Bacon: A Destination

We went to Bacon today, the new restaurant in the old Screaming Goat Location at 10th and Lamar. Personally, I think bacon has jumped the shark a bit -- or maybe it's just that I will 9 times out of 10 choose sausage over bacon -- but I was willing to give this place a go with Cole and a group of friends during lunch today. I have to say: It wasn't bad at all.

They have lots of cute bacon stickers and t-shirts to go along with the theme.

Two diners at my table had today's bacon waffle: Blueberry waffle with hickory bacon. Apparently there was perfect bacon distribution and every bite included bacon.

I opted for the (healthier?) Clarksville Cobb, no red onions, leek vinaigrette on the side. It was delicious. Very fresh. The chicken was cooked to moist perfection.

One friend went for it and had the Double Grind Burger. He gave a very satisfied "two thumbs up" while his mouth was too full to utter words.

 

It was good though a bit pricey for a quick weekday lunch (my salad was 12 bucks). I can tell you to resist the urge to buy the "thick slices" of bacon on the special board. When I think of thick-sliced bacon, I think of Peter Luger's Steakhouse in Brooklyn -- bacon so thick you have to use a knife and fork to cut it. It is delicious! The "thick slices" at Bacon weren't thick by any definition of the word. They were actually underwhelming.

So, in a few words, Bacon is good, but there is still room for improvement. 

So Simple

Cole and I enjoyed Easter brunch at Fleming's yesterday. Everything was great, as usual, and we walked away with a recipe to try. It only has two ingredients, but it's so good and so simple.

Sour cream and honey dipping sauce for fresh fruit. And you guessed it: It has only sour cream and honey in it. Well, at least until you dip your fruit in. One part sour cream and one part honey, and you're good to go!

We paired it this evening with oven-roasted turkey breast, with bananas, strawberries and cantaloupe for dipping. It's also great with honeydew and pineapple. Enjoy!

Fresh French Fries

Is there anything better, really, than a bag of fresh French fries straight from the fatty, bubbling oil, doused with salt, so fresh that they leave grease marks on the bag? Too hot to eat, but you do anyway...

My friend Megan and I were talking about Food Inc. this morning, and it made me think about SuperSize Me from several years ago, and I immediately hit YouTube. The DVD has a spectacular "extra" about McDonald's fries, and I was very pleased to find it. It was just the reminder I needed today. Delicious.

Green Chile Mac 'n Cheese With Grilled Chicken

From Moonshire Patio Bar & Grill in Austin, Texas.

Kahuna's Icehouse: A Review

Cole and I hit Lake Travis today for a little skiing and relaxation, and when we finished with about three hours on the water, I was starving.

We tried to go to Carlos and Charlie's on the water, but they were slammed. Cole remembered noticing a new place yesterday as we were heading home called Kahuna's Icehouse, so we decided to give them a try. And I'm glad we did.

From the outside, it looked like it would be a very casual place, perched on the end of a strip center on Highway 620 just a couple of miles north of Highway 71, so I didn't feel bad about wearing my wet swimsuit and a tank top inside. Plus, how stuffy could a place with an "open" sign shaped like a surfboard be?!?!

As we walked in, I immediately noticed all the TVs (they were watching soccer), surfboards and hula girls decorating the place. There were only employees in there, so that worried me for a brief second, but we quickly found out they were only in their second day of full service. One of the waiters (managers?) that we spoke to gave us a quick rundown of the highlights of the menu. I decided to go with his recommendation of the grilled mahi mahi tacos. They were excellent!!! The fish was incredibly tender, the tortillas fresh, and the cool cabbage was a great complement to the spicy red pepper sauce.

Cole went with a pizza and liked it enough that he brought the leftovers home to have for lunch tomorrow. He said the crust was "okay" but the sauce was very good. That's a high compliment coming from him...

And because I burned so many calories skiing (HA!!!), I decided to try their peanut butter pie. Oh my. If you are a fan of peanut butter, or pie, or Oreos, or any combination of the above, you must try this pie. It was so rich and served at a perfect cooled (not too cold) temperature. It wasn't overly sweet. Everything I can tell you about it was just right.

