Eating Out - The Keto Restaurant Guide
Here are some from my experience, please add what you've found.
Some of us love what keto can do, but also like to live a little more than canned fish and caesar salads. Here's a basic guide of keto friendly restaurants.
Note: if a restaurant is listed as (no keto), there is always the option of getting a chicken sandwich or burger and not eating the bun.
SouperSalad:
Can make a salad but good protein is lacking. A little cottage cheese (yes carbs) and ham squares may help. If you can do a meal with minimal protein, SouperSalad works, but is expensive for a salad.
McDonalds:
Salads, but be careful. The ranch dressing alone has 9g carbs, caesar 4. The chicken bacon ranch (grilled) and the caesar are the best choices at about 12g of carbs (+ dressing) Eat around the shredded carrots. Oddly, the same Newman's Own Dressing at the store is much lower in carbs. The McD's formulation has more....
Burger King:
(no keto) - while some food items will fit into your diet, BK still uses trans fats. In fact, if you never want to eat there again, read the ingredients on their site. French Fries, you think, would have a couple ingredients, not a paragraph of chemicals. Everything at BK has junk added to it except...the whopper (no bun) the whopper beef is actually beef.
Sonic:
(no keto) - while Sonic has salads, they are adorned with carby items like corn, beans, onion rings, carrots etc. Yes you can eat around them, but you end up with iceberg lettuce (for the burgers) + dressing. Not worth it with other options.
TacoBueno/Taco Bell:
(no keto) yes, i tried, even scraping the meat off a taco is too much work. In general, avoid these places, unless you want a taco salad with no shell, no beans, no corn, no dressing in a plastic container....
Subway:
(mostly no keto) they got rid of their low carb wraps. Yes, you're stuffing yourself with at least 55g carbs (veggie) before you even get to the toppings. The only thing i've seen is people asking for a soup bowl of tuna+mayo. Not a meal, and they charge the footlong tuna price for it. Subway's salads are OK, but the dressing choices are minimal and designed for sandwiches.
Jason's Deli:
My new holy grail of keto - the salad bar is top notch: eggs (whole egg, not shredded or chopped), olives, sliced almonds, real bacon, good cheeses, good dressing, great veggies. To top that off, you can add tuna salad (mayo, tuna, eggs), turkey breast or chicken breast for $1.49 and it's a good amount. People give me a funny look when i walk by with a salad with 4 whole eggs sitting on top.
Texas Roadhouse:
Steaks - any, grilled or roasted chicken, pork chops
Sides - fresh veggies, caesar or house salad (no croutons) and green beans (you get 2 sides)
+ the bucket of peanuts to munch on while you wait
Chilis:
(mixed) Chili's has some good salads, but they have carbs. I suggest going to chilis after a good workout where carbs are less of an issue. The buffalo chicken salad with no tortilla strips has carbs from the crispy chicken and buffalo sauce, but has yet to kick me out of keto. They have a grilled chicken caesar, a good cobb salad and some other options.
Chinese:
(no keto) even the meat is cooked or covered in a starchy sauce. Getting the food cooked for you, where you choose the ingredients and watch, you can get away with it. Just avoid the buffet.
Japanese:
Sashimi and maybe tako salad... your options are limited.
+green tea :)
Indian:
It's hard to say, the meats are great, coconut milk is good, curry is OK, but at a restaurant you never know what they put in the food. Some restaurants will have good options.
Mexican:
If you can't avoid the chips, don't go. Otherwise, fajitas with no tortillas are a good keto choice. Many have fish or grilled chicken options too, but will come with rice/beans. Also, salsa = tomatoes, but most don't need to be that strict. Just eat the salsa with a spoon. Don't go overboard though.
Greek:
You can eat Gyro meat all you want, but even the yogurt sauce has carbs
Brazilian or Mongolian BBQ:
Eating meat off a sword is priceless. It's something every real man would want to do. Just make sure your sides are veggies/salad.
Hooters:
Great caesar salad (chicken), but otherwise there's few options.
Buffalo Wild Wings:
I think the quality has gone down while prices have risen. The naked tenders with a judicious amout of sauce (self applied) are OK. The legs (wednesday) aren't bad, just ask for the sauce on the side. Remember, the chicken is fried, even though not coated. Even if there aren't carbs, nobody's body wants too much BWW. They have a cheap side salad, but it's only tolerable.
Chipotle:
(no keto)
Starbucks:
Coffee, tea...plain, that's about it
Pizza places:
you can eat the meat/cheese off the pizza, but without a salad bar, you're going to leave less than satisfied.
Applebees:
sucks
Outback Steakhouse:
Steak is always good, but the majority of their sides will try to sneak some carbs in. Be careful.
Carls Jr:
You can get any burger made low carb, wrapped in lettuce. Be carefull about toppings on some of them though. Low Carb Breakfast Bowl is 950 calories of keto goodness; eggs, cheese, sausage, bacon + an omlet. If you eat them often though, you'll get sick of them... same with any fast food.
Johnny Carinos/Olive Garden/Any other italian:
You're crazy. It's not worth watching the others indulge in carby goodness while you nibble a salad (no bread). Go somewhere else. On carb day, get some pasta.
Wendy's:
Full sized salads can have carbs, so be careful. Stick with the Chicken BLT or Caesar. The $1 caesar though is keto gold. The 5pc chicken nuggets have 12 grams of carbs in a pinch.
Arbys:
Has good chicken. Unfortunately if your order the chicken salad, it's fried. You can ask for grilled, but that may be a challenge that the minimum wage staff can't handle. (from experience) The dressing also sucks. In the vein of Chilis, if you can have extra carbs, their salad is a good option.
Note: most restaurants now go to the ingredient level with nutritional information, so you can see what leaving the carrot strips out will do for you
I'm done typing for now....