Hi everyone. I have to go to an office lunch on Tuesday (it is a thank you for a retirement party I helped plan). Anyway, the restaruant they picked is Fiore Cantina - ITALIAN!....it is going to be hard watching all the pasta, but thankfully we are pre-ordering, so it takes away the pressure - what i am picking is:

Spinich salad - it has spinich, mushrooms, paremasan and bacon with herbed chicken chopped in it. Does this sound ok? I am just wondering about how much of it is ok to eat in order to remain under my 25 carbs a day? Can anyone recommend a dressing for me to ask for (I am planning to ask for it with no dressing). I have a lto of trouble with restaruants I am unfamiliar with.

thanks...
teresa.

Hiya, if you don't eat any other types of veg or salad all day then you can have 3 cups of salad. Especially as it's spinach as this is quite low anyway on the carb front. Tell them you would like a dressing of just olive oil - you might find they already have it on the table, and if it's a traditional italian place then you'll find the wonderful taste of the fresh parmesan, spinach and olive oil will just mingle to make lovely yummy taste!! YUM YUM

thanks jadefox - to be honest I never even thought of olive oil! too funny - I use it at home every day for my salads...but never occurred to em to use it at a restaurant...

thanks

The salad sound like a great choice. They most likely will have a Caesar dressing, which are usually sugar-free and LC.

You may want to inquire about the herbs on the chicken just in case it is a marinade that contains sugar.

Good luck and have a great lunch!

thanks for the advice paris, I never even thought about the herbs..will call them right now...geez, I gotta say, I love the tips and advice I get on this forumn!

It sounds like a great choice! I eat in restaurants a lot, particularly when I am travelling for work, and I often order some sort of salad with protein. I love spinach salads! I wouldn't get too worried about what they put in the chicken unless it is breaded or unusually sweet.

With regard to how much salad to eat, my philosophy is that none of us got fat eating vegetables and I consider the carbs in salads and lowcarb vegetables to essentially be free carbs. However, I've reached the point where I don't actually count carbs, I just know what I can eat and what I can eat includes unlimited lowcarb vegetables.

Salad dressing is another issue, however. If I am not sure what a restaurant is putting in their dressing, I just ask them to bring me oil and vinegar. Any Italian restaurant should have cruets of oil and vinegar. If you add some salt and pepper, it makes a fine carb-free salad dressing. That's pretty much all I eat on salads. I do watch the quantities of oil, however. While we don't need to count calories, calories do count, and if you drench your salad with dressing, it is a lot of calories.

Teresa, we think the same way. I just got back from an Italian restaurant and had a spinach salad with chicken for lunch!! I did have their house oil and vinegar dressing on it. They use balsamic vinegar -- I know it is an Atkins no-no, but I do let myself have it. If you ask for oil and vinegar and are not eating balsamic, double check what they bring.

Thanks everyone...got off the phone wiht the restaurant, and they said they can grill my chicken without any herbs (they do have sugar in it), and will give me plain olive oil for a dressing, I just have to call that mroning and remind them....wow, that was great, thanks again for the terrific advice!

Balsamic vinegar has a few carbs (unlike regular vinegar), but it's not that bad. I've found that it is all you can get in many restaurants these days and it has never caused problems for me. I just try to keep the quantities moderate.