Red Lobster Tuesday

Tuesday saw a lack of appetizing options at the cafeteria, so I went big for dinner. Met my buddies Jody and Jesse at Red Lobster for dinner. I went with the Ultimate Feast, and started with the potato soup instead of a salad (big surprise):

The soup was really good. The potato chunks were cooked well, and the soup wasn't too hot. It had just the right amount of seasoning, I didn't have to salt or pepper it. The biscuits were nice and warm and just the right mix between gooey and crumbly.

The main course was the feast of crab legs, lobster tail, breaded fried shrimp, shrimp scampi, and a side of mashed potatoes (I've been having bad luck with baked potatoes from restaurants lately):

The crab legs were pretty good, but not great. I had some issues getting all the meat out of them, and it wasn't completely my fault. The lobster tail was really good, nice flavor and texture and wasn't over cooked as it has been in the past. The fried shrimp was even better, but the scampi was perfect.

Wendy's

On Monday the 16th, I headed over to Wendy's to get some take out lunch:

I went with the usual for me, the #2 combo (double burger, ketchup only), and fries. The burger was really good, they got it right on the first try (a lot of places insist on putting cheese on my HAMBURGERS, especially when I emphasize no cheese) and they actually put ketchup on both buns. The fries were tasty and not too crunchy, which is how I like them.

Sunday's Hibachi Dinner

I didn't eat much on Sunday, so I hit up the local Japanese place for a big dinner. I started with the soup and salad:

The soup was good, the salad was just ok. Next course, which I forgot to get a picture of, was a crunchy shrimp roll. It was really good, hence me forgetting to get the pic.

The main course was hibachi grilled shrimp, steak and chicken (with zucchini, onions and mushrooms) and an order of fried rice:

You can't really see the shrimp, but it's hiding behind the bowl of fried rice. The shrimp was good, the chicken and steak were outstanding. The onion was pretty good, and the squash was really good. The rice was pretty good as well, it was much better once I got it mixed in with the juices from the steak.

Saturday The 14th

On Saturday the 14th, I went in to work to make up some missed time. So, for lunch, we (so did the coworkers) walked to the cafeteria. They had pork tenderloin that looked aight, so I partook of it:

The pork was very tender, and still fairly juicy. Their flavoring, however, didn't really penetrate it, which is normal for them. The gravy on the potatoes was just ok, I figured it'd be pretty stout with flavor. The potatoes were just ok.

For dinner that night, we hit the Brick Oven in Hernando. This is pretty much my favorite local pizza place. I usually either get the "Bubba's Choice" which is their meat lover's, or their Pulled Pork BBQ. I went with the bbq this time:

It comes with bbq sauce instead of pizza sauce, then the bbq pork, then they douse it with cheese. This is just the standard order of it (in 10" size), I didn't request extra cheese. The pizza was outstanding, great flavor, a ton of cheese, and a tasty (albeit) thin crust.

Another Leonard's Trip

On Friday, we ventured out to Leonard's again. I went with the usual country fried steak, fried okra, mashed potatoes, but added a little corn on the cob on the first trip:

On the second trip, it was pretty much the same thing, except I subbed baked beans for the corn.

The steak was really good. Nice and tender and it had a great flavor. The corn was very juicy and tasty. The okra was cooked about perfect, nice and crunch, the breading was just right on flavor. The baked beans were very tasty, good amount of texture and the flavor of them were a nice contrast with the super sweet barbecue sauce they were cooked in.

Salisbury Steak

Welp, I've done it this time. Waited too long between updates. So, the ones coming up aren't going to be too complete, and I'll only be talking about whatever I've got pictures of, as those can jog my memory.

On this day, I had Salisbury steak from the cafeteria:

The steak was ok. It was tougher than it usually is, but the flavor was pretty good. The potatoes were pretty weak, flavor wise, but again, the gravy did a good job of filling in for them.

A Chicken Experiment

Back in high school, I remember that they would have, every so often, a dish that perplexed the heck out of me: Oven Fried Chicken. I decided to try this concoction out for myself. I have no idea if how I went about it was how they did, nor do I really care.

I took two chicken breasts and gave them a thorough dunking / marinating in a seasoned milk dip, then breaded them in a seasoned flour mixture (sea salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, all purpose seasoning and a dash of sage):

Then I tossed them into the oven at 475 degrees for about 20 minutes, then at ... either 325 or 350 (don't remember which now) for an hour. This is how they looked coming out:

Not too bad, I teamed them up with some instant potatoes and some of the (spoiler alert) blandest English peas I've ever had:

The skin of the chicken had a great flavor, it worked its way into the meat just ok, but it was very juicy. The potatoes were pretty good (considering I was out of salt) and the English peas sucked. They had no flavor at all, but I ate them anyway. The chicken was so good, I went back and finished the second breast after the first one, but I didn't finish the potatoes.

