Fit Geek

Saturday evening I had an interesting night at Peruvian restaurant, Las Totoritas (7365 NW 36 St, Miami, FL,  33166). I’ve been to this place a number of times before on my lunch break, and their ceviche has always been my favorite out of all the places I’ve tried in Miami. I’m half Peruvian, and I love the cuisine. I was really craving it, and I figured it was about time I did another installment of Healthy Eating Miami. That was all the motivation I needed to haul my cookies over to Doral in the rain.

As soon as we got there our server offered us some sangria. Hell yeah! From our seats I could see her preparing it, but to my dismay she poured about a third of a 2-liter bottle of ORANGE SODA into it. Hell no! I looked up a few sangria recipes online and some of them include ginger ale, club soda and orange juice. But orange soda??? Listen, I’m not that picky. It wouldn’t have bothered me that they put it in the sangria, but I swear there was more soda in there than anything else. We asked if they could pour a little more wine in, but they told us we’d have to buy another one. Um…no. I let David finish it and I didn’t really bother with the rest.

Bleh. Sorry for the dark shots!

Besides that disappointment, the rest of our meal was quite satisfying. I ordered the shrimp and fish ceviche (cebiche de pescado y camaron), and like all the other times I’ve been to Totoritas, it was awesome. Ingredients include spiced lemon juice (leche de tigre – I could seriously drink the stuff straight), large roasted and fresh corn kernals (choclo), onions, tilapia, shrimp and sweet potato. If you’re trying to eat healthy, I think this is a great option. They also serve it with just fish, just shrimp, or mixed (fish, shrimp, calamari, octopus).

I will say that the ceviche portion was smaller than it used to be. That’s a good thing if you’re trying to watch your waistline or lose weight. However, if you’d like a much larger serving you could order the family size. I was in the mood for a hearty meal, so I ended up ordering a soup — parihuela, which is tomato-based with lots of seafood. It had calamari, octopus, fish, shrimp and an oyster in the shell. It comes in a large serving, so David and I split it.

Don't look like much, but it was goooood.

This one is also a healthy option, but if you’re squeamish about your food having a face…you might not want to order this soup. We found these guys in there.

Say hello to Mr. Shrimp and Mr. Octopus.

Ugghhh. IT HAS EYES!

Yuuuuck.

He has an octopus fetish.

Despite that, I still really liked the soup. It gave me a nom attack. In fact, everything I ate at Totoritas gave me a nom attack (with the exception of the sangria, of course.)

And on the less healthy spectrum, David ordered the jalea (a huge fried seafood platter). It was GOOD. Like really good. Although it also had one big shrimp with a face.

Mmmm. Fried heaven.

Overall we had a good experience here. The place is usually packed, and for good reason. If you’re ever in the area and would like a healthy, delicious meal, I’d highly recommend the ceviche. The parihuela is tasty too! And the jalea is off the chain, but not if you’re trying to be healthy

A few things to keep in mind:

• Totoritas can be a little hard to find if you’re not familiar with the area. It’s in the shopping center right next to the Wendy’s.
• Most of the servers primarily speak Spanish, but they can still accommodate someone who only speaks English.
• If you happen to come at a really busy time, there is a hidden room aaaalll the way in the back with more seating.

So, this is my first post in what I hope to turn into the Healthy Eating Miami series. The idea is that I go to different restaurants, pick out something that’s seemingly healthy from the menu and tell you how it is.

In this installment I’ll be talking about Ruson Japanese Steakhouse (13856 Kendall Dr., Miami, FL.) Ruson is a sushi and teppanyaki restaurant. (Teppanyaki is when they cook the food on a grill in front of you.) They also offer some Thai options like curry and chicken/shrimp Pad Thai. David and I decided to stick with sushi for this excursion.

I’m just going to go ahead and admit that this attempt at healthy dining was kind of a failure. I’ve eaten at Ruson before and my experiences were always good, with the exception of the first time I ate there, which was also the first time I ever had sushi. I choked on a tempura shrimp roll because it was so big. Total noob move. But anyway, this time around my entree left much to be desired, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

I have a few rules that I follow when I’m trying to eat healthy at a restaurant.

1. Small portions. I’m not a fan of food comas.
2. Naturally low carb. This is mostly because restaurant servings are so big (even the smaller dishes.) I know I’m going to be eating more than usual so I try to cut down on the carbs for this meal since they tend to weigh me down.
3. Simplicity. I look for things that don’t have too many ingredients. I like knowing as much as I can about what’s in the meal I’m about to eat. So the fewer the ingredients the easier that is to do.
4. Avoid things described as fried, crunchy or creamy.

So with that in mind we started off with tuna tataki. It was good. Not the best I’ve ever had, but still tender and flavorful. For a healthy appetizer, I don’t think you can go wrong with this small, savory serving of protein. Edamame, miso soup and salad are also good options.

Tuna Tataki appetizer

David also had the spicy octopus salad. I’m not particularly a fan of octopus–the texture is too chewy for my preference. But this dish was pretty good…even for something that feels like eating a balloon. If you’re a fan of octopus then I’d recommend it.

Spicy Octopus Salad

Now mind you, my intention was to pick a healthy item, not necessarily the most mouth-watering dish (which, in my case, would involve something fried). I’m a fan of rice-less rolls, mostly because regular rice rolls fill up me so much. So while looking for something rice-less I came across the Four Way Roll. My first thought? I like the way they think. Not that I would know anything about four ways…but, yeah. Ingredients are salmon, tuna, yellow tail, w fish (I’m assuming this meant white fish?) and asparagus. Simple and packed with protein. Sounded good to me.

Four Way Roll

Unfortunately it did not taste as good as it sounded. With all the fish, it was just too fleshy and didn’t have enough flavor or texture. Too much dead fish = not what you want in a four way. And the asparagus just wasn’t doing it for me.

I tried to spice up the four way roll by putting shredded carrot on top, but it didn't really help.

David ordered the Kimchee roll. Ingredients are spicy conch, scallion, asparagus, cucumber and masago. He said it was “aight.” I had a couple of rolls and agreed. There was nothing really special about this one.

Kimchee roll

Like I said, I’ve been to Ruson before and have definitely had good meals. But our rolls were just too plain this time around. That’s always a gamble you take when trying to order healthy at a restaurant. The next time I go I’ll pick something else and hope for the best.

Oh well. I'll just get drunk off sake.

I would also like to mention that you could certainly order a number of rolls there and request them with brown rice to make them more healthy. Even though I try to avoid carbs when I eat out, they’re not necessarily bad (I ended up breaking this rule anyway). Just try to stay away from refined ones like white rice, white bread, etc (broke this one too).  And on a side note-avoid I’d anything with “crab.” Ruson apparently only uses imitation crab meat.

Since our food was kind of a disappointment we decided to get dessert in a final effort to taste something good. The banana tempura was awesome, but you have to be a real putz to fuck that up.

And there was something else I was happy about: THEY HAD MINTS! I know it’s kind of silly, but this makes a big difference to me. Ever since the recession started restaurants never have mints!

So yeah, sorry I don’t really have any healthy dining-out recommendations this time. But I WILL find some in the near future. They can’t all be winners, you know?