Chicago is in the midst of its annual restaurant week, a time when local restaurants offer specially priced menus to draw people in on cold winter days and nights. It’s a good time to try new places but can you find healthy offerings? Well, sort of.
Restaurant food is notoriously high in salt, fat and sugar. So you need to be picky, and also know you’ll likely go off your healthy menu more than once.
My oyster-appetizer.
My wife and I so far have gone to two restaurants, Pescadero, a suburban seafood place; and Big Jones, a Cajun restaurant in Chicago. We also plan a trip to L Woods, another suburban spot, since we live in the suburbs.
Seafood dishes tend to be healthier per se, assuming they aren’t loaded with sauces heavy in fat and salt.
I opted for the oysters to start my Pescadero meal, they’re served raw, so aren’t mucked up with salt or fat. I had the octopus for my main course. It was grilled and wonderfully tasty, if you love octopus as I do.
Restaurant menus are notoriously filled with high-salt, high-fat, high-sugar offerings. If you’re trying to lower your consumption of those that evil threesome, you need to do your research before eating out. That’s why we have an entire page of this blog devoted to eating away from home.
Halibut on a carrot puree at a restaurant in Milwaukee which is, sadly, no longer there. What was the salt content? We asked for it without salt added.
Are people doing their research? A recent study by foodservice supplier US Foods shows a large chunk of the population is checking menus before going out, for a variety of reasons.
The study found 83% of people eating out review menus from home before going to a restaurant, and of those, 50% decide what they’ll order before setting foot in the restaurant.
Also encouraging, from a health standpoint, 58% say nutritional value information impacts their ordering, although here portion size and calorie content seems to be the major concern.
More people need to be checking salt content, it’s the most dangerous in most restaurant options.
US Foods gathered this data by surveying 1,003 people last September, reflecting the demographic makeup of the general American population.
Food trucks have been hot for years but in my Chicago suburb, Evanston, early restrictions limited them largely to one Mexican food truck that shows up at all the the local festivals, and which always seemed a bit overpriced to me.
But that changed dramatically in recent weeks when not one, but two food trucks featuring classic East Coast lobster rolls came to town. Full disclosure, I love lobster. My wife and I honeymooned in Maine back in 2007, primarily for the lobster, which we had several times a day at the rock bottom prices it sells for there.
Yet, getting lobster in the Midwest can be of a hit or miss proposition. The ubiquitous Red Lobster, for example, has the blandest lobster I ever tasted. We never go there. More likely, we buy our own and boil or grill it at home.
So I was really excited to see two lobster trucks posting on Facebook about their planned stops here in Evanston. Neither was cheap, $25 from Happy Lobster, $23 for a lobster roll from Cousins, but I tried them both and a clear winner emerged — Cousins Maine Lobster.
The other, Happy Lobster, didn’t really serve a traditional Maine lobster roll. It used a hamburger bun-type bun. A real lobster roll uses a hot dog bun-like split roll, toasted. Anyone from New England, or anyone who grew up in New York and went to Nedick’s knows what those are.
You can see the difference in the photos below:
Cousins also had just the right hint of mayo, although that too is a departure from traditional rolls which can have lobster meat swimming in mayo.
The staff at Cousins also was much friendly. Setting up in a local microbrewery parking lot, they were giving out shirts, hats and other freebies and talking to people as they walked up.
Happy Lobster’s truck parked at a local hospital during lunchtime and, although it encouraged online ordering ahead, did not have my order ready when I showed up on time. Several of its customers were forced to stand around in the rain waiting for their orders.
Is lobster heart-healthy? It is high in cholesterol content, once thought to be harmful, but thinking has changed on that. It also is high in omega-3 fatty acids, which these days are considered heart-healthy.
So if you see a Cousin’s truck coming to your town, give it a try, I highly recommend it.
Eating a seafood feast at a restaurant? Check nutritional content online first.
One eating-out trend that developed during Covid was the disappearance of physical menus. In those Covid years of ‘don’t touch anything anyone else touches’ restaurants decided to use QR codes customers could scan to see menus.
How have people reacted? Not well, according to a survey by US Foods, a major foodservice distributor. A survey of 1,000 people recently found 89% prefer physical menus. Roughly one in six don’t know how to scan a QR code to get to a menu.
