if I recall correctly it had ducks hanging in the window.  Roasted, with heads on.  So gross . . . moving on.

So why did I go for gluten free?  I overheard my Moms looking up the nutrition info for what she wanted from the Chang and the sodium was like 100x your daily needs, then it was discovered that some of the gluten free stuff had dramatically lower sodium.  Figured I would give it a go for no good reason.

It doesn't have fewer calories than the regular version, but it does have 1000 less mg of sodium if you care about that at all.  The regular dish has I think a grown up person's entire daily recommended dose of sodium.  You are basically eating a salt lick.  Only good if you are that alien from that episode of the orig Star Trek that was leeching all the crew dry down on the bad sound stage planet.  Anyone remember that?  Anyone?  Bueller?

I didn't note much difference in taste between the two despite the GF dish not appearing to have any of the curry sauce on it.  Noodles are white and not yellow like the regular version.  Tasty though, and also good as leftovers, which was when I had it again on Monday while waiting for the plumber to come tell me why one of the bathroom's upstairs was flooding.

I'll give this a 4 and a recommended.  Calories are 710 for the dish, so I guess it's up to you to determine what the serving size is, but I would say it's about 3 servings.  It's a really giant portion--so maybe then the sodium isn't that bad on a per dish basis but I suppose it never hurts to eat less. 

Travel Meals Wrap-up . . .

Work event wrapped up on Friday at noon and Thursday night we all broke into groups and went to dinner at various Banff landmark restaurants.  Mine was Grizzly House known for its fondue and its early beginnings as a swingers club.  Considering how small Banff appears to be that must have been quite interesting.  My table all got the fondue dinner which was cheese fondue, choice of meats to grill on a hot rock and choc fondue for dessert.  I had the Alberta special which I think was Bison, Elk, venison and one other meat.  Can't recall if it was beef or boar but I think it was beef.  Cheese fondue was traditional and tasty. roasted garlic came separate in case you didn't want to dump it the cheese.  I went back and forth between the pot with garlic and the one without.

Main course was the bite sized meat of choice that you speared and cooked on a 650 degree rock brought out to your table.  Drunk people should prob. not be roasting meat on a rock hot enough to burn your skin off but there we were roasting away.  Happy to report no casualties despite 3 bottles of wine and pre-dinner cocktails.  At one point I was invited to bring my family to stay at a co-workers weekend home in the mountains.  Not that I'm not super friendly and likeable, but I suspect the invite had something to do with all the wine.  Tempted to call and accept the offer to see if she remembers putting it out there.

chunks of meat and dipping sauces

 

Chocolate fondue with fruit and chunks of some cake I think

Very hot rock

Last of course came the chocolate fondue.  And it was real chocolate I might add.  Not fake chocolate fountain at Golden Corral chocolate.  Toblerone chocolate.  The restaurant also sold a 4.5 kg Toblerone for $125 CAN.  Being metrically challenged I had to ask how many pounds that was to warrant the heavy price tag.  After the entire table (of Canadians) rattled off the conversion factor, it was decided that that was about 10 pounds.  That, my friend is a lot of chocolate.  I'd give this a 3.5 total. The traditional fondue was my favorite part of the meal.  I could have stuffed myself silly with cheese and bread.

Next day was group breakfast.  Pretty decent scrambled eggs, ham, bacon and some link sausage of an indeterminate origin.  It was tasty though so maybe I don't care what it was.

And, bonus, it was warmer than most of the other food eaten at the Fairmont that week.  I did not eat at all the restaurants in the hotel.  Truth be told one of the better things I had was a sandwich from the coffee bar.  Food quality and prep was uneven so I can't give the hotel food more than a  3 and that is an average.  Plus it drove me crazy that none of the hot food was ever actually hot.

After the meetings were over Hubs and I took a drive to Lake Louise, around the glaciers and then back to Banff for dinner before heading to Calgary.  Lunch at the Chateau Lake Louise was in the Lake Lounge.  Overall nice meal although I kept thinking my entree would taste more.  It was too subtle bordering on  the bland.  I had a shrimp and scallop lentil cassoulet.  Shrimp and scallops all cooked well, but I wanted my dish to have some saffron and a hint of curry.  It's a shame to use that many lentils in something and not have even a dash of curry in there.  I threw on some salt and pepper and ate it all.  Portions were on the small side so that wasn't really as much as it may sound like.

 Hubs had a cobb salad with salmon.  I think he liked it.  I was fascinated with how yellow the egg yolks were there.  They were almost orange.  Dessert was a raspberry mousse cake that had about zero cake and was all mousse.  It was fine.  Not great. I was wanting more cake and less mousse so I felt kind of let down by the dessert.

Dinner took us back to Banff to the Bear Street tavern for some pizza.  We started with garlic sticks with bacon added.  YUM.  marinara served with them was cold which I didn't care for.  I think you should heat that marina at the very least so people don't think you just spooned it out of a jar -- even if you did in fact just spoon it out of a jar.

Before the pizza came the server brought out a giant thing of honey and chili oil.  She said it was to mix together and dip your pizza into?  Uh gross.  No thank you.  I admit I did try it and yeah. it was kind of gross.  Not in like a spit it out can't eat it way but just not a good flavor combo--pizza with spicy honey that is.

 Pizza was delish.  Very thin crispy crust.  We just had a margarita with some sausage. I also had an awesome local beer from Grizzly Paw in Canmore.  Not sure though if its the Rutting Elk Red or the Bar Honey Wheat.  Either way it was a very nice beer with a good taste and good finish.

I really enjoyed this food.  Bear Street Tavern gets a 4 and a recommended.

Now, if I can just get caught up on my other posts . . .