How to Avoid Tipping the Holiday Scale this Year

It's not often you will read something from a restaurant's newsletter or propaganda that is promoting less consumption. Believe it or not, we are concerned about your well being.  We have always promoted several, if not many, healthy options on our menus.

If you are near downtown, you might recently have been besieged by delis and dogs. We can bring to your plan a steady diet of healthy choices that taste good too. Also, we are happy to alter any dish to make any item healthier.

If you are around for the dinner meal, we go far beyond the fryer. We have many selections from veggie to low fat to low gi. We are adding new things all the time. Very soon, we will be adding an option to make any pasta dish with whole wheat pasta.

How to Avoid Tipping the Scale this Year

I recently read an article about the importance of having a plan going into the holiday season.  It's not so much about what to eat and not to eat, but about the plan (which we hope to be a part of.)  Face it, going into the holidays for most people, the worst part is tipping the scale when it comes to January 2nd or 3rd. The article is short and offered a few simple common sense suggestions for holiday partying. 

• Think about people, not the food! Concentrate on socializing.
• Plan before you eat. When you arrive at a celebration, assess which food options are available and develop a plan.
• Change the intensity of your workout. Take the time to do something physical. This is an accomplishment, even if you only have 20 minutes.
• Add fiber to your diet. Fiber makes you feel full because it expands in the digestive system.
• Use a digestive enzyme. Let’s face it: you will probably consume more unhealthy foods over the holidays than normal.

Uptown Sides

Another thing that might help with tipping the scales is an area of our menu we started to concentrate on more when we introduced the digital menus:  side dishes. The menu gave us more space to concentrate on this oft overlooked area. Menus are trending toward smaller plates allowing us more options with portion size and variety.

Our purpose for this is two fold.

On one hand, is it nice to offer an enhancement to nice dinner. We make them all large enough for sharing. Most of us do not eat like that all the time. It is is more of a treat.

We also like to offer these sides as another meal option. One of our "sharing" sides can easily fill someone up, or you can split one with a companion. Many of our sides are specials that we might have for a week or two at time. We try to use seasonal produce, beans, greens and grains. To get our most current list go to uptowngrill.com and check out our menu. It is changed daily.

Here is a sampling of some of the sides we have offered most recently:

• baked creamed spinach gratin
• french green bean almondine
• honey brandy glazed rainbow carrots
• lentils with goat cheese and orzo
• roasted brussel sprouts
• sauteed swiss chard in white wine cream
• succotash
• sauteed flageolet beans with spinach and goat cheese
• leek and wild mushroom hominy grits

Come give one a try this holiday season.  We don't mind if you don't share it with anyone else... just be sure it's part of your plan!