So, the next time you're out toward Lake Travis, stop by Kahuna's for a beer and a snack, and support a new local small business. Call us and we'll meet you there!!!

Half a Sandwich

That seemed to be the theme yesterday.

Cole makes the best grilled cheese sandwiches in the world, and for lunch yesterday he made me a perfect half. I paired that with a bowl of soup.

Then for dinner last night, we took friend and coworker Barbara L. to the Hula Hut. Their food is not the best in town, but it's a fun little place, cool and casual atmosphere, overlooking the water. What's more relaxing that a margarita on the lake for a Monday evening?!?! Oh, and I only ate half of my grilled chicken sandwich there too. The conversation was lively and I just wanted to talk and listen rather than eat. And listening to my body, I got the message again that "half is plenty."

Today's numbers:

Breakfast: oatmeal: 2 points
banana: 2 points

Lunch: chicken-tomato pasta salad: 5 points
mini toast: 1 point
Whitman's WW candy: 1 point

Afternoon snack: Brussels sprouts: 0 points
(How boring for an afternoon snack... )

Dinner: grilled chicken: 5 points
roasted asparagus and tomatoes: 1 point (for the olive oil)
snack cakes: 1 point

TOTAL: 18 points. Some days it surprises me how easy it can be. Then some days it just kicks my butt.

Fast Food Nation

Years ago, I watched Super Size Me and one of the extras on the DVD has kept me from eating McDonald's fries ever since. Well this evening, waiting for Cole to get home, I watched Fast Food Nation. I'm never eating a fast-food burger again.

Breakfast: oatmeal: 2 points
banana: 2 points

Lunch: tuna and crackers: 5 points

Afternoon snack: toasted whole-grain mini bagel: 2 points

Dinner: grilled chicken filet: 4 points
roasted new potatoes: 5 points

TOTAL: 20 points

Friday Food Journal

Breakfast: Smart Ones muffin: 4 points

Mid-morning snack: South Beach cookies: 2 points

Lunch: Minestrone soup: 2 points
five saltines: 1 point
WW mini bar: 1 point

Afternoon snack: peanut butter and saltines: 5 points

Dinner: Who knows!!! Cole came home starving, and the chicken I wanted to grill this evening hadn't thawed yet. So we went to "Johnny C's" as it's called in our house. I had the wedge salad (SOOO yummy), lemon-rosemary grilled chicken with green beans, spinach and a bit of angel hair pasta. And a couple of pieces of bread. Damn that basket of fresh, steamy goodness...

I'm sure I'll be kicking myself come scale time tomorrow.

Thursday Food Journal

Breakfast: 1/2 cup cereal: 3 points
1/2 soymilk: 1 point
1/2 blueberries: 0.5 points

Mid-morning snack: ham slices: 1 point

Lunch: sandwich: 9 points
chips: 4 points

Afternoon snack: SB snack bar: 2 points

Dinner: salad: 4 points
edamame: 1 point

TOTAL: 25.5. Three too many. That yummy Which Wich? sandwich at lunch was too much.

Don't Judge a Burger by Its Wrapper

So, so sad: Foods Tastes Better With McDonald's Logo, Kids Say. Sorry, you'll have to skip the annoying "welcome" screen, also known as a big, fat ad.

Carrots. They even said that carrots -- when wrapped in the familiar bright red and yellow wrapper -- tasted better than those without.

Breakfast: yogurt smoothie: 1 point
toasted mini-bagel and honey: 3 points

Mid-morning snack: banana: 2 points

Lunch: Chicken pasta: 7 points
fresh tomato: 0 points

Afternoon snack: trail mix: 3 points

Dinner: fajita salad: 6 points
Blue Bunny Health Smart ice cream bar: 0 points

TOTAL: 22 points on the dot.

Steps: 6,036 at the time of publication. Not too bad for never having left the neighborhood today. (Update: 6,335 total.)

Wrapping up the Weekend

Nothing much to say here this evening: I ate like crap this weekend and today, my Daddy was in a house fire yesterday (everyone's okay and they're in a hotel while they look for a new place), and I broke my glasses a couple of hours ago so I don't want to stare at the computer for too long.

