I have been dieting for the past two days, to get ready for our Puerto Vallarta trip next week, and while it is easy to dress for the Seattle winter, dressing for Mexico is going to be pretty tough with all the extra pounds I have been accumulating over the past few months (years!) I know a week of dieting is not gonna cut it, but I had to try, and I did pretty good last two days… till tonight. Siv has a guy’s night out planned, and I am the designated driver tonight. Since I am supposed to hang out on the east side anyway, I called up Mareen to check if she is upto doing anything, and as usual we decided to go out for drinks… (So much for being the designated driver, but I was pretty sure I could drown two drinks and wait two hours before he is done, so it should be just fine.) Since Mareen lives in Kirkland now, she wanted to be anywhere but, so the only other choice was Bellevue. Somehow we decided on Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, it used to be one of our main stops for hanging out with girlfriends after a few hours of shopping at the Bellevue Square mall, before Lincoln square opened up with all the new restaurants.

We got two seats at the bar as soon as we got there, it used to be so hard to get a seat there before, but two many choices for the Bellevue square crowd these days I guess. I decided to skip all the sugary drinks, and settled on a nice glass of Pinot Noir, red wine is good for you! Well, that really didn’t fix anything, since we ended up getting a bucket of fries with Mayonnaise to go with that. I don’t know when we started eating fries with Mayonnaise, I am pretty sure I got it from Mareen, but that is the most delicious combination ever… We were both craving meat so much, so we ordered the mini steak burgers, which were just beef inside mini buns, served with Wasabi sauce, but instead have it with some mayonnaise, just delicious! We also had the bacon wrapped tenderloin, which was just a little too much meat for me… The seared ahi-tuna was delicious as usual, but I have to say that the fries with mayonnaise was the best part of the meal. We finished with the Apple crumb Tart, which on first look was very unappetizing, because it was huuuge, and I had already filled myself up with all the fries and the grease… But I had a bite and it was surprisingly delicious with the crispy crust and deliciously warm apple inside, and the combination with the vanilla ice-cream was just perfect.Ruth’s Chris is a regular steak chain, and is not the type of place I would like to go normally. To me, places like that (like El Gaucho and the Metropolitan Bar etc) feel like they are built for the rich middle aged cigar smoking Caucasian males … But the Bellevue Ruth’s is different, a major part of the crowd is the young shopping crowd from the mall. It is quite expensive though, with 2 drinks each and the appetizers and one dessert our tab came to about $120 with tax and tips, not what I want to spend for an impromptu week day outing. But do go there during happy hour (4-6 PM and 9pm to close) and you can order stuff out of the bar menu (from where we got all our dishes) for unbelievably cheap prizes, the portions are much smaller, but who cares! I think you can get a quarter pound burger for just $2 during happy hour! The draft beers and wine and some well drinks are less than $3, whereas the dirty martini costed us $13 today!

Well, whatever few calories I cut down the past two days, I consumed those and then some today… I knew the fries were a bad idea… And it’s been more than an hour since I got back here, and Siv is still not back… , Now I will make a good designated driver for the ride back home for sure!

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Comments

2 Responses to “The diet that lasted two days till Ruth’s Chris happened…”

  1. Nandita on January 25th, 2007 12:22 pm

    Hey Sig
    Glad that you found me and then I found you, been reading some bits from your blog, like your spirit and enthusiasm. Coincidence that we’ve both been talking about losing weight.

    Would love to be in touch with you. You have quite a unique name.
    Cya around, my mail id is on display on my profile :)

  2. Mareen on January 28th, 2007 9:52 pm

    Fries with mayonnaise: yeah blame me for pairing deep-fried potatoes with what is mostly just egg-yolks beaten with oil (grin) - that’s like a high-colestrol landmine. The first time I ever had the 2 together was at a french cafe in SFO: the waiter brought over this gooey looking white stuff that turned out to be mayo, along with our fries. I’d have never imagined that the 2 would go together, but apparently it’s the european way to have fries: Alice convinced me to try it out - and I’ve been hooked ever since.

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