AMERICA!

[telophase]

THIS IS WHY WE ARE FAT!!


Hand included for scale



That is the Country Fried Sirloin (i.e. chicken fried steak) at the Texas Roadhouse on Sunday night. No, I did not eat it all. I actually ate 1/3 of it, along with a salad and half the mashed potatoes.* Had another third of it and the rest of the mashed potatoes last night, and will probably end up tossing the other third, as it's starting to get old and it wasn't a good enough chicken fried steak to be worth eating that old.

But still!

ETA: The leftovers. The potatoes are suffering a bit from forced perspective and appear larger than they really are. But the leftovers still filled that entire Styrofoam carton.


* And sucked down 1.5 large glasses of Dr. Pepper, which is why I'm fat.

Comments

[onthehill]

Um... where are your vegetables??? HUH?

[telophase]

The salad I consumed before the meal and the mashed potatoes were in a separate bowl that WOULDN'T FIT ON THE SCREEN!

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I feel vaguely ill just looking at that.

I have this complaint about American portion sizes all the time, since I just can't eat all that much at a sitting. In Paris, say, I can eat a three-course meal and just feel pleasantly full. If I tried that in many American restaurants (no matter what kind of cuisine they serve) I would feel incredibly sick and probably still wouldn't finish.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

This is how much I took home! (http://www.magatsu.net/pic4/leftovers.jpg)

I think the potatoes are suffering a bit from forced perspective in that pic, as there wasn't as much as it appears left over. :)

This is one of the reasons I like the fine dining restaurants around here - they limit portion size so I can have an appetizer and entree and sometimes dessert, all in the same meal. Anything casual dining and I only order an entree and usually take half of it home.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Fine dining places do tend to be better, although still usually a bit much for me. One reason I like the semi-annual prix-fixe Restaurant Week promotions in the Boston area is that most of the better places, in order to serve their food at those prices, just serve smaller portions. (The other reason is of course the lower prices.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I've fallen in love with tasting menus, because I can start by ordering two things and then order more later if it's not enough. Not enough restaurants around here offer them, though.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we should go to more small-plates places. There are a number around here but they never seem to be convenient when we want them.

And of course dim sum is good for this too.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

I loved eating in Europe because then I could have dessert or an appetizer and not die. (I wanted to taste all the things!)

My mom and I often get Chinese food to go and plan that each entree will make four single-meal servings, which is fairly cheap as takeout goes. No way could I eat that much steak.

Now I am craving country fried steak. Dammit. My second favorite is country fried pork steak, although it's sometimes hard to find.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Toby and I usually plan for leftovers when going out to eat. There's a BBQ place near here that will feed each of us at least 3 meals if we each get a three-meat platter.

I've never had country fried pork! Sounds good!

[wyrdness.livejournal.com]

I'm worried by the thought that there might be anyone that could eat all of that in one sitting and not feel like they're going to explode, it's not like I'm a slim waif of a girl that eats half a tangerine a day or anything either.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I know people who could. Ironically, one of them is Toby's brother, who is skinny and has the metabolism of a ferret on meth. He could eat that, an appetizer, and dessert.

[wyrdness.livejournal.com]

How does his stomach not explode? Just... Urg! I feel uncomfortable just thinking about it. Though I am not-so-secretly envious of those whose metabolisms will let them do that and not put on anything. I just have to breath to go over my daily allowance of everything! XD

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I don't know. It's like he once swallowed a bag of holding.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I could probably eat that and feel satisfied, rather than overfly stuffed.

I am lucky that I can eat a lot but not put on a huge amount of weight (note: not no weight, just not a lot). This gets less and less true as I get older, but is still decidedly noticeable.

I often confuse servers at restaurants by ordering another entree. "For here? The full entree, not the appetizer?"

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Heh. I often confuse servers by asking for no dressing on my salad. I don't like most dressings, so don't bother with them most times.

You'd think I had a second head or something the way some servers react. I've taken to placating the ones that are weirded out with "Why don't you bring me a slice of lemon I can put on it, then?" I usually end up with four or five of them, which I then put on my bread plate while I enjoy my dry salad.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

sexluthor gets strange looks in some restaurants, especially ones who aren't used to people asking for chicken-fried steak without gravy or plain-and-dry burgers. Most of the fast-food places don't even blink.

I agree with you about the serving sizes. They're getting out-of-control. As is our love of all-you-can-eat dining.

[wyrdness.livejournal.com]

Darn your metabolism *shakes a fist* Though I guess my way works out cheaper for me. :)

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I knew someone like that in grad school - he would always order two entrees in restaurants. Which he didn't eat in often, because (being a grad student) he had no money and having to buy twice as much food as anyone else was a constant problem for him.

[marumae.livejournal.com]

ACK. I will never get American sized portions, we don't NEED that much on a plate we really don't!

[jinian.livejournal.com]

They're doing that on purpose. If the THIS IS HUGE effect wasn't intended, they would get plates the right size.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

The plate is the size of a normal plate--this is in all seriousness the largest chicken fried steak I have ever been served.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I got it -- the hand for scale worked. :) But they knew they were going to make the dish that large, and plates do come in big sizes, so I think they are going for TEH DRAMA by making it hang over the edge.

[mvmarcz.livejournal.com]

I've ordered their chicken fried steak before but without the gravy and I believe I had a sweet potato...they do those there right?

I hate their fancy butter :(

[chisotahn]

SO MUCH STEAK O_O

My best friend and I have taken to just splitting entrees. Saves money, and we're both always full at the end!

[tprjones.livejournal.com]

There's a place here in the Houston area called Kelly's that has a $10 chicken fried steak breakfast that I like to get. The steak is a little larger than that and is very very good. It also comes with four eggs, a pile of hashbrowns that would fill half the plate in your photo, and a biscuit that is six inches in diameter. And of course a whole lot of cream gravy.

I get it to go and take it home (it comes in three styrofoam clamshells) and eat a portion of it for each meal for almost a week. The gravy isn't very good but the rest of it is delicious, and at that price it's a great deal.

I can't imagine actually sitting in the restaurant and trying to eat it, though. But I'm sure some people do.