{"id":10208,"date":"2010-06-23T00:47:15","date_gmt":"2010-06-22T16:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2010\/06\/23\/how-to-kill-yourself-with-food\/"},"modified":"2010-06-23T08:34:42","modified_gmt":"2010-06-23T00:34:42","slug":"how-to-kill-yourself-with-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2010\/06\/23\/how-to-kill-yourself-with-food\/","title":{"rendered":"How to kill yourself (with food)"},"content":{"rendered":"

One thing I\u2019ve always wondered is how Matt \u2013 our Ang Mo bud \u2013 can manage all the food he takes in, and still lose weight. Now that I get to dine with him in cuisine and food types he\u2019s familiar with, I’m even the more stunned. On both occasions, the workflow is about the same:<\/p>\n

1. \u201cHey, this looks like a cool restaurant \u2013 let\u2019s check it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. \u201cThis menu item looks neat. We don\u2019t know what the heck it is, but it sure looks interesting! We\u2019ll have it, waiter.\u201d (repeat several times).<\/p>\n

3. <One hour passes><\/p>\n

4. \u201cOMG \u2013 I\u2019m about to die here. That was waaaaaaayyyy too much food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Basically, what routinely looks like a good idea \u2013 checking into a new restaurant \u2013 almost always turns out into a really<\/em><\/strong> bad idea. And only because we\u2019ll usually order too much food than we both can finish!<\/p>\n

Say, for instance, on Friday evening, we checked out an Indian restaurant in Central Square that Matt walked past earlier on. The restaurant prides itself as being the first Indian restaurant in the city:<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-boston-OLYP1571-Gloucester\"<\/p>\n

We\u2019d barely sat down before we were served with Chapatis first \u2013 which was ordinary \u2013 but the very red-colored chili dip was murder! Or at least, I thought so, because all I could manage was a very thin layer on my Chapatis. Whereas Matt dipped it all in, scooped up a load, and ate it all up in a gulp.:)<\/p>\n

Then the appetizers. I had an Indian chicken sort of soup that was very tasty (it looked like it had been stewed for a while), and a Mango lassi. I haven\u2019t had this before \u2013 lots of stuff I haven\u2019t tried even as a Singaporean \u2013 and it was all good.<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-boston-DSC_A0714-IndianDinner\" \"blog-2010-boston-DSC_A0717-IndianDinner\"<\/p>\n

Then trouble began. Matt said \u201cI got to get me some of those naans!\u201d, and here we went: two naans. Mine was garlic, and his a minced lamb sort of naan. They were HUGE. In the picture below, they\u2019re sliced up into halves and quarters respectively:<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-boston-DSC_A0718-IndianDinner\"<\/p>\n

The naans alone would have qualified for a full meal. Unfortunately, there was also the main course\u2026 I ordered the lamb vindaloo, and Matt a Chicken something<\/span> vindaloo; he\u2019ll have to comment here to let me know what it was! I haven\u2019t had a lot of vindaloos before, but this one was super spicy. I had a small bit, and the lips went aflame in horror. Matt sampled a spoonful, and said – \u201cYep, that tastes about alright. Average only though in spicyness \u2013 yummy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Had water to the rescue. The waiter came with one with a few ice cubes floating in my glass. I called for another glass… but this time FULL of ice!<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-boston-DSC_A0723-IndianDinner\"<\/p>\n

By the time we were done, we felt sick. I was all camel, downing one mango lassi and three huge glasses of ice water, and still I felt like I\u2019d eaten only chili padi for dinner.<\/p>\n

As we stumbled out of the Indian restaurant, I swore that I was going to eat salads for the next dinner.<\/p>\n

On the following evening, Saturday, we\u2019d finished the whale watching trip off Gloucester and it was late in the evening at about 9 PM. We passed by a small town \u2013 Peabody \u2013 that was about midway between Gloucester and Boston, and decided to go get dinner\u2026 and Matt was all up for steak at the Outback Steakhouse along Andover Street. Oh boy.<\/p>\n

First they feed you with a sort of brown bread:<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-boston-DSC_A1281-Outback\"<\/p>\n

Then Matt ordered a huge plate of Mexican something that was very much like those KFC cheesy melts that Ling loves:<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-boston-DSC_A1284-Outback\"<\/p>\n

We should have stopped right there, because the above plate was enough to fill us both up. But heck no. Matt ordered a plate of very unique looking deep-fried onion rings which he remarked is the sort of stuff that will kill us – the dish was called ‘Bloomin Onion’:<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-boston-DSC_A1285-Outback\"<\/p>\n

And that wasn\u2019t even the main course. We had the same: The Outback Signature Sirloin Specials, with mash garlic potatoes and fresh greens sides. Both of us had 12 oz steaks, he had his medium-rare, mine was well-done. It doesn\u2019t look like a huge plate, but believe me when I say that the plate was \u201cAmerican\u201d-size:<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-boston-DSC_A1288-Outback\"<\/p>\n

And this time round we couldn\u2019t finish the food. Half of the onion rings were left on the table, the mash potatoes for me went largely untouched, and Matt didn\u2019t have stomach space for either sides. When the waiter came and asked if we\u2019d like the remaining food packed to go, we could only wave \u2013 sickly \u2013 no need to.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a funny bit of post-mortem. We were returning the car to the rental agency back near Central Square, so Matt put the car through a wash. A very unique sort of wash that I video-taped for fun. I\u2019ll post it up later.:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing I\u2019ve always wondered is how Matt \u2013 our Ang Mo bud \u2013 can manage all the food he takes in, and still lose weight. Now that I get to dine with him in cuisine and food types he\u2019s<\/p>\n

Read More How to kill yourself (with food)<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9,17],"tags":[469,137,363],"class_list":["post-10208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ang-mo","category-dining","category-traveling","tag-boston-2010","tag-d300","tag-sigma-18-250mm","wpcat-4-id","wpcat-9-id","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}