Dining out disaster

So yesterday I met a friend for lunch. There's a myriad of restaurants near where I work, so I tried to choose somewhere that would accommodate both my healthier eating strategy and her 1 year old son. I thought Subway would be too busy and small for us to have a good conversation and keep a toddler entertained, so I suggested Applebee's thinking of their reasonably priced soup & salad lunch combos. I had a cup of Broccoli Cheese Soup and a side-salad portion of Oriental Chicken Salad. Needless to say I was not full, but near-satisfied. I thought I would have plenty of points left to snack if needed.

Well, much to my dismay, it was nearly impossible for me to find nutritional values for Applebee's regular menu items. The only things I could find credible stats for were from their Weight Watchers menu (most of which is not included in their soup/salad special choices). I don't mean to be rude, but what are they trying to hide? The stats I did find were DISTURBING to say the least! I found information for similar Applebee's foods from Hungry Girl, The Daily Plate, Calorie King and other restaurants that suggested a regular serving of this salad and soup could hold more than 1,000 calories andover 60g fat! This is outrageous in my opinion! And to hide this information is even worse. I was hungry the rest of the day, had to use some of my extra weekly points (that I was saving for Super Bowl Sunday) and I was mad at myself for assuming soup and salad was a healthy choice.

Needless to say, I will not be frequenting Applebee's, and if the situation occurs where I do have to eat there, I will find something on the WW menu because that is the only way I can document what I've had. I will also be trying to find stats on my restaurant foods BEFORE I consume them. Hopefully I can avoid this pitfall in the future.