The problem with eating out

I'm supposed to meet up some friends later this afternoon for an early dinner. We're headed to Islands, an eatery which I've been to once or twice maybe, a long time ago.

Now, I'm lucky I have a few hours to prepare for my trip because I may need that time to figure out something to eat.

Islands is not the restaurant I would choose to if given the choice to eat out. I am not familiar with their menu and from what I remember they serve lots of hamburgers and such. Hamburgers have loads of calories and Islands burgers aren't any different.

I do have something on my side though. CalorieKing.com helps me out tremendously when going to places like Islands, places I've not been to before. CalorieKing doesn't have every single dish on every single restaurant but for chains like Islands and Denny's and McDonald's and such they do.

Here's the link to the Islands page. Now, for kicks you should go there and see what you can find that would be a sensible dinner. So far, and I've glanced through it a few times, I've only found one dish that is less than 600 calories.

Now, I have basically decided on one thing - the Tortilla soup. This is fairly disappointing, because I don't like to go out and order something that I can make at home. I love this recipe for Tortilla Soup. I don't know what the Islands one will taste like but mine tastes pretty good. And I just made it about five days ago. And I have everything to make it again.

But the thought of ordering a burger with around 2,000 calories in it makes me cringe. And I don't like to cringe.

This unfortunate situation just illustrates how difficult it is for me to out and eat. With children, it's difficult to go out to eat unless it's a place like Denny's, which we used to frequent quite often. But when you get the chance to go out with fellow adults sans kids, it expands your options but at the same time could make it more difficult to find something decent to eat. And really, that takes the fun out of going out. If Thursday hadn't have been Thanksgiving, I might have called today a cheat day but two cheat days in a span of four days? No way.

Hence, the Tortilla soup option. Ugh. I suppose I'll just smile and pretend I'm enjoying the food.