Tomorrow's a new day. I forgive myself for the burger and fries I had for dinner, and I commit to making the rest of the week a good one.

Oh yeah, .6 gone when I weighed Saturday morning. Not what I was hoping or expecting, but still a loss.

Check your smoke detectors before the week is over.

Cleaning out the Clutter

I'm on a clutter-cleaning kick right now. It started in the spare bedroom/scrapbooking room, and my closet is next. There are clothes in there that I vow never to wear again. Once I hit my goal weight, I will set a "red-flag" weight. That will be the number on the scale that I commit to never going above again. So I won't need many of the clothes that are in my closet currently...

I found a pair of Gap jeans yesterday that I've had for years and years. When I was in that size, it was the one pair of jeans that I felt looked good on me. They now sag and bunch, and that's a good thing. A great thing. But I don't need or want to keep them around "just in case." There are also t-shirts that Cole makes fun of when I put them on with shorts because you can't even see the shorts. I need to be wearing clothes that fit, and not holding onto those that take me back 20 pounds or more. The Gap jeans may be the hardest piece of my wardrobe to part with. But I'm doing it.

And, hat tip to Laura: an article about other good reasons to clean out your closet.

Other than certain foods (or certain amounts of food), was there something you have given up in the name of progress and health???

My day in points...

Breakfast: Smart Ones muffin: 4 points

Mid-morning snack: apple parfait: 2 points

Lunch: chicken and pasta: 7 points
okra: 0 points

Afternoon snack: Hershey's 100 calorie Snackster: 2 points

Dinner: The Hula Which Wich? 7 points

TOTAL: 22 points. Nice.

Kona Grill Austin: A Review

Cole and I tried the new Kona Grill at The Domain in Austin yesterday afternoon. What a cool shopping center!!! I won't call it a mall; it's more like a little mini city. The stores are all lined up along a mini city street. You can park on the little street in the center of the action or park in one of the bigger parking lots surrounding the center. The sidewalks were ample for all the folks that were running around, and the names hanging from the signs were enough to have me drooling a couple of times: Betsey Johnson, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., Burberry. We did some shopping at the Victoria's Secret there, and that's a story for another time... How do you spell "biatch"???

Anyway, before we made our way out into the little bustling city street to wander around and take pictures of the shopping center, we stopped for a very late lunch at Kona Grill. Cole's mom has told us several times how good the one in San Antonio is, so we figured we would be heading into something good. As a good little dieter, I checked the menu online and set my mind on a healthy choice. I was ready and prepared to not let a huge, beautiful, new restaurant ruin my progress.

And then we ordered the Sweet Maui Onion Rings... Wow!!! In my opinion, they were the highlight of the meal. I'm not an onion fan, or normally an onion-ring fan, but these babies were so good!!! Cole described the size best when he compared them to a grapefruit. Seriously. A giant middle-of-summer, Texas-sized grapefruit. They were enormous!!! They were served with a "seared pineapple chipotle" sauce that tasted a bit like pineapple juice mixed into a spicy ketchup. It was good. But back to the onion rings...

Many times, onion rings to me are like big hunks of fried batter with a little bit of wimpy onion inside. Not these, oh no. These were super-fresh sweet onions with the perfect amount of light batter. They didn't need a thing; they didn't even really need the sauce. But the sweet onion and spicy sauce were a great combination. Order some when you go, even if you don't claim to be an onion fan.

I had decided before we even sat down that I would have the Shrimp Tempura Rolls with a little side of edamame. They were very good. Very fresh. And somehow the perfect temperature. (I hate eating super-cold rolls. ) The little fried shrimp were rolled in rice and seaweed along with cucumber and avocado. And they weren't rolled too tight; they were just loose enough that it didn't seem like work to eat them. If that makes any sense... hehe Again, very fresh. And good.

Cole had the Jerk Chicken Sandwich minus the chipotle mayo. We're just not mayo people. His sandwich was a big and beautiful thing with grilled chicken, swiss cheese and a thin slice of grilled pineapple, served with a side of fries. When I asked how his sandwich was, I got the one-shoulder shrug and no verbal response. Though he did say the French fries were excellent. After dessert, I declared that the onion rings were the highlight of the meal, but he said the fries may have even topped the onion rings. How did I not get to taste one?!?!

