Nobody told me it was a MEAL!!!

As I've come to realize is often our M.O. on Sunday, we eat at least one meal outside the home. This is fine with me, because Sundays are fairly lazy around here, and it's often our only meal. Today was no exception. We were originally going to go to Lombardino's, but in an effort to 1) be somewhat fiscally responsible and 2) actually get something done around the house, we opted for something cheaper and closer to home.

We chose poorly.

Or, rather, the choice of restaurant was fine - we just made poor choices once we got there. Delicious choices, but bad for productivity. And too many choices for it to qualify as fiscally responsible.

We went to Laredo's. Now, don't get me wrong. I loooooooove Laredo's. I've been on a "______ + chips" kick lately, and any Mexican place worth its margarita salt will defnitely be able to satisfy that. However, I wish someone - anyone - would have warned me that my soup was not really soup. It was a meal in itself.

The menu currently up on their MenuPix page doesn't list the Sopa de Mi Cocina. I believe the menu at the restaurant itself described it as chicken, shrimp, pico de gallo and avocado in broth, or something like that. There is nothing on that list I don't like. What the menu conveniently neglected to mention - which for the $8.95 price tag, I probably should have been able to figure out - is that they take a bowl roughly the size of one of those oversized coffee mugs (you know, the kind you usually use for soup anyway) and fill it about 3/4 of the way with shredded chicken, put a generous portion of pico de gallo on top of that, pour in enough (delightfully flavorful) broth so that it comes to the top of the chicken, then garnish it with 5 or 6 perfectly grilled shrimp and 4 large chunks of avocado.

It. Was. Heavenly. To paraphrase the ubiquitous "young ditzy female" judge from the original Iron Chef, it made my mouth incredibly happy.

Coupled with the chips and salsa, I was so full once I finished the soup that I didn't even look at my entree.

As for fiscal responsibility, that's something we struggle with when we go out to eat. To illustrate, I would have been fine eating that soup and nothing else. Bryan would have been fine with the appetizer he ordered and nothing else. Had we ordered just those two things and stuck with water for a beverage, we would have been out of there for just a little over $20, including a 20% tip. But no, we each also ordered an entree, I just had to have one of their specialty margaritas and Bryan had dos Coronas, so with tip, we spent 3x what we really had to. I suppose it's just as well, because we'll each easily get two additional meals from our entrees.

But oh my God the soup...