Pizza Night

Tuesday was another crap day at the cafeteria, so I went pretty big for dinner. And it was slightly odd for me. I usually prefer pan pizzas, the more crust the better. But I had a hankering for a thin crust pizza, and since that almost never happens, I decided to jump on it.

I went with Pizza Hut's thin crust with beef and Italian sausage, and some cheese sticks. And as I was uber hungry, you can see I forgot to take a pic when it first got there.

The pizza was pretty good, less cheese on it than I had hoped for, but the cheese sticks pretty much made up for that. All in all it was good, and I felt I got my money's worth.

Meaty Monday

For lunch on Monday, I was fairly hungry. And the cafeteria was gracious enough to have a roasted pork loin and mashed potatoes with gravy. I went with that:

The pork loin was ok, still no where near as good as mine. The meat was fairly tender, but there was not that much flavor that managed to get into it. Near the edges, it had some, but just not in the interior. Their gravy helped with that though. The mashed potatoes were pretty horrible, and made me regret getting 2 servings of them. They had pretty much no flavor, almost as if they were instant and made with only the flakes and water, no milk, butter, or seasonings of any kind.

I had intended on cooking some chicken for dinner, but I stayed at work later than I had anticipated. So I hit up the old Arby's on the way home, and got my usual #2 combo:

The meal was good as usual. The potato cakes were good and the sandwich was really good, nice hot and juicy.

A pattern emerges

Sunday after church, I stopped by the parents' house with the intent of taking (at least) Mom to see Spider-man. She wasn't there, so Sis and I went to get some lunch before catching the movie. We went to Chili's where I had the "Chicken Crispers" which is their battered chicken tenders. They come with a corn on the cob and another side, which I chose mashed potatoes and gravy (big surprise). The corn was ok, not as good as it usually is (needed more butter), but it was cooked very well and was surprisingly juicy (at one point as I took a bite a gout of juice shot across the table. The chicken was ok, a couple of the pieces were very well battered and cooked, but some of it was barely battered therefore almost over cooked. The potatoes were surprisingly good considering, and the gravy was merely ok. As you've probably gathered, I forgot to get a picture of it.

I had a kind of late dinner, and since it was running later in the evening, I decided to go with the somewhat quick (but very easy) fried rice. This one I did all myself, and managed to not screw it up too bad:

It could've used a bit more soy sauce or garlic, as I didn't have any salt (still) to add to it. Overall, though, it was good, especially considering I thought I over watered it in the rice cooker portion.

A Birthday Party

On Saturday, I had some crappy chicken nuggets for a light lunch (didn't eat them all, but it did finish that bag off). The fries were marginally better (we ran out of salt earlier in the week and I kept forgetting to pick some up).

That evening, I attended a birthday party for my friend and supervisor. His parents had it catered by Crepemaker. First time I've had their food, and it was pretty good. I had a ... steak milanese I think is what it was called. I had steak, ham, red onions, romain lettuce and some A-1 in a toasted crepe (I had them hold the tomatoes and cheese). It was good, kinda like a wrap, but the egg flavor of the crepe handily slaps flour tortillas in my opinion. I could've gotten one of their dessert crepes, but I chose to go with the chocolate mousse birthday cake instead. And I found out that night that Pepsi Max is one of the worst tasting soft drinks I've ever had the displeasure to taste.

Mexican Food Friday

Friday I skipped lunch (nothing looked good at the cafeteria) and met most of the gang for dinner at one of the three million mexican places in Southaven. Their chips were ok, not salted though, but the salsa was pretty tasty and not too spicy. I went with the steak and chicken fajitas for my dinner. And I forgot to get a pic of them. But just imagine any usual pile of onions green and red bell peppers, chicken and steak on a sizzling skillet, and you've got the picture. However, this stuff was better than usual, and the flavor actually sunk into the meat. For dessert, I had most of a small Reese's blast from Sonic.

Ethnic Thursday

I was fairly hungry on Thursday after only having one meal on Wednesday. And I was actually having a Chinese craving, so I got lucky at the cafeteria that day. One of the exhibition stations was doing chicken fried rice and egg rolls:

Being hungry, I grabbed 2 egg rolls (and they were a bit skinnier than usual) and some fried rice. The egg rolls were not as good as usual, but they were still good. The fried rice was tasty.

For dinner that night, Jesse and I went with a $10 box from Pizza Hut. As you can tell, I forgot to grab a before pic, so here's what it looked like when we were done:

It had a thing of cheese sticks, a breadstick pan pizza that had sausage, pepperoni and extra cheese and some cinnamon sticks. It was all GREAT. It got there while everything was still hot and gooey (hence the forgetting of the pic).

