Dinner out

So last night we decided to go out to dinner. We haven't been eating out that much, not because we're cheap (although it is nice to save money) and not because we are such great cooks (well, chris is, but not me!) but because we are very indecisive. First we decided to check out the happy hour at the restaurant across the street from us. It is a mexican restaurant but doesn't get great food reviews, so we didn't plan to eat dinner there. All i wanted was a margarita on the rocks or maybe a dos XX on draft, and a quesadilla, maybe some chips and salsa. Their sign says 2-for-1 drinks 4-7 for happy hour, and I just assumed that meant all drinks. Unfortunately it was only for frozen margs and beer. Did I mention it was about 25 degrees out? And no draft beer, only bottled. So, we're already there, fine, I'll try a frozen marg. It was actually not too bad. And the quesadilla was pretty good. But for my second drink I just went ahead and had a bottled beer. I have a feeling we won't be going back there for awhile.

Then, we decided to just wander down second avenue and find a place that we wanted to eat. I feel like we walk up second avenue ALL THE TIME and constantly walk by places that we'd like to try. But we went all the way down the street without finding anyplace that looked appealing. I had to find a bathroom urgently (a marg and a beer along with many glasses of water - not conducive to wandering around in the cold looking for someplace to eat) so we finally decided to go into a diner. But after I used the restroom, I looked over the menu and decided that a bright diner was not the kind of place I wanted to eat dinner. So we finally went into yet another mexican place across the street - I had been there before and wasn't entirely impressed but we were tired of looking and decided to give it a try. We started to look over the menu (once again, no draft beer! argh!) and I noticed CASH ONLY. There are tons of places that are cash only but we still aren't that good about carrying cash. Usually one of us runs down the street to the atm but tonight we were a little fed up. Chris had a twenty. So we split one meal and didn't order any drinks. Here's a pic of our sad table:



You see water, chips, salsa (all free) and the meal we split. Luckily there was enough for both of us. The check:


Yes, that's right, probably the cheapest meal out we've ever had together - a grand total of $11.75. Suze Orman would be proud. My new rule is that I'm not eating anywhere without one or more of the following: 1) The recommendation of someone I trust 2) a good menupages.com review or 3) Sounds appealing in Zagat. I'm sure this rule will be broken by next week or so, when we're hungry, too tired to cook, and forget to bring Zagat.