Eating Out is No Good For You

So the past two nights I've eaten out, I haven't posted to my blog, and I'm out over $100. I also haven't gone running, and I probably gained 10 pounds. So I'm deducing that eating out is no good for you. In an effort to remedy at least one of these things right now, I'll just say a word about where we ate.

A friend was visiting from out of town, and we went to a seminar on HIV and Incarceration in the West Village. Afterwards, a group of us went to Cafe de Bruxelles, a restaurant right around the corner from the Venue. The space specializes in Belgian beer and mussels, so that's what we had. We started with Duvel beer, which was surprisingly good, and then the waiter made the mistake of bringing a basket of bread, which we all inhaled immediately, and which was immediately after that filled again, and so on....The bread was really meant to sop up the juice from the mussels, but it was yummy all on it's own. One of my friends and I ordered curried mussels, and they were very good. I'm not big on shellfish, especially the kind I have to extract directly from it's shell, but this stuff was good. We must have each eaten a loaf of bread between us sopping up the yummy sauce. The mussels came with pomme frites ("Freedom Fries," as our French waiter told us), and they too were yummy and really bad for you. All in all, very tasty, great company, terrific service. Cost: $40 each, with an additional $15 for the cab fare back to Brooklyn. (Too much beer = reluctance to take the train)

The next night, D. and I wanted to try Max Brenner's Chocolate by the Bald Man that opened about 6 months ago at Union Square. We decided to go after seeing Happy Feet at the Regal theatre across the street. We really wanted to go because of the amazing chocolate desserts, so we shouldn't really have ordered dinner. The food was okay--we shared a prosciutto sandwich with cheddar cheese and a spinach and asparagus crepe--but we were both too full and fed up with the service to really want dessert. Instead, we went back to Brooklyn, shared a piece of dark chocolate, and decorated the tree. I don't think we'll go back to Max Brenner's....too trendy, and the prices weren't that great.