4th of July

For the 3rd and 4th of July I have no photos. But, I did eat. On the 3rd, which was a Tuesday, The Amazing Spider-man was released, so I went to catch it with half of the Tuesday night gaming group. We did catch the early afternoon showing though. I went with my usual corn dog and frozen coke. The corn dog was a bit light on the breading, but was still very tasty and filling.

After the flick, we ventured to Logan's for dinner before the game. I went with the steak and grilled shrimp combo (an ... 8 oz sirloin I think). I had it medium rare, and it came out more in the medium range. Had a baked potato with it and was supposed to have some onion petals also, which I never got, and didn't realize I didn't get them till well after the waitress asked if everything was ok. Plus it took forever for her to show up and at least 3 times she forgot to bring refills on everyone's drinks. It's a shame she wasn't that great, the food was pretty good.

On the 4th, I stayed at home. Andrew and Breta made some barbecued meat and baked beans and some potato salad. They had company come over with some kinda pasta salad. I left those two alone and had some bbq sandwiches, chips and the beans. The meat was pretty good, as were the beans. I would've liked for them to be a little more ... soupy I guess, they were kind of dry and not quite as sweet as I like, but overall they were just fine.

Even more healthy eating

Nothing looked good for lunch on Monday, and I didn't feel like going out to get anything, so I finished off the frozen sausage balls that were in the freezer at the office, and went with a Coke to stave off a lack of caffeine headache:

The sausage balls were ok, I over cooked them a hair. They may not look it there, but they were a bit dried out.

For dinner, I went with some fried rice:

All that's in there is rice and an egg. I seasoned with soy sauce, garlic powder, butter (margarine / parkay) olive oil, onion powder and some salt and pepper. It was pretty good, I over fried a little bit of it (crispy kernels) but man were they tasty.

Junk Food Day

After church, I stopped in at Burger King, as I had a craving for a Whopper. I went with the usual ketchup only, and onion rings instead of fries. I got a coke AND a frozen coke (I can almost never resist those):

What's missing from this? The "challonge" that was thrown at me by Tab, the bacon sundae. I had completely and utterly forgot about trying it. I picked this up on the way to my parents' house and stayed over there for a few hours. It was after that and on the way home before I realized that I forgot about the sundae. Sorry Tab, it'll have to come some other time (assuming I can still get it, they were advertising Memphis style BBQ on the screens up there, which is the main reason I forgot about it.) Anyway, the burger was pretty good, the onion rings were only ok. Their coke mix is outstanding though, and the frozen coke was really good too.

I wasn't too hungry that evening, so I snacked on some chips and Pancho's nacho cheese dip for dinner:

I like to toast the chips in the oven for a few minutes to warm them up and give it a more authentic feel.

Roasted Chicken

On Saturday, I brined and roasted a couple of chicken breasts. Well, technically I started the brine on Friday night. I went with the usual corn and mashed (instant) potatoes with them:

The chicken was really good. The skin was outstanding, and the meat was very juicy and flavorful also. Not the best I've ever fixed, but far from the worst. The corn was nice and buttery and not overly salted, and the potatoes were good. I got just enough salt and pepper and a bit of garlic in there. The roll was a Sister Schubert's brown and serve roll.

Fast Food

For lunch on Friday (no movie thanks to Paramount's boneheaded move in delaying G.I. Joe: Retaliation), I had a craving for a corn dog, so I picked one up from the cafeteria. As you may guess from the angle of pic, I forgot to grab the shot before digging in. The corn dog was good, the fries were pretty good, but they do have problems with salt sticking to them:

For dinner that night, I stopped in a the old Arby's. Unlike normal, I was fairly hungry (that corn dog up there was only missing about 2 bites, so not very big) so I went with the #3 combo (max sized roast beef sandwich) and potato cakes:

The sandwich was great, the meat was nice and hot and very juicy. The potato cakes were cooked well and not very greasy.

Weak sauce

Sorry for the long break in posts. #1 I was lazy, and #2 I had issues getting the pics uploaded from my phone.

As a result, I'm foggy on a lot of this and will be going off of the pics to try and remember the food.

On Thursday (28th of June for those keeping up), I had a salad and an egg roll for lunch:

The egg roll was good, the salad was pretty good. There's some ham and chicken hidden under the first layer of greens there. I managed to get a really good amount of dressing on there, not too much nor too little.

I don't remember what I had for dinner that night, I'm thinking it was Buffalo Wild Wings ribs and boneless wings combo. I know I had it one Thursday night, and I'm thinking that was the one. In any case, it was pretty good, the "wings" were pretty weak, but the ribs were really good.