Big Steak

Last quarter I participated in a tech writing project where we had to make some sort of instruction manual. We did such a good job, that the company we made it for, gave us(4 people) a $200 gift card to AJ Spurs. I had never heard of it before, but apparently they have steak that is pretty good. Our group never made it the steakhouse last quarter because we were busy during finals week, but this past Friday we were finally able to go. On the car ride down all we could do was fantasize about how much food we were going to get because we had so much money to spend. When we sat down and were able to look at the menu, all I could think about was how big of a steak I was going to get. At first look, the 26 ounce porterhouse looked very appetizing. I had not ate much all day and had been living off Chef Boyardee for about a week, so any big steak sounded amazing. Then as my eyes moved towards the center of the menu, I saw something called "AJ's Gambler." With a name like that I had to check it out. As I read the description, I found my dream meal. A 35 ounce cut of top sirloin with potatoes and rice pilaf. Not only that, but if I ate the whole steak they would give me a badass t-shirt! It was a college students dream, a gigantic free meal AND free clothes(which means less laundry trips). While we were waiting, all I could think about was how good this meal was going to be. I kept myself from eating any appetizers or salads so my stomach was ready to overcome the beast of a steak. When the massive piece of meat finally lay before me I started to have doubts of whether I could eat a steak that was bigger than both of my fists combined. I got through about 3/4 of the steak and then bad memories started to run through my mind. What are these bad memories you ask? Well let me tell you that story.
On my way back from visiting SLO over the summer a couple of my friends and I decided to stop in LA to visit my other friend. We had not eaten all day so we figured we could all go get dinner together. My friend from LA suggested we go to this Korean BBQ place that apparently had great food, and to make things better, it was a buffet. Now if you never have had Korean BBQ, it basically is all you can eat meat and lettuce. There is a grill in the middle of your table so you do all of the cooking. Most groups of 4 get around 3-4 plates of meat because each plate has about 1 pound of meat and they serve you a "salad like" dish, along with soup. But in our instance we decided to order 12 plates of meat, which yes, translates into about 12 pounds of meat, which also means about 3 pounds per person. You may not believe me, but none of us were under the influence of any substance. I don't know if that makes it any better, but...yah. How we ate that much food, I do not know...Motivation I would think? You see, after about 8 plates we were all full, but one of my friends had the brilliant idea of playing quarters, but this time instead of using beer we would be using pieces of meat. Whoever lost, had to eat. "Here", he said, "is where your skills will truly be tested." The rest is history and we were basically asked to leave because we ate so much food.
From that experience, I learned that a person can easily feel full for a day. I woke up the next morning and still felt like I just ate the biggest meal of my life. I don't think I ate much of anything until 2 mornings after our feat and even then I couldn't eat much. This is why I decided to give up after making it through about 3/4 of that steak. I could feel that same fullness coming on to me that I felt before at the Korean BBQ, and I did not want to face the consequences. But our waitress still gave me an A for effort and was nice enough to give me a t-shirt anyways. It was a good night; I had leftovers for another meal and got a new shirt!

Check out the other blogs listed on mine, especially Joe's.