Restaurant Rag

I’ve been on vacation for almost two weeks now. I didn’t go anywhere, so I guess you could call it a “staycation.” It’s been a chance to relax, plus catch up on things around the house. One thing I like to do when I’m on vacation is go out to eat. It’s a nice change from the regular grind of stopping for groceries on the way home from work, making a quick dinner, cleaning up afterwards and all that. I don’t mind cooking on the weekends, when I have less to do and don’t feel rushed. But in the evenings during the week, cooking seems like such a drag. It’s work and by that time of day I usually feel that I’ve done enough work already. I’ve always said that the ultimate luxury for me would be to have a personal chef (along with a personal chauffeur!).

Since I’ve lost weight, it’s been hard to find restaurants that have food I actually want to eat. I’ve written before about my husband’s favorite restaurant, a neighborhood Italian place that serves LOTS of pasta. They serve salads too, but here’s the thing: salads are not their specialty, so they don’t do salads all that well. Their salads mainly involve chunks of iceberg lettuce (which taste like nothing to me), a few slices of tomato (that are usually pink and mealy), a half a dozen black olives, maybe a sliver of red onion and that’s about it. Why would I go to a restaurant and pay restaurant prices for something as uninspired as that? On the other hand, they do pasta very well, but, alas, I don’t want to eat pasta anymore.

It’s not just this one restaurant though. Go to a diner, or a chain restaurant, or even a cozy, local pub, and what will you find? Club sandwiches stacked three inches high. Bacon cheddar burgers. Quesadillas and enchiladas and burritos slathered with guacamole and melted jack cheese. Enormous plates of French fries. In fact, most restaurant entrees are enormous. Why is that? My husband will say, “But, look, they also have salads.” Yes, every one of these restaurants has a salad with grilled chicken. I wish I had a dollar for every salad with grilled chicken I’ve eaten since I’ve lost weight – I’d be quite wealthy by now!

I’ve found a few places that serve food I actually want to eat. Maybe it’s a nice piece of grilled salmon with asparagus. Or an egg-white omelet full of veggies. Or a restaurant that is very flexible and will allow me to customize a dish, have it without butter, or substitute steamed broccoli for the rice pilaf. Every now and then, my husband even agrees to go with me to one of those “good” restaurants. So, you see, there is still reason to hope.

Sometimes I wonder, could the average restaurant survive if it offered only healthy food? It seems to me that most restaurants thrive on promising an indulgent experience and I think they definitely deliver on that pledge! What else can you call an 1,800 calorie hamburger? But my real question is this: why does indulgence have to mean gorging on fattening food? Couldn’t indulgence also be defined as paying more attention to how a dish is seasoned, cooking it just right, or pairing foods whose flavors complement each other perfectly? Taking the time and care to prepare a meal that is truly delicious, as opposed to what I do most evenings, which is cook as fast as possible so I can eat and get on to whatever else I have to do that night.

We’re ordering takeout from a local pizza place tonight. I will ponder these questions as I eat my salad with chicken.