Just Burp It!

Have you ever played this game?

You're out with a friend or spouse and decide to get something to eat. However, neither of you wants to pick where. And so it begins.

You: "Where do you want to go?"
Her: "I don't care, where do you want to go?"
You: "I don't know, you choose."
Her: "Oh, it doesn't matter to me. What are you in the mood for?"
You: "Nothing specific, what about you? Anything sound good to you?"
Her: "Oh, you know me, whatever is fine."

And then you drive off the road and hit a telephone pole.

Of course, once you battle your way out of the airbags, now you have to deal with the insurance company. No one should do that on an empty stomach. So, you continue:

You: "Fast-food or sit-down?"
Her: "Or buffet?"
You: "No buffet." Holy shit, the first decision! How BOLD!
Her: "Ok, sit-down." Second decision. Not as bold of course, but at least she stepped up.
You: "Italian? Chinese? American? Thai?"
Her: "Do you even know where a Thai restaurant is around here? You haven't even been to a Thai place, have you?!"
You: "Smart-ass. No Thai then?"
Her: "No Thai."
You: "How about three choices?"
Her: "Ok, go."

Now, I'm on to you. You act all magnanimous because everyone likes options, but what you're really doing is getting your way. You're choosing the three restaurants. Those are three places you wouldn't mind "gettin' your grub on," as it were. Not only that, once you list the three, your friend nixes one, then you veto the second, which is the same as choosing. You crafty bizzle!

Mike and I play a condensed version of this game. It's been 11(!) years, we know our roles. With our current money-situation, not to mention the whole low-sodium goal, eating out hasn't been as frequent. We still do it, but it's paper napkins only.

I've accumulated some restaurant coupons in the past few weeks, thanks to the newspaper, online offers, direct mail crap, etc. (Oh yes, I'm all about the coupons right now. I'm one PennySaver away from hosting Tupperware parties. You can get free shit at those! Score!)

So I spent about an hour online researching sodium levels for various dishes at the restaurants I have coupons for. Things I have learned:
My cardiologist would suggest I never eat at Olive Garden again. 400 mg of sodium in one breadstick. ONE!
The Wild West Shrimp starter at Longhorn, while delicious, will kill us all at freaking 4180 mg of sodium.
And surprisingly, a personal pan cheese pizza from Pizza Hut has only 590 calories. Not so surprising, it has 1290 mg of sodium.

We ended up at PizzaVito, where I had a single slice of cheese pizza. Yes, a slice of pizza there is huge, but it is NY style and doesn't have that much sauce on it. (Rationalizing...) Unfortunately, PizzaVito does not have nutritional info on their site. A slice of cheese pizza from a large Pizza Hut pie has 740 mg of sodium. Peer Trainer says 551 mg of sodium for a slice of NY cheese. I don't know if that's similar enough, but there's some info anyway.

Also, I used 4 napkins blotting that piece of pizza. They should hand out complimentary Biore strips with each slice.