Bespoke diet lunch

I'm having lunch with the neighbors today, and On Lot 10 was suggested as the venue.  In all these years I don't think I'd ever been there for lunch, and given Scubagolfer's pretty positive review not long ago, I thought I'd go check it out.

Trying to stick to a strict dietary program wreaks havoc with your social life and engagements.  Not having been to the restaurant for lunch means I have no idea what could be on the menu.  I don't want to get to a restaurant only to find out that I can't order the right type of stuff to stay within the boundaries of the program!

Fortunately, I do know the boss at this particular establishment.  So I pinged David and ask him to help prepare something for me.  He's seen my photo album on Facebook documenting my daily meals, so he understands the situation I'm in.  I asked for a simple pasta with some meat or seafood, plus the ability to have some veggies on the side.  All low fat and low salt, of course.

We were handed the simple lunch menu after we got ourselves seated.  I was informed that the kitchen had prepared something special for me, and I was very curious to see what "diet food" would look like in David's restaurant.  On a previous occasion, my request for yummy food with low cholesterol/fat didn't exactly work out the way I had hoped for…

I didn't think I was gonna get enough grains/carbs, so I started with a slice of bread.

I took the tuna salad from the set as my starter.  The tuna was certainly a lot tastier than the canned tuna in mineral water that I've been having for the last couple of weeks.  The haricots verts, potato and red onions gave me some of the veg I needed for this meal.  Of course I asked the kitchen to hold the dressing, but cracked some ground pepper on top to make sure it wasn't completely bland…

My special pasta turned out to be oxtail ravioli with asparagus, carrots and sugar snaps.  Honestly this looked waaaay too delicious to be a simple diet pasta, but it has everything I asked for: carbs for grain, meat for protein, and more vegetables than I expected.  And it tasted absolutely delicious, with flavors that are classically David.  The raviolis were filled with shredded oxtail and herbs like tarragon. I'm sure my nutritionist would not approve of the rich sauce, but it was a little too late to protest.  A very sumptuous dish.

While I didn't have a chance to taste it, my neighbors seemed to have enjoyed their barramundi fillets.  Maybe I'll try that next time.

A single espresso completed my simple yet very delicious lunch.

As always, my gratitude to David for always putting up with my unreasonable requests.  This was a nice break from my usual bland lunch...