Liquid Diet

During the day I work for a "company" where there is a lot of free food floating around. Usually I try to go to the cafeteria's salad bar -- since this is the only time during the week my diet will see a green vegetable which isn't plucked, battered and fried beyond recognition ... or isn't a mere garnish to a buttered dish -- but I'm too cheap to always pay the $0.40 per ounce. So, I rely on the network of free "briefing lunches" to fill my daily diet with food.

If all else fails, then I usually have a "liquid diet" for dinner. Is this healthy? Probably not. I don't think merely drinking a glass of orange juice for dinner is all-together healthy, but it is certainly more healthy than having a pint of ice cream for dinner. And it's 100% more healthy then just drinking a glass(es) of alcohol for dinner, which I confess I sometimes do.

One of the more tempting "liquid diets" is the SEI happy hour. Located across the street from the gorgeous National Portrait Gallery in Chinatown, SEI has the most drop-dead, divine Japanese moijito. Liquid sin: sweet, even-tempered with a kick of sake. I downed my first in about 15 minutes and followed it up with a second, which disappeared in nearly the same time. I swear, if ever I found a personal weakness to my one-drink-a-night resolve (don't ask, it's a long story) then this drink is it!! During their happy hour, this drink can be found for a measley $7. Ends at 8 pm.

This sounds like I'm a alcohol bulimic, but I'm not. I drink maybe an alcoholic drink once every two weeks. Just searching for a good bargain wherever I can find it!

But if you are looking for substance, a nice complement to your cheap foodie habits is the pizza at Whole Foods. Now, I'm from Texas so I was intimately familiar with Whole Foods before it exploded into the 600+ store monolith the chain is now. A not-so-good secret is you can buy pizza by the slice there for $3.99 (or two for $5.99). The width of the pizza at the crust is at least five inches, not quite a Jumbo Slice; however, the variety of garnishes are infinitely healthier. Check it out. I like to get a slice at the Clarendon Whole Foods and then walk across the street to the tiny park there and enjoy the gorgeous weather we've been enjoying lately.

Okay. Enough with these chains. The goal for this week is to try and find more neighborhood deals!!

P.S. For those of you who miss the Murky Coffee, here's an interesting article about my least favorite coffee chain from the owner Nicholas Cho.