West County Dining

My pal is visiting from New York and staying with family way way way out in the suburbs. Rather than drive another 30 minutes back into "civilization," where you can most certainly find a locally owned restaurant with lots of heart and good food, we decided not to burn gas unnecessarily and instead stayed in strip mall restaurant territory. Her in-laws recommended Annie Gunn's, which isn't bad, really; it's like a dressed-up Applebees with more upscale food. The only thing about it is it's a smokehouse; but whatever. I'm easy, right? Plus I know they'll cook me something vegetarian off the menu. So we go even further west (which I have to say was difficult... my car kept veering to the right as if to turn around back towards the city) and went to the land of 45 restaurants. (Seriously: Applebees, Olive Garden, IHOP, O'Charley's, Longhorn Steakhouse, the Original House of Pancakes, Mimi's, uh, there were more. I know it).

At Annie Gunn's I asked and they said they'd accommodate a vegetarian, but the gracious friend that she is refused to make me eat at a smoke house (I mean, there was a giant statue of a pig wielding a butcher knife at the front door). (Now that I think about it, the implications of that are so profound.) (And also I have to say that once I spied "sausage platter" on the menu, I was relieved to go.) So we left and headed towards the remaining 44 restaurants and picked one randomly, Mimi's. It had flags on the roof.

I ordered an egg-white omelet (it's Saturday) and fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice (not bad for a chain!) and that was pretty OK. Nothing thrilling (and not nearly as good as m'eggs).


My pal spied the chocolate chip pecan pie on the menu (she has a thing for chocolate-and-pecan-combos) and insisted we share dessert. I obliged.

Holy crap: this was an actual pie. AN ACTUAL PIE. Topped with caramel sauce, fudge sauce, ice cream, extra chocolate chips, just for good measure, it was terrifying. Priced at $4.99 on the menu, I would have assumed it was for one; but this thing could feed a family of 5, no problem. Was it good? Well, as good as a transfat diabetes fest can be, I suppose. I mean your brain recognizes "good! goood!" when you take a bite, but I wouldn't say your body actually enjoys it. It's like picking a scab.

Then we started thinking: how much fat is in this thing? I mean, I'm a health-conscious person, and I'm very careful with what I ingest, but I'm no calorie-counter. This pie, this crime against nutrition, it HAD to be 100 grams of fat, easy. We shuddered to think of the people that eat this thing alone.

My pal ingeniously asked the waitress for the nutritional breakdown; I didn't know that restaurants were required by law to have that info available. Apparently, they aren't, but anyway, the waitress informed us that it can be located on their website.

It's certainly not front-and-center on the site, but you can find it, if you poke around. Here's the horrifying truth:

Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie

Calories	1879
Total Fat	111g
Saturated Fat	29g
Trans Fat	6g
Cholesterol	231mg
Sodium	1064mg
Carbohydrate	220g
Dietary Fiber	12g
Protein	21g

AAACK! EEEGADS! I've never seen calories from a century later than the dark ages! I mean, we joked about it being 100 grams of fat, but to see it in print is pretty eye-opening.

I know that vegan doesn't equal healthy, and that organic isn't necessarily fat free, but I like it back in the city.... ah, the city, where people don't celebrate phrases like "death by chocolate" and where indulgence comes in the form of a fancy cheese plate. Do I sound like a snob? Eh, whatevs.