Lunch Squared . . .

Yesterday-Monday had last minute lunch hook up with Awesome Co-Worker.  She happened to be going to Whole Foods to run errands and I opted to go with.  We did food bar for lunch and ate on the nice little patio at the Whole Foods.  In Alexandria, Whole Foods was a massive part of our existence.  I'd say one of the saddest things about moving to Texas is the lack of Whole Foods in general and especially in The Woodlands.  Point being- I have missed you mightily Whole Foods.  Especially your big ass food bar!  I didn't see any of the strawberry shortcake like you used to make in Alexandria though.  Probably a good thing I didn't get to eat any though.  Hubs has asked me twice now in as many days if I am putting some weight back on.  WTF? Answer, not that it is any of your business: NO I AM NOT.  Back to the food bar:

Followed my nose to some Indian food and got a potato samosa, chicken tikka and chana masala and some naan.  Samosa was pretty good.  Not as good as the ones I pick up from the farmers market, but it did the trick.  Chicken Tikka was pretty substandard. Not much taste in the sauce or the chicken. Edible though so I ate it.  You know me. . . . chana was awe-some!  i just stirred it all together and mopped it up with the naan and was a happy camper.  As I said to ACW, "curry makes me happy."  Maybe a little too happy, but who cares.  Curry made Baby Awesome happy too so there you go.  Countdown has more or less begun for maternity leave for ACW.  Yay for her, boo for me.

Chana hiding under the naan.

Food bar I'll give a 3.5 due to the weakness of the chicken tikka, but it is recommended.  Whole Foods rarely does any of its food poorly in my experience.


On to today, Tuesday.  Ninfa Express bean and cheese burrito with guacamole and tomatoes and fresh tortillas!  when I say fresh I mean they took them right off the griddle thingy then boom! Made my food.  Sides of Mexican rice and some spicy ranchero beans.  $4.99 for all that too.  Can't eat that a lot though b/c that will for sure make me fat.  Reminds me-have to sign up for new session of the boot camp aqua torture class.  Did I mention I signed up to run a full marathon next year?  SO stupid.  I am fairly certain I will live to regret it.  Right now I am totally not into it at all.  Oh well.  I have until January.  And I will still be saying that in November.

"Hot sauccccce?"

Ninfa's burrito I'm wavering on.  It's not quite a 4, but it's better than a 3.5.  Well, whatever it is it's recommended.  Hasta luego beet-chez!

Random thoughts . . .

1) hot damn! Tate's cookies have made it to Texas! Woo hoo! If you don't know Tate's get some the next time you see them at HEB. They are from Long Island and crazy good. We used to eat them in Virginia. Again, Tate's. Buy them. GOOD.

2) Pancakes for dinner. Did a Bisquik variation per suggestion on box for the "ultimate" pancake. Hubs freaked out calling them the worst EVER. For real. No. 1 son however said they were fantastic. I'm going with Little Dude on this one. No offense Hubs.

Friday Lunch . . .

So after Wednesday night's high, Friday lunch comes along to offer a wimpering start to the weekend.  Today's bad lunch brought to you by Hearsay downtown Houston.

Large crowd today including Chungry and Ducky Momo and 3 ladies in our department.  Should have gotten the burger.  I ordered the sweet corn crab chowder.  It should have just been sweet corn and crab bisque.  Not a chowder. No chunks.  There was real crab in it though so that's something.  A little too sweet, but not awful.  If I'd known how bad my sandwich would be I would have gotten a bowl of it.

Thought I would try the tuna melt b/c the menu said it was some cranberry tuna salad that sounded different and good.  What showed up though was just a giant-ass lump of tuna with mayo.  Bun was toasted with white cheese and then there was more mayo spread on the bun.  Mayo overkill.  Zero flavor to the sandwich.  Does that look like it has anything at all in it let alone cranberries?  No.  Exactly.  I only had a few bites and stopped.  The little side of fruit was really good and fresh though.  Go figure.  Thanks for nothing Hearsay.

Seriously?

I brought the leftovers back and put them in the fridge for the 24/7 people on the other side of the floor.  Someone is bound to eat it.