And 51% say QR code menus slow down ordering.
It will be interesting to see if restaurants keep the codes or go OG with real menus again.
On the healthy eating front, the survey found 53% would prefer to see calorie counts on menus and 17% have asked for additional nutritional information not listed on menus.
That’s a good practice for anyone who cares about eating heart-healthy. My advice, check menus online before going anywhere to eat. You’re likely to find more nutrition information than will be available in a restaurant and so you can make smarter choices.
The bowls have it, at least when it comes to how people are buying food items at restaurants, according to a piece by The Food Institute, a food service industry news site.
One chain, Juice It Up!, saw sales climb 38% over the past five years because of its bowl offerings, for example.
It’s not just cereal people want in a. bowl anymore. Restaurants are seeing sales rise for bowls offering a variety of menu items, all aimed at satisfying consumer desire for better-for-them products.
“Bowls are a fun choose-your-own-adventure with endless combinations,” Troy Guard, the owner and executive chef with TAG Restaurant Group, told FI. “They’re easy, convenient, travel well, can often be reheated or saved for later, and contain fresh and healthy ingredients.”
“No matter where consumers look, restaurant-goers seeking salads, acai, Mexican, Poke, protein, fruits, or grains can often find them in bowl form,” the article states.
A chain I’ve been frequenting lately, Cafe Zupas, has been pushing its bowls in email marketing but I’m sticking to the make-my-own salad because I can control the salt, fat and sugar by doing that.
Since McDonald’s dropped its salads, there’s nothing healthy on its daytime menu.
The list shows just how hard it is to find low-sodium foods at these places (I’m sitting at a McDonald’s as I write this, ironically, after having some unhealthy free fries, a Friday give-away).
What’s listed for Chick-fil-A, for example? A yogurt, not any of its salt-laden chicken offerings.
A salad is listed at Burger King, but with no dressing because those are all high in salt and fat. Bring your own oil and vinegar like I do with portable, small bottles.
Americans are hooked on salt and fat until they start demanding alternatives, which doesn’t appear likely anytime soon. Happy New Year!
It’s never fun being on a delayed flight, and it’s no fun waiting for someone on such a flight either.
So on a recent Friday night, my son and I were both tired and hungry when his flight finally made it to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport where I had been waiting to pick him up.
We’d planned to cook dinner once we got to our house, but were both hungry by the time he landed, so we went searching for food near O’Hare and found Sultan Kebab & Shawerma. It was a great find.
As we ordered (at almost 9 p.m.), the man behind the counter offered us free lentil soup he’d made. He wanted our reaction to it. It was delicious.
Food halls are all the rage these days, especially in urban areas with lots of old buildings to recycle. Circumstances forced me on the road for three weeks recently, so I was able to visit food halls in New York, Minneapolis and Chicago.
Did I find anything healthy to eat? Aside from some salad places and a tasty beet salad in Chicago, generally no. But I did find some great pizza in New York and Minneapolis.
So if you find yourself in a food hall, check all the stalls before buying yourself a meal. Try to minimize how unhealthy you eat that day.
These food halls are generally in repurposed older buildings, feature local outlets rather than national chains (McDonald’s need not apply), sport a variety of ethnic offerings like Mexican, Asian and Indian dishes, and throw in some traditional American unhealthy options like giant burgers and barbecue.
Did you know April is national brunch month? Me either, who comes up with these things?
A great egg-white omelette should be part of any first-rate brunch offering.
I recently received a press release, from Lawnstarter.com of all places, rating the best brunch cities in the country. No surprise that the top three — New York, San Francisco and Chicago — are three of my favorite U.S. cities, maybe my three most favorite.
I don’t go to brunches much anymore because to me the best are all-you-can eat and that’s not very heart healthy. Casinos in the Chicago-area where I live once had massive buffets, but those closed during Covid and have not come back. Not exactly brunches, but in my mind they tend to blend together.
The survey lists 200 cities and includes fun little subgroups like Most Brunch Vendors per Square Mile (Miami wins) and Most Brunch Clubs (New York). You can click through to get details on various cities too.
I write about some pretty serious food issues here, so it’s nice to take a break once and a while and write about fun things like brunch. Enjoy your next weekend brunch but try to eat healthy in the process.
