I met a friend at a local bookstore the other day. The kids were out of school, and we wanted to get out and about a bit by taking them to the bookstore, lunch and then to the park. The original idea was to take them to McD's for lunch and let them play. But they're getting older now, and McD's isn't really an appropriate play place anymore.
Not that they wouldn't enjoy it, no, I'm more concerned about the smaller kids that they tend to run over. I remember back when the Kid was small and would get run over, and well, I'm not going to do that.
Besides, after seeing and reading about how the chicken nuggets and hambers are made, I have no desire to go to McD's for a long time. Which is kind of a shame, I've always like McD's food. On the other hand, this is a very good thing, as that food is awful for you. Even though I've always known that, I would still eat there, but now...*shudder*.
Recently I bought some Kobe burgers from AJ's. They were $6.99 for 2. The Hubs had one, and the Kid and I split the other. For $7, we ate better and cheaper than we ever could have from McD's.
Now isn't that good to know?
Fast food, convenient? Maybe.
A good value? Not at all.
Not that we rule it out completely, but we are absolutely more choosey about what and where we will eat.
It gets harder when you're with other people though, which is how the Kid and I ended up at the Chinese buffet the other day. I really should have just said either, "you go, we'll meet you at the park later", or "what if we go to this other place instead?" But no, I thought, how bad can it be, at least with a buffet you can pick and choose what you want, and we can make better choices.
The problem is, as with any buffet, you are paying a set price and you want to get your money's worth. So even with the best intentions, you end up making bad choices.
The other problem at a buffet is that the food is mostly not that appetizing to me anymore. The Orange Chicken that I used to loooooove and pile up on? Not anymore. Fried mystery pieces of chicken covered in a sugary sauce. That's what I saw this time.
I had a plate of boring salad--iceburg lettuce, a few sliced carrots, dressing, cheese, and croutons. No other veggies were offered. Maybe beets. But who eats beets anyway?
I had a small plate with 3 pieces of sweet and sour chicken (read: battered and fried), a crab/cheese wonton, and 2 fried shrimps. A bowl of sweet and sour sauce.
My second trip, I got a small amount of fried rice, two pieces of chicken from the "chicken with broccoli" (I'm not a fan of cooked broccoli, I'm just not), and 2 pieces of fake crab from this mystery dish. 1/2 a bowl of egg drop soup with some crunchy wontons added.
Dessert was a piece of almond jello, 1/2 a piece of really dry chocolate bundt cake, and one piece of a nice lemon bundt cake.
The whole thing was not worth it at all. I felt bad afterward and really wished I'd skipped it altogether, or at least had a tums.
And the Kid, oh the poor Kid, she really felt bad. She had a few pieces of sweet and sour chicken, a piece of beef from the "beef with broccoli", a couple of mystery meatballs, a couple of wontons, and that was about it. Ice cream for dessert.
Later her tummy hurt so bad I was wishing I had a tums for her as well.
I'm mainly posting this to remind me why it's never a good idea to go to the Chinese buffet. Oh yeah, sometimes it just sounds really good, I've been to many a Chinese buffet in my time and loved it. It's a great way to try different things.
But is it that great? You're getting a lot of mystery food, fried food, and eating too much of it, while thinking you're getting such a good deal.
It's time for us to let it go. I am serious about changing our eating habits, and the other day just proved my efforts are working. We ate the mystery, fried foods and we paid for it later.
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