Oil Spill

Restaurant dining has always been a struggle for me.I used to see it as a treat, that I would not order anything that I could make at home (read: salads). The more calories, the better. I mean, you shouldn't be dining out all of the time, right? It's a special occasion to go out to dinner! Get the Monte Cristo!

My lifestyle now has me dining out a LOT more than I would like. I'm out at least 4x a week for dinner, maybe even once or twice for lunch. I had to revamp my thinking- that I can still enjoy the restaurant outing while eating healthy-- and staying within my budget.

However... it seems as though restaurants are still out to sabotage me and all dieters. For example: yesterday, I had the pleasure of having lunch with ALL of my younger sisters and my mom. It was great- we have so much fun together. Mom, sister #1 and sister #3 drove to my place, and we all drove together to see sister #2, who is at Central Michigan University.  We went to lunch at the Italian Oven- a decent, Olive Garden like restaurant. I tried to order healthy- I did!- but oh... the warm bread... with the olive oil and dipping spices put on the table... I ate a few good chunks of bread, a few (3) pieces of bruchetta... and for pasta, I ordered "healthy." I had whole wheat pasta with 7 vegetables (they encourage you to test their servers on which vegetables are in the pasta) and chicken. It was flavored with "a light olive oil and garlic drizzle." I'll take it!

First, let's talk about serving sizes. A serving size of pasta is 2 ounces. Measure it out- its SMALL. Yet, with veggies, it can be really filling. And, a lot of whole wheat pasta is now fortified with protein- so really, 2 oz is a pretty substantial meal. I had-- I kid you not- at least 6 servings of pasta handed to me.

That is 4 NAPKINS worth of oil blotting! In JUST that bowl of pasta!

Secondly, "drizzle." Drizzle is defined as "to let fall in fine drops or particles, to rain gently in fine, mistlike drops." So - why did Snoop Dogg carry an umbrella? Fo' drizzle. It's light, it's fine, it's NOT a downpour. Apparently the cooks at Italian Oven knocked over the bottle of olive oil and mopped it all up into my bowl. The olive oil was *dripping* off of the noodles. When I nuked the leftovers (see below), I removed the noodles and veggies from the bowl with a slotted spoon, and *still* blotted off the excess oil.

MUCH better!

Third- the leftovers. While my remaining  servings of pasta were wrapped up in a cute foil swan, it was like 6 servings. I took it out and weighed it - remember, 2 oz is one serving of pasta. That's about 1 cup. The dish weighed in at 12 oz. I took out as many of the veggies and chicken chunks that I could, and ended up having the pasta weigh in at 8 oz. 4 servings of pasta came home. 

I ended up dumping some of the pasta, added some more veggies (like diced tomatoes- it added flavor, volume, AND some juice, seeing that I dumped as much of the olive oil out that I could), and ate up. I still ate 2 servings of the pasta plus the veggies, and I was full. I could have had more left overs, but honestly... I did so much doctoring to this dish, it wasn't worth it. That, and the pasta was soggy. Nobody likes a soggy noodle. 

Some restaurants are getting good at the diet thing- they're placing healthier options on the menu, allowing for substitutions... but they're still not perfect. You're still served a huge amount (we, as Americans, think that more is always better- you should get your money back in quantity, not quality). Restaurants still use a lot of oil and cheese to cover up the diet smell.

Lesson? I need to ask more questions before ordering, and I can't- I won't - be afraid to ask for modifications. And, the bread basket needs to stay in the kitchen.