Nice Dinner Out and About in Rockdale

My partner and I went out for dinner tonight to celebrate the end of a successful week for both of us. For me my success was in respect of the weight loss, and my partner it was getting through an interesting week workwise.

It was nice for the two of us to meet after work, and have a meal out so that we didn't have to cook tonight. We have been wanting to try some of the places in Rockdale, about a five minute walk from home. There are some interesting Asian restaurants and we decided that we would finally take the plunge sampling a Vietnamese place we've had our eye on ever since being asked to trapse around Darlinghurst looking unsuccessfully for a place that served Pho (picutred). As luck would have it we knew that this place had Pho, because that was the name of the joint!

I must admit that the walk to the restaurant taxed me a bit even though it is only five minutes away, and is only up a gentle hill. My legs have been getting progresively more sore during the day. I believe that it is mostly from the lunges that I was doing the other day, and I know that it isn't anything serious, just delayed onset muscle soreness. It felt good to get out and stretch them a bit, however I have decided that I wont be going to the gym tomorrow morning. I need at least a day off, possibly two to get over it. I'm sure that Pho isn't part of the diet, but to succeed long term with something like this, you have to learn to go out and handle being in a social setting and eating in a way that wont undo all the good work.

Pho turned out to be all that it was cranked up to be. Well the dish was anyway. It was a lovely soup like meal, with thin strips of meidum rare beef in it, rice noodles, and fresh bean sprouts on the side that you can add as you go so that they are not over cooked when you eat them. It was lovely, very filling, and one dish was enough for each of us. There was also fresh mint to add to the Pho as you went through it and I must say it was a wonderful dish. We also ordered some fried squid with chilli and garlic, however I only had one piece as I don't think that it is tremendously healthy!

Pho the restaurant was nice and the service was good. If anything the menu was a little too extensive at 8 pages and it was difficult to chose as complete novices to this type of Vietnamese food. The staff were polite, helpful, and the food we had was very tasty. I think that we will be heading back there at some stage. I think that the Pho was fairly healthy, although it probably had some fat in the stock that made up the liquid part of the soup but all things considered I think I did pretty well, and one meal out is not going to hurt me that much I am sure. The squid was cooked well, but the crumbs around it weren't that good. The food was very reasonably priced, AU$20 for the whole meal (squid, rice, pho, and a diet coke for me and a coffee on ice for my partner). Fantastic value, and we couldn't finish all the food that we had ordered.

I'd have to say that there were a number of things on the menu that I would have torn into in the old days, but used some will power to avoid tonight. The most impressive sounding of which were the deep fried crispy skin chicken wings stuffed with pork mince. Wooaaaahhhh! Sounds like instant heart attack material, but mate, I bet it tastes real good! Happily I will never know if it was good or not. There were also a number of fried pork concoctions, but again I stayed away from those prefering to stay with the healthier options.

I'm feeling good about where I am at right now, and I will be staring temptation in the face tomorrow night. There is a game of rugby union on tomorrow night that I have to watch at the pub across the road from Pho. It isn't on free to air tv, so we have to venture out to the pub at 11:00 p.m. to watch a highly charged game that would normally see me consume somewhere between 6-10 pints of beer in an hour and a half depending on how my team are doing! I plan to avoid beer and wine all night, and will see how I get on with diet coke. We'll eat before we go and being that late I should be okay in terms of the deep fired heavily salted snack treats that will be on offer!

I'll let you all know how I get on tomorrow night staring down temptation. It will be difficult, but I am determined to make it. I know that Aleman will be wishing me the best in my endeavour to stay off the booze while out socially. Fight the good fight my friends!