First: I’m still under 200. This is a miracle, because this weekend was a virtual debauchery of non-approved meals.

Friday: OK, Friday wasn’t that bad. We went to Stanford’s and I had their Veggie burger with asparagus. I’m always tempted to tell them to add bacon to the veggie burger and see what kind of a look it would get me from the waiter.

Saturday… Saturday, we had a friend over and we decided he needed to go to Calamity Jane’s.

Calamity Jane’s is… well, it’s not a LOCAL burger joint, it’s in Dundee which is a good 20 minute drive, but it is a burger joint with some style.

Its menu includes “Pizzaburgers”, and, if you’re a guy, you should start drooling just at the word.

They take a hamburger – 1/3rd, 2/3rds, or 1 full pound of burger – put a layer of pizza sauce on it, put cheese on that, and then add pizza toppings.

The one I got was pepperoni, canadian bacon, olives, mushrooms, pineapple, onions, sausage, and… oh, right, there was also a burger patty in it somewhere.

It was Love on a Bun.

They have a full lineup of custom burgers, if you’re not in the mood for a pizzaburger. Some of them are very odd… the George Washington, for example, is a burger with Sour Cream and cherry pie filling.

Sunday morning was brunch at Mother’s Bistro in downtown Portland, my first visit there. It’s unfortunately a good restaurant that everyone knows about, as opposed to a good restaurant that’s a secret known only to a few… so it was pretty crowded. Fortunately, the organizers of Sunday’s outing got us a reservation, and Mother’s was able to squeeze the 11 of us in.

Their “schtick” seems to be comfort food for the most part, with a notable menu item being the Mac and Cheese du jour… Sunday’s was Southwestern Mac and Cheese, which was basically mac and cheese with your normal tex-mex flavors added… guacamole, jack cheese, that sort of thing. Although I went with a less interesting (but still quite good, and very filling to the point of being slightly uncomfortable) plate of blueberry pancakes and apple-pork sausage, it did make me want to stop in again just to see what kinds they make other days of the week.

Sunday evening we went to Zao Noodle Bar and I had their Curry Vegetables – one massive bowl of noodles, veggies, and curry. Their menu is a little sparse for me but they make a fine dish of carbohydrates. I was really astonished to hit the scale on Monday morning and see that 199.x 🙂

Now back to being a good boy again, I have to get back to the push for 189.