Yesterday I took my mother out to eat for her birthday which is this weekend. She wanted to go to Applebees. I don't eat out very much anymore, so the first thing I did was take my own advice and look at their online menu and then went to their nutritional site where calorie counts are listed.
Since we were going out for lunch I logically went to their lunch menu and looked at the Pick 'n Pair lunches where you can order 2 of a salad, soup, or 1/2 sandwich. I decided that I would have the tomato basil soup with a 1/2 of the roast beef sandwich. That also comes with a breadstick. All to the tune of 220 for the soup, 480 for the sandwich, and 130 for the breadstick. This is many more calories then I normally eat for lunch, but I thought that I would have a small dinner instead.
Then we got to Applebees and I remembered ordering a soup and salad combo the last time I was there and the portions seemed really small. So I began looking over the menu again, and saw that they have several selections under their under 550 calorie menu.
I then - somewhat skeptically - decided to try their Grilled Chicken and Portabello Mushroom entree off of their "Under 550 Calories" menu. I was shocked when they brought it to me. It was a huge piece of chicken, COVERED in big chunks of mushrooms and a lot of onions. It had a very large portion of herb-roasted potatoes and they were incredibly tasty. There was also some zucchini, and in my opinion they were a little skimpy on that, but what was there was seasoned perfectly. The chicken was done perfect and tasted great. All to the tune of 450 calories! I was stuffed when I was finished - for almost 300 calories LESS then a cup of soup and 1/2 sandwich would have come to!
Here is a picture from their website and the actual entree looked very much like this - which in my experience is very unusual for these chain restaurants!
So, needless to say, I was very happy with the meal. It just goes to show that you should review the menus while out this holiday season and you can find some yummy AND healthy meals even at chain restaurants! I'm going to have to go back and try one of their steak entrees, now!
Since we were going out for lunch I logically went to their lunch menu and looked at the Pick 'n Pair lunches where you can order 2 of a salad, soup, or 1/2 sandwich. I decided that I would have the tomato basil soup with a 1/2 of the roast beef sandwich. That also comes with a breadstick. All to the tune of 220 for the soup, 480 for the sandwich, and 130 for the breadstick. This is many more calories then I normally eat for lunch, but I thought that I would have a small dinner instead.
Then we got to Applebees and I remembered ordering a soup and salad combo the last time I was there and the portions seemed really small. So I began looking over the menu again, and saw that they have several selections under their under 550 calorie menu.
I then - somewhat skeptically - decided to try their Grilled Chicken and Portabello Mushroom entree off of their "Under 550 Calories" menu. I was shocked when they brought it to me. It was a huge piece of chicken, COVERED in big chunks of mushrooms and a lot of onions. It had a very large portion of herb-roasted potatoes and they were incredibly tasty. There was also some zucchini, and in my opinion they were a little skimpy on that, but what was there was seasoned perfectly. The chicken was done perfect and tasted great. All to the tune of 450 calories! I was stuffed when I was finished - for almost 300 calories LESS then a cup of soup and 1/2 sandwich would have come to!
Here is a picture from their website and the actual entree looked very much like this - which in my experience is very unusual for these chain restaurants!
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