Oh yeah, dessert. We tried the Macadamia Nut Pie. It made a pretty presentation. Small in my mind. I guess because we're so accustomed to desserts the size of our head coming out of a restaurant's kitchen these days.

It was good, but if we ever go again, I'll probably vote to try a different dessert.

Immediately when it came to our table and I took my first look, it made me think of pecan pie but with macadamia nuts on top instead of pecans. It was only about half the thickness of a piece of pecan pie from Mom's house, and it wasn't nearly as sweet or fresh-tasting. It was served with a good vanilla ice cream though. If you're a true lover of macadamia nuts, which I like but not love, then you might give it a try.

Overall, a good dining experience. If only they could do something about the gnats and flies in the place. I trapped one under a bottle of soy sauce as we were leaving.

My Which Wich? Review

Remember ages ago when I said I had given up Subway for a great sandwich place called Which Wich? ??

Well, there is a kindred wich spirit in Nashville who has decided to tackle the whole menu. That will mean a total of 51 wiches under his belt by the time he finishes. Chris has eaten (and for the most part really enjoyed) the first 10 on the menu, and he's enlisting other wich fans to join him. So I did...

Read my full review of the Tomato and Avocado wich on Chris' blog. It was yummy!!!

I wonder if he'll let me do another one...

Meat Overload

I normally don't have 12 different cuts of meat at dinner, but we were celebrating a special occasion: Dannie's birthday (with Mom in photo).

So this evening we tried the new Estancia Churrascaria in South Austin. We had originally talked about making the trip to Houston to eat at the real meat-o-rama, Fogo de Chao, but we decided that sticking close to home would be best. (They'll be opening a Fogo here in Austin by the end of the year, by the way.)

Here's my quick review of Estancia Churrascaria if you're considering going. I can't help but compare it to Fogo: The salad bar was small, but everything was very fresh and colorful. The rolls were amazing. They were these soft little puffs of cheesy bread that didn't even need to be chewed. Their warmth melted in my mouth, and I could have eaten about 20 of them. The sides were fine, nothing too exciting, but the garlic mashed potatoes, plantains and fried yucca were all decent. It was my first time ever eating yucca. I'd describe it as a chewier, dense French fry.

Now the meat. I didn't really eat all 12 cuts of meat that the place has to offer, but I would definitely call two my faves: the bacon-wrapped chicken breast and the pork ribs. Both, delicious. The chicken was tender and cooked to perfection. The taste was flavorful but mild. The rib meat fell from the bone with ease and there was a perfect amount of salt and spice.

The major drawback of the restaurant: It was entirely too crowded. They could take out about half of the tables and patrons would be much more comfortable. The back of Cole's chair was getting hit every time a waiter went to serve the table behind us.

Overall, it was a good dinner. Followed by cake at our house with Mom, Dannie, Randy, Dee Dee, Cole and me. We're truly blessed that our families get along so well. It sure makes for a nice Saturday evening...

In for 2007

I've been meaning to put a couple of things in writing, okay, typing. I'm not making resolutions for the new year, but I am striving for a few goals and making a couple of changes.

There are are a few things that I'm ditching with 2006 and replacing as we start 2007.

• Out -> Subway. It's just not exciting or even very good. When I need a sandwich, Thundercloud or WhichWich? is the way go to. The bread at WhichWich? is so good, and I love their simple, industrial decor.
• Out -> Starbucks. Starbucks sucks. It's bitter and tastes old and watered-down. Instead, I'm becoming a fan of Scooter's and Ruta Maya. I'd love to get to Ruta Maya more often, but Scooter's is just closer to the house. Sidenote: There are three Starbucks locations between me and Scooter's, but no more Starbucks.
  
• Out -> Walgreens. Ick. It's just becoming funky, and not in a fun '70s-dance-champion kinda way. Instead, CVS now houses all of my prescriptions and is the place for a quick stop for toothpaste or any other quick errand where I don't want to mess with going into the grocery store.

I'm sure there are more. Cole and I were talking about it just the other day. I'll think of them, I'm sure...