Charlotte Restaurant Week

It's Restaurant Week here in Charlotte. Which basically means a bunch of nicer restaurants offer 3 or 4 course meals for a set price of 30 bucks. It's SUCH a good deal! I had plans to meet up with 2 friends that I hadn't seen in a while for sushi... but we decided to skip sushi and chose a place that was doing Restaurant Week. We went to Black Finn. It's a new place in uptown Charlotte that none of us had been to.

The full RW menu is listed here. Feel free to check it out. Totally insane.

We had reservations at 6:30 which was perfect. I had time to go home, change play with the pup a little and head out. We had such a great time -- just did lots of laughing... AND EATING!!! First course I got the soup du jour (I LOVE a soup du jour) it was a minestrone. It wasn't all that amazing, but it was good. And it came with those little oyster crackers which I LOVE! It was a small bowl and I ate half. Then the app... CHEESE STICKS! They were wanton wrappers filled with 3 kinds of cheese and then deep fried served with some marinara. They were quite good. Though part of me was missing the breaded fried goodness of real mozz sticks. I ate 3 out of the FIVE! The portion was crazy. Though they weren't that big. Then the entree... FILLET!!!!! (I should mention that I've never in my life ordered a steak. I'd never even eaten it until Christmas when I tried it and fell in love. I've always been a ground beef only as far as red meat is concered. All that has changed. I officially heart filet mignon.) It was a beautiful, perfectly round 8 oz piece of meat. It had peppercorns and other spices on top. I got it medium and it was a BIT pink in the middle for me but I ate around that. It literally melted in my mouth. HOW DID I NOT LIKE THIS BEFORE? It was so good. All 3 of us got it! It came with new potatoes and some sort of glazed carrots. I asked for steamed broc instead of the carrots but of course it came out with the carrots anyway. I didn't send it back because it wasnt that much of a big deal. I ate 1/2 the fillet, about 1/3 of the carrots and 1/2 the potatoes. There really weren't many potatoes or carrots at all. I have the middle of the fillet leftover and I plan on doing something fun with it tonight. Like slice it and make a quesadilla or something with it. More on that later. Then it was dessert. I was leaning towards the apple pie but couldn't decide so I asked the server what her recommended. He said the choc cake hands down. So I got it. I should have gone with the apple pie. The cake was SO heavy and like moussey and there was no ice cream or anything to balance out all of the chocolate. The apple pie looked SO much lighter and had a small dollop of ice cream on top. I ate like 4 bites of the cake (mostly the actual cake part which was the crust the rest was heavy mouse/pudding stuff) and that was that.

I was most certainly super full when I finished but I wasn't STUFFED. I drank about 4 glasses of water and passed on wine or beer. It was perfect! And 30 bucks! The fillet alone was 24.99 on the menu. SCORE!!!!!

So anyway... I'm thinking for dinner tonight of slicing the beef and just heating it up in a skillet. Then using a sammy thin and doing a panini type thing. Sautee up some spinach and then throw on some cheese and heat it all up. I think that would be amazing! We'll see but I think that's the plan. Also there's a blood drive across the street tomorrow and my iron is always low. They tell me to eat RED MEAT and SPINACH the night before giving blood to up my iron... so this would be perfect!

bfast:
cereal w/ 1/2 banana and milk - 5

Snack:
vitamuffin - 1

Lunch:
chili lime chicken burger w/ couscous - 5
TJs soup - 1

Snacks:
hummus w/ sammy thin and carrots - 2
applesauce - 0
rice cakes - 1

Snack pre boot camp:
handful of trail mix - 2

Dinner:
sammy thin, light cheese, 4 oz filet, spinach - 7
I feel like I need something else with it but have no idea what!!

Snack:
a WW lemon cake - 1

Thats over my poitns but I'll have APs. I just estimated my points from dinner last night... 27 JUST FOR DINNER! So I officially have TWO flex points left for the week. But I do have APs that I haven't tapped into yet so that's good. I'm going to try to stay under 25 points until Saturday. Should be doable.