2 Weeks Down, 2.4 Pounds GAINED, Restaurant Week Enjoyed! :)

Anyone reading is welcomed (and encouraged) to send me their weekly weight so we can track together and motivate each other to continue to lose weight. "Alex - Projected" would be my weight loss of 40 pounds by my birthday on 6/12, at a steady 1.9 pounds per week. "Alex - Actual" is my actual weight loss. I can also post your weight anonymously if you prefer, such as my good friend "Benny Platinum", whose true identity will remain a secret! Also, you may have noticed that "Judy" doesn't actually weigh 0 pounds. She's opted to only send in her weight changes, so we'll track from a starting point of zero pounds. You're all welcome to pursue this option as well if you don't want to give your actual weight. We'll make a nice colored line on the graph for you too!


2 Weeks Down, 2.4 Pounds GAINED, Restaurant Week Enjoyed! :)

The upside of this past week is that I LOVE NYC RESTAURANT WEEK! $35.00 prix fix for an appetizer, entrée and dessert at NYC's best restaurants just can't be beat. The downside? Restaurant week and my scale are mortal enemies, destined to battle to the death within the confines of kitchen stadium...

For those who looked at the graph above before reading this post, 10 points! For the rest of us who don't follow the rules, I did, in fact, GAIN 2.4 pounds this week! EEK! Well, not really eek, maybe a little eek with a side of "oh well" (or a side of fries, I like those too). Honestly, I don't expect to lose weight every week from now until June, though it would look good on my graph. The reality is, sometimes life (i.e. Restaurant Week, feeling sick, stress at work/home/anywhere, free meals and a billion other things) get in the way of the best laid plans.

So why am I not freaking out about it? Because I'm still 1.8 pounds lighter than when I started this endeavor, and there were a lot of really good things weight related that happened this week:

• I TRACKED ALL THE FOOD I ATE on WeightWatchers. Yes even that pint of ice cream (Hagen Daaz Caramel Cone, mmm) got tracked. And in my defense, I ate it over the course of two days, not all in one sitting. My weekly points looked something like this. Pay special attention to the two red circles:

• "Red Circle -104" So let's say I get 49 points a day, plus an extra 49 points to spread over the week. What the -104 means is that in ADDITION to my 49 daily and weekly points, I ate an EXTRA 104 points, or about 2 extra days worth of food. I'll keep tracking how far over/under I am on my weekly points and see how that correlates to weight loss over time.

• "Red Circle 4-4-4" I GOT TO THE GYM THIS WEEK! Not once, not twice, but THRICE! Each time I did 40 minutes at a medium pace on the elliptical (and watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica). Getting to the gym at all, even in the midst of a week of serious eating, is a VERY big improvement for me!

Since I did gain this week, I feel that I owe it to you all to explain exactly what restaurant week has done to me, by listing the best dish I had at each restaurant I went to. (Disclaimer: For those in shock right now, I did say this blog would be about "my experiences with food", both good and bad. This week happened to be realllyyy good). I've included pictures where possible. 

• Nobu Next Door: Rock Shrimp Tempura with Creamy Spicy Sauce. This is still hands down the best rock shrimp temppura I've ever had. The shrimp are lightly battered and plated in a tower-like manner in a deep round dish, with a creamy lime sauce and greens on top. I've eaten a lot of rock shrimp tempura, and it really doesn't get any better than this.

Rock Shrimp Tempura

Nobu Next Door

• Russian Tea Room: Goat Cheese and Wild Mushroom Blinchiki. From their menu,"Chestnut crepe filled with mushrooms and melted onions topped with duck rillettes and finished with duck pomegranate reduction." So The Russian Tea Room wasn't actually on my original restaurant week list, though I ended up there to hear Jerry Spring (yes, Jerry Springer) speak at a Hudson Union Society event. He was actually very interesting and articulate, and pretty much acknowledged that his TV show was crap. He spoke about the current political landscape, the evolution of media and his time as mayor of Cincinnati. The actual best part of my meal though was the Russian Standard Vodka Dirty Martini with Extra Olives. The Russians sure do know what to do with their vodka. 

The Russian Tea Room

Jerry, Jerry!

• Nougatine at Jean Georges. This was hands down my favorite meal, for both the taste and presentation, so I'm going to have to describe three dishes. The Grilled Shrimp with Carrot Ginger Puree was literally the best shrimp I have EVER had. I don't know what they coated the shrimp in before grilling, but the outside was crisp and a tiny bit salty, while the shrimp themselves were tender and juicy, with just the right amount of shrimpy seafood taste. The dish was covered with roasted pumpkin seeds to boot. For dessert we had the famous Jean-Georges Warm Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. Now a LOT of people and restaurants have tried to recreate this dish, but Jean-George really just still nails it. The cake on the outside is firm and coated in powdered sugar, but contains a molten chocolate lava flow of deliciousness on the inside. Personally, I like to make this recipe at home with Hershey's chocolate instead of the fancy shmancy Valrhona, but that's just because I like my chocolate desserts less subtle and more sweet. We also ordered with dessert the Black Cherry-Yuzu Soda. I might develop a serious addiction to this drink. It's like Orangina but less outright sweet, and black cherry-yuzu flavored instead of orange. And as an added bonus, Jean-Georges himself was actually walking around the restaurant talking to guests, so small celebrity sighting there! All in all, the food, presentation, atmosphere, and my date were all delightful :) 

Grilled Shrimp with Carrot Ginger Puree

Jean-Georges Warm Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Black Cherry-Yuzu Soda

Nougatine @ Jean Georges

• The Oak Room at The Plaza Hotel: Truffled Tater Tots with Peach Ketchup. Now, I'm a sucker for tater tots, and darn my American blood, I LOVE ketchup. (Don't tell anyone but I used to eat cocktail sauce by itself before I learned it was just ketchup and horseradish. After that, I couldn't quite justify it.) But add truffle to the tater tots and peach to the ketchup, and we're not in Kansas anymore Toto. The tots were the perfect amount of crispy, and instead of your traditional tater tot crust, they had a much thinner, less granular outer layer. The peach ketchup really tasted just like peach flavored Heinz (this is a BIG compliment in my book, I love Heinz and when most restaurants try to make their own ketchup it tastes like crap), and complimented the tots perfectly. 

The Oak Room at The Plaza Hotel

Well if you're still reading this, then you must be a foodie too! You might also now understand how much I love good food, and why losing weight during restaurant week is going to be difficult. Also if you're interested in a great food blog (with no mention of losing weight), check out http://YentaLovesToNosh.blogspot.com

Lastly, in addition to restaurant week, my wonderful girlfriend got us a French Country cooking class at the Institute of Culinary Education. A class of 17 of us made some very delicious dishes, and then ate them all. We may have also invaded the Steakhouse and Strudel classes next door and asked for their leftovers :) It looked something like this:

Sausage and onions simmering on the stove. We burned this, but it still tasted great.

Here I am painstakingly filling empanadas one by one

The finished product!

Our feast! Not shown is the chocolate mousse

As I look to the week ahead, which still includes dinners at Le Cirque and One If By Land, Two If By Sea, and of course the Super Bowl, my goals are to continue to track everything I eat, get to the gym two or three times, and enjoy some of the finest restaurants in New York!