The problem with restaurants

Most of the week my food comes from My fit foods.  I discovered these prepackaged fresh meals a couple of years ago and they’ve really helped me by preparing fresh and healthy meals without me having to hunt in the supermarket for something to eat or in desperation turning to fast food joints. They’ve really have helped me not only cut calories but also cut the time I waste on preparing food.

Notice I said most of the time.  I have to admit that the selection can get a bit monotonous at times.  It sometimes gets to be that I’ve memorized the menu by heart and I start pestering the staff as to when the new menu will come out.  So sometimes I will take the time to make something at home.

But the weekends come and I find myself getting a little stir crazy.  I work at home and I find that I see way too much of the house sometimes.  So I go out to do something on the weekends (or sometimes the weeknight, but mostly the weekends).  Inevitably this will involve eating at some restaurant at some point.

Deciding where to go becomes a chore.  Someone in the group had Thai yesterday so that’s out and someone else hates Italian and someone wants spicy but not too spicy.  This turns into a UN treaty session with concessions given here and promises made there until some deadline comes up and everyone decides upon the least favorite but least objectionable choice.  We have peace in our times.

After that comes the problem of finding some place to sit.  Of course everyone in Houston wants to be out at the same time and wherever we go there’s usually a line or some sort of wait and you usually end up sitting by the kitchen or the bathroom and as it is so popular every other table is a family table with screaming kids.

Then comes the hard part of sorting through the menu.  You find yourself with the dilemma of wanting to eat food “A” but it comes with side dish “B” and they absolutely won’t do substitutions or you get a mountain of carbs in every spoonful no matter what you order.

Of course if you plan another activity later on you suddenly find yourself on the clock trying to shovel food in your mouth to make it to the thing (show, play, movie, party) on time.

Oh and if you decide to go out by yourself you get the occasional look from others “Why is he sitting by himself?”  Though to be honest that only happened to me once when the hostess, then the waiter, and lastly a manager came over and asked me if I was waiting for someone else to join me and none of them seemed too convinced when I said no.

Doesn’t make for the most pleasant of experiences.  But like I said, sometimes you have to break the work cycle monotony and any alteration of the routine is welcome.

My ideal restaurant would be something small, something that not many people knew about and something that prepared the meal the way that I wanted it prepared.  Come to think about it the best restaurant is at home.

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