20,391 Steps?

I never carry my good camera when I work at night.  It’s just one thing I don’t need to worry about, so all these pics come to you from my iPhone 4.

These strawberries Tony got me from Sam’s Club are ridiculously good – a 2 pound container for $4.98, which isn’t bad this time of year.  On the side I had an egg white, chipotle gouda, green chile and spinach quesadilla.  The cheese was already melty before I got the nice “grill” marks on the panini machine, so while it may not look that appetizing, it was really good.

Even though I knew I was working a double, I decided to just take a leisurely walk while watching The Chew. 

One of the segments I like is they make a recipe with less than five ingredients, that you can cook in under five minutes for under five dollars.  Michael Symon made a delicious grilled shrimp dish with mint and snow peas.  It screams spring!  I think that would make an amazing first coarse if you had company over for dinner.

I had more leftover chili – this time I used 1/2 cup of chili, 1/2 cup of seasoned black beans, 1/2 cup of cooked pasta, and I stirred in two tablespoons of green chiles leftover from my breakfast panini.  I love how you can see me taking the picture in my food in the spoon!

I knew I was wasn’t working the bar last night, and wouldn’t you know it was totally crazy.  I’ve come to realize that the band who plays that night makes a big difference on how busy the bar is.  I had a 5 table station in our back dining room.   I noticed that one table was set for a 10 top – nice!   Before they showed up I got a couple and their daughter.  I brought a glass of wine for the woman, and a Peroni on tap for the man, and the daughter was fine with water.  A little while later the Mom said “do you think I could get a second glass of wine and just put it to the side so my daughter can have it, but it won’t actually be sitting in front of her?  She turns 21 in 3 weeks.”  Um, no.  I have a Basset license that allows me to serve drinks.  If I serve an underage person, I lose my license and my job and the restaurant gets fined.  I am so paranoid about NOT carding someone, I carded a woman who was 43 years old last night – made her night!

The 10 top ended up being a 9 top, but they were fun and I could tell right off the bat that they were going to be there for the long haul.  They sat at 7:15 and didn’t leave until 11:15.  Because I only had these three tables, I was really able to talk about the food and wine to this table.  I always try to sell the Giant Seafood Tower ($95 for a full one) to a group as an appetizer – and they thought it was a great idea!

This is a horrible picture, but basically you get a half pound of each:  crab legs, oysters on the half shell, clams, ahi tuna, lobster meat and smoked salmon.  You have crackers for the smoked salmon, a chipotle butter for the lobster, cocktail sauce, Tabasco, etc.  It comes to the table in this giant tower – it’s really impressive as it goes to the table because people are like “what is that??!!”

And another thing I sell the shit out of is our Sea Salt Caramel Gelato with Garrett’s Popcorn Hand Crafted Caramel Crisp Popcorn dessert.  And yes, I have to say all those words exactly.  We are the only restaurant in Chicagoland who can use Garrett’s popcorn outside of a Garrett’s location.  The combination of salt and sweet, and then the crisp caramel popcorn?  I’ve never not seen a table not finish this even though I hear them say before hand “well, if you get it I’ll take a couple bites.”

My tables final tab?

I made a 20% tip on that tab.  My two ladies who were super fun?  Their tab was $90 – and my tip?  $50!  So not bad for only having 3 tables.  I actually loved it because I think if the food is great (which I already know it is) service will bring people back.  There is nothing worse than having great food but shitty service in my book.  In fact when I finished the 2 top the ladies asked if I had a business card.  I just took a restaurant business card and wrote my name on the back – they wanted to ask for me the next time they come in – sweet!

So I was so curious how many steps I got in yesterday.  My day job was super busy since most of the attorneys are going to be out of town on spring break next week so it was a mad dash to get everything done.  Before I even left work I was at 9,500 steps.  When I walked in at home at midnight last night?

Holy shit!  over 20,000 steps in a day!  Um, no wonder my legs are tired this morning!   You would think that by all that moving around I would be thin – maybe it’s the wine and pizza I eat when I get home that makes it a wash?!

I have some laundry to do today, I need to pick up my contacts.  Maybe we’ll hit up the grocery store today so we can just relax tomorrow – we’ll see!  Hope you have a great weekend – see you Monday!