Seasons 52 in Plano: Counting Calories Deliciously
I’m up at the crack of madness this morning, since the goal is to catch the sunrise from aloft in a hot air balloon. Yesterday I flew here to Plano, Texas, and saw that the ground was mostly brown from the window of the packed plane.
After just a few minutes with my host, Brian Briscoe, I felt comfortable since we shared a favorite place in common, the island of Martha’s Vineyard. We sipped Shiner Bok beers as we waited for another journalist to arrive at Dallas Love Field.
Last night I was mildly stunned when we walked, gasp, to dinner. Dallas and Plano, aren’t walking towns, yet the warm night air invited a stroll, and so a few blocks over we went. The setting reminded me of outside of Disneyland in Anaheim, where Disney City center has been built with shops, restaurants and movie theaters, all so clean there for the purpose of entertainment.
I saw a Rolls Royce and a Maserati, and wondered why these super cars were parked in the fire lanes…then I was reminded that valet parkers like to put the big ticket toys right out front. Oh, I get it. Plano has an average income of above $85K a year, so there are plenty of cars like this.
Seasons 52 Fresh Grill has a few things about it that set it apart. It was busy on this Thursday night as we made our way to a table in the back, past a long row of Plano women celebrating a birthday. One is their
wine list, which has over 100 bottles, and a staggering 80 of them can be bought by the glass. It made me want to pick out my own special choice, yet I couldn’t decide which one I wanted, and ended up happy to drink their choices of bottles with the courses.
We also learned that at this 18-location upscale chain, they don’t use butter or cream. And somehow, every single one of the items on their long menu is less than 475 calories. WOW! They even have gluten free menus.
When we tasted the steak atop the mashed potatoes, it was hard to believe it was true. Platter after platter emerged, plank grilled salmon, pork tenderloin, polenta…somehow they’ve left out the one secret weapon in a chef’s arsenal, that big pat of butter, yet it was all really good. At the bar I saw the flat screen that the server can look at to get the total calories and every other fact about each menu item. Our server knew the total for every single tiny dessert.
Desserts come in cute little glasses, and are actually the perfect size and weigh in at about 200 calories apiece. I was told you can have more than one, but it was all I needed.