McGrath's Fish House

No pictures but a fun lunch out with my Big Guy while the FIT is on a trip with his grandparents.  BG and I hit up the Northwest Sand Festival.  Who knew?  World championships and its in the parking lot of a mall... no where near the beach I might add.  The sculptures were pretty cool but the highlight for BG was digging, digging, and more digging in a big sand pit.  All that digging can work up an appetite for you, so we stole away to McGrath's Fish House on the opposite side of the mall.

McGrath's is a part of my own food history.  I went to school in Salem, Oregon, where the original McGrath's was located.  I think it has moved from its original location (or just franchised?  I don't know).  But even though that was "a couple" years ago I still remember their chowder.  Every time my family came to visit, we would eat there for lunch.  And dinner at Olive Garden.  Olive Garden was a big deal back then because it was very rare to find it.

This time around I opted to skip the chowder and try the seafood stew.  It was DELICIOUS!  Maybe this is just because I haven't had a whole lot of restaurant food since May (and I am officially 20 pounds lighter as a result).  We've had a BG birthday trip to Jimmy Mac's I forgot to blog about and I think I've done a Mama Stortini's run for gnocchi and marinara plus grilled chicken skewers (uh, YUM!).  But it really is hard to find food that fits with my low-cal eating plan.  This stew did the trick.

BG was thrilled as well because he got fish and chips, root beer (no diet coke for me means the root beer isn't  Barq's... which he can't have), and to top it all off, a scoop of ice cream.  Not just any ice cream... cotton candy ice cream!  That kid was in heaven.

A perfect little break to head back to the sand festival.