Veg no more

Today I cracked. I ate meat. Chicken. It was delicious. Truthfully, I thought this vegetarian thing might be good for me, but I found that in order to keep from eating meat, I was eating less healthy things. Like large orders of pasta and pizza because I couldn't eat anymore lettuce. I actually tried tofu for lunch yesterday. My veg. co worker suggested I order a seared tofu stir fry from a restaurant I happen to enjoy. I've never had tofu before. Well that's not exactly true. I eat the tiny bits that float around miso soup. Anyway, it shows up and it looks so strange. Three rectangles of jiggly mush plopped on top of veggies and rice. I was so scared to taste it, but I sucked it up and took a forkful. It actually tasted really good. I was so surprised. If it were a piece of chicken I might have said that it was the best chicken stir fry I've ever had. Then I tried a second forkful and realized that there was no way in HELL I was going to be able to swallow it. It still tasted great, but the consistency was sooooo blegh. Mush. Pan seared mush, so it has a bit of crust. BLEGH!! I ate the veggies and rice and when I tossed the tofu in the trash, I noticed the impact left them jiggling around for a few minutes. Too strange.

I couldn't have picked a worse week to try this vegetarian crap. It's restaurant week in New York. I had forgotten I made plans with a friend before I started this crazy experiment. Last night we hit a fancy italian place. The restaurant week menu is always small. You choose one appetizer one entree and one dessert from a list of like 3. Usually it's not even the best the place has to offer. I think they do that on purpose so as to sway you to order from the regular menu and spend more money. The food was good, but in keeping with the vegetarian thing, I ordered a pasta with tomatoes and hot peppers when I really wanted bucatini amatriciana. Google it, it's delish. BUT it has meat in the sauce. Sometimes pancetta, sometimes bacon sometimes guanciale. Can you tell I'm still dreaming about it? Can you also tell that I'm a bit of a foodie?

Today I had to step out of the office for a while (okay you got me I went to get a mani/pedi) and decided to grab something while I was out. That was when I noticed that the new New York City law is now in effect. All restaurants with more than 13 locations now have to post the nutritional value of each thing on the menu. I walked in and went to grab my favorite parfait and realized that the little bad boy was almost 400 calories while being less then 6 oz. I then went to the salad section and realized that they were all over 500 calories a piece. I don't really know how bad that ranks on the grand scale, but it seemed like a lot for something people eat when they obsess about losing weight (me included). Even the salad dressings had their calories listed!! That's what I threw my hands up in the air and said fuck it. I grabbed a jalapeno chicken sandwich!!! And you know what? It only had 100 more calores than the stupid salad and was a million times more delicious.