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So dearest wife and I decided to go to this great pizza place, Pizza Schmizza. However, It has apparently been closed for about a year or two. Lovely. In it’s place is Three Forks Wok & Grill.

To start, I ordered sweet potato fries.
They were okay, with 2 major exceptions. #1 is that they come with a terrible chili catsup. I found the flavor to be downright offensive. So I asked for some regular catsup. They told me they don’t usually have it. He found me a bit in the back however.
It came in what seems to be a salad bowl. The other problem is that they were so heavily salted that I had to wipe the salt off of each fry. It kind of ruined the taste. After a while, I started keeping it on the plate for visual.
Thankfully, the main course arrived. I had the Rice Wok with flank steak. I didn’t get the carrots I ordered in it.

To start, the steak was cooked competently. It was tender, juicy, and not overly seasoned. Pink in the middle, but not cold. The wild rice was blank and flavorless. The peppers and snow peas also seemed to have no real flavor. The only non-meat flavor that seemed to be from the almonds. The ones that were actually toasted and candied were decently sweet. I actually enjoyed those.

Dearest wife had the teriyaki tofu pad thai. She really liked it for the first 10 bites or so. The tofu was burned and overly firm. The mushrooms (which she generally loves, yech) were horribly slimy, and she described it as “like eating raw meat”. She said what left the worst taste in her mouth was the price.

The price is something to talk about as well. For the two of us, it was $29. That’s twice what it would have cost to go to Mucho Gusto, which is much much better overall. And the ambiance left something to be desired. The vase full of yucky lucky bamboo was cloudy  with a chance of meatballs.Eww.

So with that, the two of us went on our merry way, $30 poorer to our final destination of the evening… that bastion of romance and delight
We looked at trees in the garden center, and it was actually kind of fun. A fine date night in the books.

Final verdict for the evening: Overpriced, under-flavored, unappealing. The best thing on the menu was diet dr. pepper. Three thumbs down for Three Forks Wok and Grill. Run, don’t Wok away from Three Forks. Also, I’m pretty sure Home depot has better food.

We bought some Dave’s Killer Bread the other night. It’s really a good bread. The Good Seed variety that we bought is different from other breads in that it’s somewhat sticky. It makes a good sandwich. Can’t really recommend it enough.

We went out to the Glenwood (which is not IN Glenwood at all, but in fact on Willamette in Eugene.
I had the clam chowder to start, which was just plain terrible. It was watery and thin. It had some kind of spice in it that made it spicy-hot, but not spicy-flavorful.

For the main course, I had a cheeseburger, which claimed to be a Ninkasi Cheeseburger. As far as I can tell, it was a plain ‘ol beef patty. It had the recognizable shape of the stamped out frozen beef patties that I can buy at the grocery store. The taste was good. The Tillamook cheddar was delicious, and the bacon on it was great. The only real problem is that the bun was soaking wet. The kinda kills it for me.

Overall, I give it a C+. Everyone else seemed to like it though.

So we got the snow, not too long after the last post. Christmas was somewhat stressful but we made it through it alive. I’ve got 4 hirings that I’m in for in January (so far). I’ve been training a lot harder than last time, getting up at 5:30 am to run. I’m in the best cardiovascular shape of my adult life, and headed to my lowest weight.

A small victory is making it through the fridge season not only without putting on weight, but also dropping over 5 pounds. That puts me 16 pounds lighter than I was last test. Even if I miss the first one, I have another shot at the end of January, giving me 3 more weeks to train in between.

So it rained out the bbq. Today it was dry long enough to grill up some chicken and make smores for desert. They were awesome. It occurred to me that there’s no reason to go to fast food when I can just grill something up for less than the cost of a fake burger. Tomorrow night, turkey burgers.

I am sure that’s not a real word. I got a new gas grill this weekend. Took us over 2 hours to put it together. Tonight, we initiate it with kebabs. Yay for grilled meat. (and finals being half over)

I think this one speaks for itself.

So Nikki practically dared me to do it. If you ask her, she will say she just said “do whatever you want, i’ll find something else for dinner”. But here it is.

1Lb. Ground Beef (or Lamb, Llama, Turkey, etc.)
2 big spoonfuls of Feta cheese crumbles
1 egg (especially if you use leaner meat than beef)
2 Tbsp Yellow mustard
2 Tsp minced garlic (the fresher the better)

Mush it all up in a big bowl, and press into patties between 2 desert plates.
Put pure olive oil in the pan, enough to cover lightly.
Cook in a pan around 350 degrees. Brown one side and flip -gently – over to brown the other side. It is crucial to slow cook this, due to the feta being in the patty and the meat being so lean. It will take about 15 minutes to do this, but trust me.
Cover the burger patty with onions. I peeled the whole half an onion and used the bell shaped layers. They will caramelize and add subtly to the flavor of the burger.

As the burger cooks, prepare the dressing for the bun.
1 tsp feta crumbles
2 Tbsp sour cream
1 tsp minced garlic

Spread the dressing on your toasted bun, cover with fresh onions and lettuce (this gives it a gyro-like texture).
Enjoy. Keep in mind not to overpower anything in this, the key is the subtlety of the tastes together.

Peace