Update 4/29: As confirmation of what a lame and sad sandwich this was I went across to the other kitchen to check on the sandwich.  NO ONE ATE IT over the weekend.  And let me tell you, the people that work the weekend and over-night shifts here WILL EAT ANYTHING.  I have the stories to prove it.  Once someone took my half drunk tea with straw that I'd had at lunch. God love them but they are animals when it comes to respect for food in the fridge.  If none of them ate this sandwich then it is possibly the WORST thing in the world.

Ducky Momo had his funny hat on so at least the meal was entertaining!

Chungry did give me a slice of his burger to try and it was pretty good.  Very nice fresh bun which is half the battle if you ask me. Nothing ruins a sandwich like bad bread.

Hearsay gets a 2 and I'm not planning to go back unless it's unavoidable.

Special Dinner Post

Written in the cab on the way home with a somewhat intoxicated afterglow. Dinner at Provisions with drinks at the bar with Sartorial and Twist! Did not know Twist was going to dinner until halfway through the day today.  Needless to say a wonderful surprise. Started off with some lemony vodka drink. I asked bartender to make me her personal fav vodka drink. I think she faked it b/c she was ragging on vodka being boring while she made this. Whatevs. Not bad but not as punchy as I really prefer.  Involved lemon juice, celery bitters and champagne.  Kind of flat was what I kept thinking.  Followed by red wine. God bless the bartenders at Provisions. I was completely overloaded with info when trying to pick something out and made the mistake of asking for a recommendation.  Result was Sartorial egging me on to try everything red by the glass on the menu--which was not so bad really.  Back to the info dump on the wine, and gin and pretty much anything else that came up-- words like sea foam and loamy and salt spray came up in the conversation.  Wound up with something not bad from Spain.  At the table moved to Angela pinot noir from Willamette Valley in Oregon. Kick ass.We had two bottles.  When I say "we" I mean 3 out of the 6 people at the table and perhaps myself most of all.  What can I say.  It was really really good.  So what all was there?  As noted in previous post, Veggie Tales, Sartorial, Twist, Outside Counsel and another fun surprise--Boss Lady!  It was quite the party.  Not sure in retrospect if we were all laughing or if everyone was laughing at me. Nonetheless, it was a good time!

Started with bone marrow brioche and tomato jam with goat cheese Gouda at the bar. Eaten together as a mini sandwich in the brioche; pretty damn tasty.

Bone marrow brioche

Other food: honest to god, we ate so much I'm not even sure what all we had. [see menu here] Pretzel bread with cheese. Mussels. Oysters.  Some raw sashimi tuna. Oh and a pizza with tomato and some cheese on the side (burrata with burst tomato and pizza bianca). Fan-freaking-tastic. Also had three pasta dishes. Something with crab. Something with duck. A mushroom thingy.  All good, but I liked the duck best. In my buzzed state I told some dumb story about eating gross gnocchi in Civita, Italy. (I think the point of it was to say I have not touched gnocchi since that fateful afternoon. Although we were not eating gnocchi so not sure how that came up.)  We got every dessert too!  Bonus, and benefit of eating with law firm partners! Favs of mine were the rhubarb soft serve. The beet cake and curry pineapple upside down cake were also lovely. I sucked down a cappuccino then Sartorial and I hit a cab home. Had a great convo (as I recall it) but I can't tell you about what! Those are the best dinners. Overall, evening was a Yay! I think I was just happy to be out socializing and not paying a babysitter (sorry Hubs, and no offense to my darling and brilliant offspring.  Mommy loves you!)  Outside Counsel is one I have not seen a while and it was great to visit and catch up. He is unusual in that he is a normal person and not a complete tool-which is why I left law firms.  Too many tools.  All in all, a great evening both company and food wise.

Update 4/27: Geez, forgot the BEST dish of the night: Curried mussels with cauliflower.  TO DIE FOR.  And yes, I do like curry.  Put some curry on a wad of paper and I would probably at least try it.

THE CURRIED MUSSELS

Pass & Provisions I'd give a 4, and recommended.

The fab pinot noir.  Hubs is praying I don't find this anywhere easily accessible.

