#85 - Eat something different than my "usual"...check!

Let me just kick this off by saying that I have a feeling all food-related list tasks are going to be somewhat easy for me to accomplish.  The irony of my love for food is that it's counterproductive to my other list item of losing two decades of weight. 

That said, I have successfully completed item #85~Eat something different than my "usual" at least once each at Carrabba's, Chili's, and Zaxby's.

In our "old life", this would have been one of the first tasks completed, but Sam and I dine out WAY less frequently than we used to partially thanks to list item #17~Eat every meal at home and bring lunch to work every day for a week creating a new habit and partially thanks to us coming to our senses about spending money on dining out.  Not to mention, it's less enjoyable to dine out with three kids.  They're pretty good, but really.  It's just not easy.

I am one of those people who gets pigeon-holed when it comes to menu items.  I find something I like and order it ad nauseum.  (Or, at least, it would seem ad nauseum to others.  I don't generally grow weary of things.)  So, this might seem like an easy task, but I'm not much of a risk taker.  Why mess with something great, ya know?  Well I did it. 

At Carrabba's, I typically order the Chicken Bryan.  It's hard to improve on goat cheese, lemon-butter, and grilled chicken, so you can see why it was difficult for me to order anything different.  As luck would have it, we went there one day when I was completely and totally in the mood for pizza, so that's what I ordered...the Italian Chicken Pizza.  It's topped with grilled chicken, pine nuts, scallions, cheese (of course), and an Italian sweet & sour sauce instead of traditional tomato-based pizza sauce.  In a word, it's awesome.  So now I have two choices when I go there.  Who knew there were *other* good things on the menu?

At Chili's, I bounce back and forth between the Southwestern Cobb Salad (which is probably the least healthy salad in the history of the world) and the Chicken Fajita Quesadillas.  Perhaps it's not a huge stretch, but my alternative menu choice was the Jalapeno Steak Quesadillas, since they were an option on the 2 for $20 list.  They were super tasty.  Though I'm not sure they'll become a new "usual" for me.  (Random aside:  When Sam and I lived in our apartment in Macon, we could literally walk to Chili's.  We ate their so regularly that after we were seated, the server would automatically come to the table with our drinks and chips & salsa without even asking.  It was the first place I ever had that "Norm!" feeling.  It was nice, albeit slightly embarrassing.)

Finally, there was Zaxby's.  I found it humorous that this was the last one for me to accomplish.  If I had made this list even a year sooner, Zaxby's would have been the first place I'd have been able to cross off.  While we worked on the infamous bathroom project we regularly ran to Zaxby's in lieu of cooking.  Sam and I both *always* order the Kickin' Chicken Sandwich meal.  (In my older Zaxby's days, I ordered the Italian Chicken Sandwich which is no longer on the menu.  It was a sad, sad day when I discovered that.)  I met Sam for lunch last Thursday and tried the Asian Zensation salad.  It came with a cute little spring roll.  It surpassed all of my expectations.  (Another random aside:  Sam ran a report in Microsoft Money several months ago and determined that of all of our dining out expenditures, Zaxby's ranked in the top 3.  This is pretty ridiculous considering how inexpensive their food is.  We have eaten there A LOT over the course of our marriage.)

So there it is.  This puts me at 13 tasks completed.  "Only" 88 to go.