November 9, 2011: Taste of DFW

Medifast Status: Day 191, Down ~67.5lbs

Normal work day today.  After work I ran home and picked up the family.  Jen and Tamara had asked us to go to the Taste of DFW with them so we decided to go.  We do love food events and a major one that is free is the best kind.

We were late, but not too late, getting to the event at Brookhaven.  The Taste of DFW is a country club culinary competition where country club members from around the DFW gather to taste and vote on the best food in the country club circuit.  There were maybe a dozen country clubs represented.

The food was awesome and we had a really nice time.  We ran into a friend who used to work at La Cima but is now married to the general manager of one of the other clubs.  We spent some time with her talking about the issues that we have been having at La Cima and she made some introductions on our behalf at Brookhaven which was both our host and our nearest to home country club.  Brookhaven is in Farmer’s Branch just under ten minutes from our house.

We are pretty sure, after talking to the club and getting pricing information, that we are going to make the decision to ultimately stay with ClubCorp but move out of the business clubs and into the country clubs.  Brookhaven looks like it is going to be much, much more our style than La Cima.  Brookhaven really is kid friendly and has a lot more facilities for us.  We are not sure if we want to join the gym there or not but that they have one is really awesome.  We will be seriously looking into that.

We have not made any decisions yet but we are going to think long and hard about Brookhaven.  The raw cost is more but the benefits are much better than La Cima and the biggest thing is that it is so close to home and family friendly.  The effort of going to Brookhaven is a fraction that of going to La Cima.  And instead of having garage parking that is a five minute walk from the venue or really expensive valet parking that leaves your car outside we can just pull up to the front door, drop off Dominica and the kids and I can just park in a normal parking lot.  No effort at all to park.  That alone is a major feature.

The whole competition was really nice.  Unfortunately there was a very limited supply of food items for Dominica and I and far, far more limited for her as much of the seafood was stuff that she does not like to eat because of the texture.  So she was pretty much limited to a couple different soups.  But they were some amazing soups.

Our favourite meal of the evening was Oakmont’s butternut squash and chunked apple soup.  It was amazing.  We all had several helpings and pretty much our entire table, which consisted of the La Cima representation as well as two Brookhaven members, voted for it.

The concept of the competition is a neat one.  It gives the country club set an opportunity to have some exposure to other clubs and see what they have to offer and get an introduction.  We are much more likely to take a trip to eat at other clubs after an event like this.  Although our food discounts at our own club are so dramatic that it is hard to justify going to any other country club without the discount except on the days when our own club would be closed.  That is the one thing that I wish that they would change – more encouragement to use the other country clubs, at least once in a while.  There is way too much focus on your one local club when these have an opportunity to work together as a local group.

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