Crazy Sunday, recovering Monday

Sorry for not posting last night, I ended up going out. So here is the recap of the last 2 days...

I woke up yesterday with nothing on the agenda. I still can't sleep past 9am even on a weekend, but that's ok because that means a longer day off :)

I started thinking about breakfast. I prefer to make something a bit more complicated on weekends because I have the leisure of time on my hands, but yesterday I woke up craving a lox sandwich. You've seen this before a few times over the last few weeks, and it still hasn't gotten old :) I did try to make it a little more exciting by trying a new presentation (I know, fancy!).

Just like last time I used The Baker wholegrain flaxseed bread with 1 tablespoon of Philadelphia whipped cream cheese and 1 oz of smoked salmon. Today I cut it into little pieces to make it more visually appealing, but actually it made it really fun to eat too! Completed with a cup of coffee with skim milk and about a teaspoon of agave nectar.





This was uncomplicated but totally hit the spot! Great breakfast! I'm sorry to tell you this but you're going to have to see this one again. I'm still kind of addicted to this nutty bread combined with the creamy texture of cream cheese and lox.

LUNCH

As expected, for lunch I utilized the leftover peanutty chicken from Saturday's lunch. This chicken combined with my Annie's goddess dressing obsession inspired a simple salad:



This salad included spinach, grape tomatoes, cucumbers and the chicken + 1 tablespoon of Annie's organic goddess dressing. Pretty nice!

And then this is when it all turned around. My husband and I were watching a local restaurant review show (Phantom Gourmet) and we were both just drooling over everything they were showing. I usually like to watch these shows while eating, because I'm not hungry, but this time this trick did not work. I felt so defeated and slightly depressed because I just desperately wanted to eat out. I felt like this whole week when I thought I was happy by eating healthy I was really just lying to myself and waiting for a chance to eat out again. This was not a good way of thinking so I made an executive decision (after all, I make all the rules about my diet!) and decided that this was the right time to go out. We both really wanted it, I've been very healthy the last week, I exercised and I'm healthy in general (I'm trying to lose weight for aesthetics, not for health reasons). My husband was very happy to hear the news! So we started looking for a restaurant and narrowed it down to a few and decided to not eat anything else until then so we're really hungry and are truly enjoying our night out!

Fast forward to dinner...

DINNER

We ended up at a restaurant just a few blocks away from our house, Eastern Standard. This place is highly rated and had the vibe we were looking for. So here is my review...

By the time we got to the restaurant, I was absolutely starving. I was actually in pain I was so hungry (this wasn't by design... it kind of hit me out of no-where). Luckily they brought the bread right away and I started with a ww roll:



We also ordered a bottle of wine and while waiting for that and our appetizer I ate another piece of bread (slice of ww, not pictured)... I was still hungry.

For appetizer, we wanted to split an order of fried calamari (I know, not healthy, but that's what my husband wanted and I decided to call it a true splurge night so I agreed). Here is the whole plate:



Unfortunately they were waaay too fried. All I could taste was the grease, so I had about 3 rings and put the fork down. It wasn't worth it to eat something I really didn't like. Too bad!

For my main course I ordered housemade cavatelli with broccoli rabe, mushrooms and chicken confit. The waitress said it was her favorite dish on the menu so I decided to go for it. Here is my plate... not a large portion, which I like because it was instant portion control and made it look kind of fancy :)



Unfortunately this wasn't anything to write home about either. It wasn't bad but it didn't taste special, if that makes sense. It actually reminded me of something my mom would make, which was a good dish but again just an everyday thing, not special. I ate the whole thing nonetheless. At this point my husband asked me if I'd go back to this restaurant. I said I wasn't crazy about my meal, but I would. I enjoyed the atmosphere and we were having a good time. He loved his steak frittes, btw! Some restaurants I write off right away after not liking a dish, others I give a chance if the atmosphere is nice or the service is special. Our waitress was very good, btw. Then I said I wanted to order dessert (because I can't really give a full review fo a restaurant without trying out their dessert :D ) and since I practically didn't eat any of the appetizer and my entree was small-ish, I felt justified. So this is when I said if dessert wasn't good, then I wouldn't go back, because that would mean that everything I had was either mediocre or worse.

For the first time in recent history I was willing to order dessert that wasn't chocolate. For the most part when I look at dessert menus I pick out the ones that have chocolate. Usually there is either 1 or 2 so the choice is very easy (I hate restaurants that have no chocolate desserts, but luckily those are rare). Well last night I actually read the entire dessert menu and truly the chocolate espresso torte sounded the best. I went with the chocolate option after all. Figures. Here is what arrived on our table a few minutes later:



I was instantly dissapointed when I saw this because I prefer warm chocolate cakes. This wasn't one of them. Worse when I tasted it, it was completely bland. Very airy and quite flavoreless. Well you could taste the espresso, but it was like espresso flavored air. Bleh! I just stared at it, wondering what I should do. It seriously broke my heart. I was so excited about this dinner all day long and every single one of my courses just did not measure up. My husband quickly offered to go somewhere else for dessert. He said it would be fun and he wanted to continue the night anyway! We were having a really good time (except for the food part for me). I put my fork down... for while... and then I picked the ganache off from the top and side (that was the only part that was good). After finishing our bottle of wine, we left the restaurant in search of another spot with dessert. So yeah, I would NOT go back there.

We ended up at Z-Square in Kenmore square. I've been there before at a dinner with Kath. The dish I ordered last time I wasn't crazy about (it wasn't bad but again not great... hmm, am I too picky?!) but this was a place I was willing to give another chance + it was close by. I ordered a warm chocolate cake and a glass of Chianti :) Here is the cake:



Much better!!! It wasn't the best dessert I've ever had but it definitely filled the void. I was much happier after that. The only thing, I wanted MORE. I wanted to go to Panera (across the street from us) and get a brownie. But thankfully my husband knows me really well and wouldn't let me go.

Anyways, obviously my streak is over. Today was really tough to get back to being healthy. I tried all day until I broke down and had a bunch of trail mix. I just hate that one night off throws me off like that. One day I'll figure it out...

I won't bore you with the details of today since this was a long post already so here are a few pics with today's eats and I'll be back tomorrow with a "back-to-normal" post.



















Good night!