8-9-12

On Thursday, the 9th, I went with a turkey and bacon wrap, an egg roll, and a cupcake for lunch:

The lady didn't offer to panini press it, so I just nuked it once I got it back to the office. It was ok, it needed something, maybe I'll see if they have some  honey mustard they can spread around the inside of it next time. The egg roll was pretty good, they're still not as good as they used to be. They're still making these evile cupcakes, and they're still stupidly tasty.

Didn't have dinner, but after the game, Jody, Grynner and I ventured to the old IHOP as we've not done in ages. I was fairly hungry, so I went with the country fried steak breakfast:

The pancakes were outstanding and finally quenched my pancake craving. I didn't even realize I was still having the pancake craving until I ate the first bite of them. The eggs were really good, and the hashbrowns were really good, for IHOP's. Still didn't hold a candle to Waffle House's. The country fried steak was the let down here, it was riddled with way too much connective tissue, so much so that I didn't eat much more than what you see in that pic. The flavor was good, but it was just a bad cut of meat, and I was so full off the other stuff on the plates (Jody got an appetizer sampler, so I had a chicken tender, a cheese stick and some onion rings off of it) I didn't finish it.

Beef, it's what's for food

On Wednesday, the cafeteria did us the great honor of providing country fried steak and mashed potatoes, so I did my part by eating it:

The potatoes were fairly weak, flavor wise, but had great texture, the steak was good, but the breading was a bit tough to get through. The gravy was its usually great self.

For dinner, I was having an honest to <deity> Arby's craving, not just a "Well, it's usually good and it's not too expensive and it's so CLOSE to home" settle for Arby's craving. After the good and filling lunch, but really wanting the food, I settled on a medium combo:

This meal brought to you by Weyland-Yutani Corp.

The sandwich was everything I'd hoping it would be. The potato cakes were great. A meal that lived up to the craving is a wonderful (and rare) thing of beauty.

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.

A long time coming

Wednesday saw the office's long awaited return to Leonard's Barbecue. They have an outstanding buffet, that has a MWF and T-Th schedule. The MWF one is more of a southern cooking type, whereas the T-Th is a flat out bbq extravaganza. More of us prefer the southern one, due to their country fried steak, so we went there on Wednesday.

That's a mountain of mashed potatoes, a couple of pieces of country fried steak, some fried okra and a roll. Now double that pic (excepting the roll) and that's what I had to eat on Wednesday. There was no dinner that night, I was still working on lunch.

Their country fried steak is pretty much the best I've ever had. The gravy is good, but I prefer the cafeteria's and Paula Deen's over theirs. The fried okra was OUTSTANDING. It was, for me, perfect. Nice and crunchy, just the right amount of salt, but you still had the pop of the seeds inside. The potatoes were the weak link, once again. They had a great consistency, but they just didn't have any seasoning. It was tough to get them salty enough because of the gravy being on there you couldn't really mix it in. Their rolls are ok, they're similar to Sister Schubert's, but they're a bit too dense for my liking, so I usually only eat a half of one.

Trifecta

On Thursday, I had a trifecta of sorts. I hit up food from 3 different ethnicities. For lunch, I went with the cafeteria's wonderful country fried steak, mashed potatoes with gravy and one of their egg rolls:

The steak was good as usual, the potatoes were pretty good, the gravy outstanding and the egg roll was deliciously meat filled as usual.

For dinner that night, Jody, Jesse and I hit up the Pizza Hut's box meal, which was a "medium pan pizza" (in actuality their bread sticks with sauce, cheese and toppings, which I LOVE) cheese sticks and cinnamon sticks. We went with a meat lover's for the pizza. It got delivered in a timely manner (unlike the last time) and as a result, was nice and warm and appropriately gooey. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get a pic of it, so here's a tiny pic of the generic item from Pizza Hut's website:

It evens out, right?

For lunch, the cafeteria had their superb country fried steak. I was rather hungry, so I went with 2 sides, both potatoes and gravy (the other sides were stuff that I don't like, and I can't remember which ones).

The steak was good, as usual, but I'm going to have to get them to start putting some gravy on both sides. The crust is a little tougher than plastic knife is good for, and I'm afraid that I'm going to end up going through the foam container. Crust is great, otherwise, it's actually not too thick or crunchy, it's just the interaction with the container. The potatoes were ok, not very well seasoned, but not bereft of it as they usually are.

For dinner, I tried to even out the heart attack of a lunch with a baked pork chop, roasted zucchini and some corn:

The pork chop was very good. I went with my usual mix of salt, pepper, garlic powder and a little bit of onion powder this time. The zucchini had the same, but instead of onion powder I added some butter as it was almost done. The corn just had some salt and butter.

I tried to be good

I had planned on having a salad for lunch today. But, I kept going past the salad area to the hot food area. And there it was, staring at me. I knew at that point I was doomed, so I got into the stupidly short line there (it's usually the longest and was the shortest today). It was chicken fried steak day.

I've gone on about how good the cafeteria's brown gravy is, and how it enhances whatever it's draped across. Well, their chicken fried steak is almost always good. I think this is only the third or fourth time I've been in there when they've had it, and it's been at least good each time. And then add that stuff to it. Nope, salad never had a chance against this. The potatoes were pretty good today also.

For dinner, there is no picture, not because I forgot, but because I ate it on the way home. I stopped in at Chick-fil-a and got a #1 combo (Chicken sammich no pickles, fries and a Sprite). It was good. I've not been to one in a while, as I had hit that point where you eat something so much, it kinda loses that great taste that made you like it in the first place. I'm happy to report, that didn't happen this time, it had that same great flavor that made me love their chicken in the beginning.