Day 18--The pizza that wasn't.

One of the bigger learning curves for me is figuring out where to go if I want to go out to eat and what to order.  After my disappointment with my french fry only dinner at Smokey Bones last week, I have made an effort to do a little more research before heading out to eat, which unfortunately, has been leading to even more disappointments (aside from Chipotle.  I always love Chipotle.).

I was seriously craving pizza last week and did a search for places to get vegan pizza, and I found a listing out near all the Disney stuff.   I don't mind going out that way, but it is about a 40 minute drive.  However, I was certainly willing to do that if it meant I got pizza!  So last week on Cori's day off, we headed to a place called Pizza Fusion.  The only problem was once we got to where it was supposed to be, we couldn't find it.  Anywhere.  Finally, giving up, we opted for Chinese, and I ordered veggie lo mein (not realizing lo mein noodles were also egg noodles.  It was good, but not vegan and certainly not pizza.

Last night, we went to a place much closer called The Mellow Mushroom that also boasted soy cheese as one of their pizza topping options.  I ordered the 10-inch artichoke, tomato, and mushroom pizza with soy cheese, while Cori and the kids chose the Mighty Meaty (oh my, did it look good!).  When my pizza arrived, I was soooo excited because it looked pretty darn incredible!  I even took a crappy cell phone picture because I couldn't wait to come back and blog that I got to have pizza!  It was lovely.  

However, that's where the happiness ended.  As it turns out, I hate soy cheese!  Oh my god, it was awful.  I tried scraping the cheese off, but it had just permeated everything.  I had one partial piece and then said goodbye to the rest and waited while everyone enjoyed their Mighty Meaty.  This place also ended up being way more expensive than I realized, so I ended up leaving $60 poorer (!!!) and starving.

Sometimes I think my weight loss is as much of a result of me not liking anything I eat as anything else.  When I got home from the restaurant, you would assume I'd find a dinner alternative since I was so hungry, but instead I ate a banana to dull the hunger and called it a day.  There could be worse things I suppose, but I am getting tired of non-satisfying meals.  In retrospect, my sorta ok bean burgers I made were probably the best thing I've had at home that wasn't just some variation of pasta.  This may sound like I'm unhappy with the vegan diet, but I'm really not right now.  It's just food (I think it took going vegan to really "get" that), and it's just 100 days, right?  And I know that I'll find more and more things I enjoy, and my experiments aren't all going to be disappointments.  It's all a matter of changing habits and getting used to things, which is the main reason I chose to do it for 100 days.  I figured that would give me plenty of time to rethink what to have to eat.

During my research, I have found a few other local restaurants that I really want to try, and I'm going to get the opportunity to go to one of them on Saturday with a friend from high school.  I hope hope hope to report back favorably because I am in dire need of a treat and some inspiration!