T.G.I. Friday's Dragon Fire Chicken & Chocolate Angel Swirl Cake

Bryn(my wife) and I had gift certificates to TGI Friday's So we decided to go out for lunch. We had gone there once before a several months ago and were disappointed, but we were giving them one last chance(only because Guy Fieri is so convincing). I have been on a diet for about three weeks now and have lost 21.5 lbs. It's been pretty amazing to know that i can cut back on a lot of the foods i thought i could not live without. So, going through the menu i found a lot of foods that really tempted me to cheat, but finally I decided to choose the Dragonfire Chicken which is listed under the "Lighter Side of Friday's" section.

Here is the description straight from the menu:

Dragonfire Chicken: Low Fat
A fire–grilled chicken breast glazed with Chinese Kung Pao sauce, served over stir–fried brown rice with pineapple pico de gallo, Mandarin oranges and broccoli.

It sounded pretty good and was "Low Fat". Low Fat on the menu is any entree with approximately 10g of fat and 500 calories. So it's not totally great for my diet, but it is better than most of the other menu options.

The presentation was pretty good, as it looked delicious on my plate with the different colors.

First I took a bite of my broccoli which tasted pretty bland without any seasoning or butter. I dashed some sea-salt and peppercorn on it and it didn't help much. I moved on to the chicken. It was pretty tasty. Not dry at all and the glaze was perfectly spread over it. I was expecting the Kung Pao sauce to have more kick to it, but it was probably better that it didn't overpower the taste of everything else. The mandarin oranges and pineapple pico de gallo was a nice, sweet compliment to the tangy sauce.

Overall it is a nice choice for someone looking for a good lower fat choice when eating out. At only 500 calories it is easily less than many of the 1500 cal.+ options on restaurant menus. It has a sweet and tangy taste to it and the portion size will fill most people up.

For dessert I choose the Chocolate Angel Swirl Cake, here is the menu description:

Chocolate Angel Swirl Cake:
Angel food cake swirled with chocolate mousse and served with fresh pineapple and strawberries. Drizzled with fudge sauce.

It is also listed as "Low Fat" in the sign on the tables. So that definitely caught my eye, though i hardly believe its low-fattyness. Friday's usually has fancy presentations for their desserts and this was no different. The fudge sauce was drizzled artistically. The Strawberries were great esecially with the fudge. The pineapple's were dissapointing, the seemed to be canned pineapple tidbits, instead of fresh ones. The angel food cake with swirled chocolate mousse was good and had the right balance of cake and mousse.

It was a good dessert,but something was missing. If i wasn't on a diet i would definitely have chosen the Brownie Obsession instead.

Grades:
DragonFire Chicken: B
Chocolate Angel Swirl Cake: B-

Today's expierience has taken TGI Friday's off my endangered Resturaunts list...for now.