i like to eat.

Met up with Jason and Genki for dinner at Fuddrucker's before we watched Zombieland.

I'm pretty boring when it comes to ordering burgers at Fuddrucker's. I think it's because I already feel guilty about eating a greasy burger, so I don't want to add the extra 500 calories with cheese, mushrooms, bacon, etc.

I got a plain burger, but what's great about Fuddrucker's is there's a buffet of toppings. I included shredded lettuce, salsa and barbecue sauce. Yummy.

By the way, Zombieland was actually not bad. I don't watch scary movies and this one was gory, but not scary like The Ring, more like Shaun of the Dead.

For lunch, I had a mediocre fried chicken salad from Gap's cafeteria. It was nothing spectacular and doesn't compare to the mouthwatering version I had in Austin. I need to fly back to Austin and eat it again!

A friend from Pleasant Hill came to visit Jason and I. Actually, more so Jason, since they wanted to play video games. Sigh, boys...

He brought some ball tip steak sandwiches from Kinder's. I just ate a large pastrami sandwich, so I wasn't that hungry, but had a few bites. Thesandwich was as good as I remembered, but I was full from all the meat and didn't want to eat another meaty sandwich for awhile.

Related: The Go-To Place: Kinder's, Steak Sandwich

I was driving around, trying to decide what to eat for lunch, when I stumbled upon Togo's. I haven't been to Togo's in many years and when I walked in, I figured I'd get my usual sandwich, turkey breast.

I quickly thought, I should seize the day and order something different. I was starring at the menu and saw large signage highlighting their famous hot pastrami sandwiches. The employees also had big buttons on their shirts calling out the pastrami. I ordered one, wanting to taste their famous and best selling sandwich.

Surprisingly, it was pretty good. Extremely large (but not as large as the one in Vegas!) with piles of thinly sliced pastrami, that I ended up using a knife and fork.

This wandering around and being adventurous turned out quite well. It should happen more often. :)

Met up with Kate and a few other girls at Lime in the Castro. The restaurant was a little too crazy (loud pumping house music) for an early afternoon, so we trekked down the street to Bagdad Cafe.

I ordered a vegetarian eggs Benedict. It consisted of spinach and mushrooms on a toasted English muffin, topped with a poached egg and drenched in hollandaise sauce. The hollandaise was slightly thicker than my liking, but still good and a nice compliment to my house potatoes, which were thankfully, crispy.

Overall, a good meal with great company at a cute cafe - the best way to start every Saturday. All I was missing was my mimosa.

Imagine Quizno's, but better. Less franchise-y and more about a local sandwich shop that uses only fresh ingredients.

I first heard about Toaster Oven while I was a student at Academy of Art. I was taking an advertising concepting class and Toaster Oven was one of our clients. The sandwich shop was brand new and the owner turned to us to think of new ideas to market his restaurant.

My class and I concepted many ideas and unfortunately, they never made into production. But, during our research, we got to enjoy plenty of sandwiches from Toaster Oven. It's not hard to research when you're enjoying something so good. :)

Every sandwich is toasted on a conveyor belt for consistent heating and the bread is soft and crispy. All the ingredients are fresh and I love the pickled peppers they include in your sandwich.

I usually get the Kitchen Sink (roast beef, turkey, salami, ham and provolone cheese), but it seemed a little much, so I got my second favorite, Italiano. A delicious sandwich of mushroom, mortadella, capicola, salami, pepperoni and provolone cheese.

You must try this place if you're into toasted sandwiches. A word of advice, be sure to eat your sandwich as soon as possible. It's much better eaten warm. And who likes soggy sandwiches? ;)

My second to last day of this week long dinner challenge! Yay!

For Thursday night, I made spicy orange-glazed drumsticks with green beans.

The recipe called for corn bread muffins. I thought I had a box of Jiffy in my pantry. Whoops, nope. A quick replacement was some left over rice from Tuesday night.

I usually hate eating off the bone (too much work), but these drumsticks were tender and the meat easily fell off. I didn't taste too much of the orange flavor and I think it's because the chili sauce I used was pretty spicy. Next time, I'll use less hot sauce to bring out the orange flavor more.

And the perfect cold drink to compliment this meal?

Tripel Karmeliet, my favorite Belgium beer.

   

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My lunches at Gap have been unexciting, so that's why you haven't heard much.

This particular day was a pretty good lunch though. I had a vegetarian sandwich with tomato, cucumber, lettuce, roasted peppers and avocado on wheat. Sounds kind of boring, but the avocado sealed the deal and made it interesting.

I sometimes wonder if I could be a vegetarian...

Hmm, probably not. A juicy steak and glass of red wine easily makes me drool.

I'm half way there! Yay. Wednesday night - roasted pork with Brussels sprouts and apricots.

I like Brussels sprouts. The first time I ever had them was at Houston's in San Francisco. They were so good. I couldn't believe all these years, I was missing out on a yummy vegetable. I tried to cook Brussels sprouts once and it was a disaster. I couldn't even finish it and had to throw it out. The main culprit could have been because I didn't use fresh sprouts. I was crossing my fingers that this dish would turn out good.

I've never cooked pork tenderloin before, so I was excited to cook something new. It took my oven slightly longer (an extra 10 minutes) to cook. I wasn't sure if the pork was thoroughly cooked or not, so I was paranoid that I was going to poison my boyfriend and I. But, I kept checking the meat and it was finally cooked all the way. The pork was extremely tender and moist, no dry meat here! I was pretty proud that I nailed it my first time.

The Brussels sprouts and apricots were a nice compliment to the pork. This time, the sprouts were fresh and delicious.

I wouldn't mind cooking this dish again. Maybe I'll make some sort of apricot sauce for the pork next time.

Related: Weeknight Dinner, Part 1, 2

I was reading "A Month of Easy Dinners" in the October issue of Real Simple magazine a few weeks ago. I never follow these types of planned out dinners or menus because my week's pretty spontaneous and I can rarely commit to cooking for an entire week. Plus, I usually pick out just one dish in a menu that looks interesting to try out.