It's a bone! with tomatoes.  I appreciate the macabre presentation.

I ended up with 2 wine glasses that I think was a running joke the rest of the night.

Um, thnk this was the crab pasta?

lobster roll.  it was just meh.  too much mayo but nice celery crunch.

curried pineapple upside down cake

dessert carnage

Menu b/c I couldn't recall what all the desserts were.  yeah, you can't really read this.

Yuzu sherbet with beet cake, a delight. 

The duck pasta thing

Marginal vodka cocktail.

OMG, how could I forget this!?  Ham o' Day.  Freaking phenomenal!  Melt in your mouth.  Don't eat pork?  Too bad for you!

Oysters

Carrot cake donut. I only had a little bite b/c I knew Twist was dying for this.  It's fried.  Need I say more?

Big eye tuna, raw.

That's a Bummer . . .

Well not a fun day. Babyman not feeling well so stayed home with him and went to see the Dr. This morning. That ended up taking an hour and a half for shots and some other stuff. I did manage to take a big load of stuff to Goodwill though. Yay for me!

Lunch was homemade pizza using some questionable ingredients but they passed the smell test and I'm not dead yet from eating it either. Pizza was jimmy dean pre cooked sausage and Trader Joe olive tapenade. With cheese of course. Not as disgusting as it sounds. It was actually pretty decent all things considered.

Best part of day was long afternoon nap that was sorely needed after being up with the babymeister a lot the night before.

Tomorrow having dinner with Sartorial, Veggie Tales and an outside counsel plus someone else from the office but I'm not sure who. Going some place that naturally, I have never heard of.

Yodi out.

Something New . . . .

Still busy as hell today but had time for lunch that was from somewhere other than downstairs.  Turned out that some people went to lunch without even bothering to see if I might want something or want to go.  Twist also unavailable tied up with something and working through lunch.  Bummer.

Not sure how I came up with this but wound up ordering take out online from Bombay Pizza Co.  Went there once, geez, probably 2 years ago and liked it but it seems no one else does and no one goes there anymore.  Got a paneer kati roll with mint cilantro chuntney (way better than it sounds).

SO HAPPY!  Loved my roll.  Although half way through found a hidden pocket of rogue cilantro and had to go in and do a surgical strike to remove most of it.  Mental note: when getting again ask for light or no cilantro.  Again people, A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY.  And I mean a long long way, like into next week.

Naan was good, paneer was good.  next time I'll try chicken.  Full and happy.  I had looked at desserts when ordering to see if they did mango lassis.  Sadly, no, but surprise! They have lemon bars.  I'll have one please.

Bar turned out to be pretty freaking big.  Great flavor but the consistency is a little chewier than I think it should be.  its not really like pie consistency, its pretty dense filling like someone got carried away with cornstarch or something.  And, actually now that I think about it more vs just eating it I'm starting to get a little gagged by it.  Maybe this is a one off.  I'll have to try it again.

to recap: Paneer roll, awesome! 4 microwaves and recommended.
Lemon bar, meh. could be better.  a 2.5 for now and I'll put a hold on lemon bars until I can revisit and see if they are always like this.  If so they will be NOT recommended.



Update: Accompanied Twist to Wendy's for his lunch and was rewarded with a chocolate Frosty.  How awesome is that? I ate it b/c I had only had like 2 bites of the lemon bar before it started to gross me out.  Feelin' preetty good right now.  On another subject: I can report that I have lost 44 pounds since this time last year.  Few more sessions of boot camp ought to do it.  HOOYAH!

No Big Whoop . . .

But incredibly satisfying. BLT from skyline deli in lobby. On croissant that has been smashed to hell in the panini press. Actually makes it easier to eat. Bonus: I got a whole pickle. Ate it first so no picture.

Folks often disparage skyline. I'm 50/50 on it. Some things are too high. Like I just paid $6 for a blt which is insane. It's the most basic of sandwiches. But overall it's not bad provided you don't get the baked goods or get too fancy.

3.5 and recommended.

Hella busy so lunch is at my desk. Shout out to my man DKB who just discovered me on Twitter!