My Mexican restaurant challenge

I'm on my way in a bit to celebrate my oldest friend's 40th birthday at a Mexican restaurant.  (Oldest meaning we've been friends for 35 years, since Kindergarten - not that I don't have any friends older than age 40.)  I ate very well for b'fast and lunch, had a healthy afternoon snack, and I'm playing around with MFP to see what I can/should order for dinner to stay on track for the day, since yesterday was abominably bad and I didn't workout last night either.  Problem is, there's no way of knowing with any certainly what the calorie and fat content is of, say, deep fried chicken flautas, or chicken fajitas, or hell - even black bean soup!  There are so many different ways to prepare these things that I can only guess at it.  So I'm planning to play it safe and stick to the appetizer ceviche de Cameron (shrimp marinated in lime w/ other salsa ingredient) and a bowl of black bean soup.  But damn, that's boring!!!  And that leaves me pretty safely under my calories even without factoring my workout in.

It's her birthday!  I should join the girls in our round of frozen margaritas.  And have a few chips w/ salsa when we 1st arrive.  Chicken fajitas must be better than deep fried flautas or chimichangas, and I can limit the amount of cheese and sour cream I include in a fajitas, as opposed to the kitchen-prepared deep fried stuff...but those fajita wraps are really not worth all the calories they're loaded with.  (Is it rude to bring my own healthier wraps?  ha!  That's kinda psycho...)

Man, dining out is HARD!  Not just the unknown nutritional content and cooking methods, but also the temptations!!  I want to plan ahead and handle this well.  But even now, away from all the temptation and fun, I'm already thinking "Mmmmm....flautas" (that was my Homer Simpson voice.)  If I'm going to cave and order flautas, I should prepare for that now and skip the chips and margarita, AND get a to-go box right away so I can pack up 2 of the 3 before I even start digging in.  Order my shrimp and black bean soup appetizers so I'm not hungry, and then control my portion of the indulgent part.

OR I could stick to the shrimp and black beans for dinner and order the deep fried banana cheesecake dessert thing they make....which is so good I could cry thinking about it.  (That's really good, FTR.)

Ugh - this is how my mind is racing all afternoon.  I could shush it all and just say "go and enjoy and savor this one night."  But as I said, yesterday was so bad, today's 1000+ cal burning hike got cancelled AGAIN, and I see this as a great opportunity to learn some self control to serve me well in the future.  And hell - even tonight.  When I get home tonight, I will feel GREAT to be able to say I stayed on track and am proud of myself.

I'm actually, honest-to-God, nervous a little bit.  Ha!  This is sorta comical, actually.

Update in a few hours....