Our Favorite Restaurants....

     Finding ways to go out and eat without ruining my keto diet became an interesting game and so I want to share some of my favorite places, cuisines, and how I can manage to stick to the program and still enjoy myself.  To begin with, Steve and I both love a good burger, and while living in Virginia, got sold on Five Guys.  We've heard that the franchise might fail, and hope that's not true.  We just visited the Kapolei restaurant last week and the burgers were every bit as good as they were in Houston or Virginia.  I order mine in a lettuce wrap and they are very generous with the lettuce.  Thinking about my favorite burger restaurant in places we've lived made me think about the other favorite restaurants we've frequented.  Thai food is sometimes much too sweet, but we found an amazing restaurant near our home in Seabrook, Texas.  The Merlion Restaurant is near the bay, and serves delicious spicy seafood curry.  We substitute stir fried veggies for the rice, but if that were not possible, we'd stir-fry cabbage for the curry sauce.  We were able to do so because we rarely ate in.  The inside of the place is a little over the top using huge paintings of nude women on the walls as the main décor and some pretty gaudy colors that clash with their plastic flower arrangements. There is also lots of raucous noise from the bar that diners enter through to get to the tables, and we can do without that as well, so we commonly called in our order and carried out the deliciously prepared meal.  Our other favorite restaurant while living in Houston was Floyds Seafood, a Cajun restaurant.  Steve loves the oysters on the half-shell, and I love the crab bisque.  We occasionally went to Pappadeaux's restaurant also, to enjoy their crawfish etouffee.  However, there are many choices that are keto friendly.  Another of our favorite Houston restaurants serves Indian cuisine.  The Noon Mirch restaurant offers and all you can eat buffet, providing many keto friendly selections deliciously prepared in fragrant spices.  Their food is similar to another favorite Indian restaurant we frequented in Fairfax, Virginia called Jaipur Cuisine after the style of food from an Indian city.  Steve and I are willing to travel expressly for trying new foods.  That is what we did when we travelled to Rhode Island to visit The Nordic Lodge.  This is one of the best buffet ever!  They serve some many fabulous items, but I love the fresh, all you can eat, lobster.  This was definitely worth the trip from Virginia to Rhode Island, and we'll try to visit it again when Steve defends his dissertation at Virginia Tech.  It is close to a lovely little town called Newport,  and there are many wonderful places to visit there so I suggest staying in Newport and travelling to the restaurant.  I'm pushing hard for Steve to wrap up his writing so I can have another fabulous meal there.  But, I digress.  For now, we're in Hawaii, and visiting some of our favorite restaurants here.  In fact, we just met our son and his husband for a late lunch at Mei Sum Dim Sum for Dim Sum, of course!  Delicious!  More on finding ways to enjoy Keto style meals in our neck of the woods next week!