Maguro Restaurant

February 13, 2020August 10, 2025 bgibson135

Yesterday, I went up to Southern Pines to have lunch with Deborah and Russ Savage. They had just gotten over the flu the previous week.

I ordered the General Tso’s Chicken with Spring Roll and fried rice. Russ had the Thai Basil Chicken lunch special. I don’t recall what Deborah had. These lunch specials are only $7 plus tax, with water. The three meals came to a little over $22.

My meal was good, but looking at Russ’ food, I thought, “Now that looks really delicious.” Russ bit into something that was spicy, and we finally demised that it was probably a slice of jalapeno pepper.

We finished and walked outside and talked in the parking lot. We were discussing on what we were going to do the rest of the afternoon, but my stomach was upset and I bowed out to return home.

Next day, I decided to come back up to Southern Pines and to Maguro’s to try the Thai Basil Chicken lunch special. On the way up, it started to rain and very quickly the rain came down so hard that it was difficult to see. I would have pulled off the road if there was a spot, but the heavy rain was brief and I made it to the restaurant without further problem.

I sat in the first booth, just inside the entrance. The male host recognized me from the previous day.

I ordered hot tea. It was a green tea, and was in a cast iron tea pot. The tea was in several bags and the tea appeared to be a relatively bright shade of green but looked minced and not the usual tea fronds. I didn’t like the flavor, but drank several cups. Reminded me of grass.

I ordered the Thai Basil Chicken lunch special with fried rice and a spring roll. I asked the waitress if they had “hot mustard” and she thought quickly and said no. I said, “That’s okay.”

The meal arrived shortly, I had been looking at things on my phone.

It was a good looking entre. The chicken appeared to have been flattened and lightly breaded in small portions. Some of the other ingredients were egg plant, jalapeno slices, spring onion, red, yellow and green bell peppers, mushrooms and onion. The Spring Roll was more like an Egg Roll and was cut in half on the bias, with a sweet garlic sauce in a small bowl.

The restaurant is relatively large with a large Hibachi section, a small bar area with TV and a smaller divided boothed area.

This was a good experience and good food for a great price!

20200303_120740 — A different visit and presentation of the same Thai Basil Chicken lunch special.

So, I’m watching a cooking show today and it’s really about pizza, but they are using tuna on a specialty pizza… and viola. I see that there is a type of tuna called Maguro (ha!)

Maguro (mah-goo-roh) or hon-maguro, is the Japanese term for bluefin tuna, perhaps the best known and most commonly eaten fish in all of sushi dining. (Definition from Yahoo Search.)

ADDENDUM [07/07/22]: I had lunch at Maguro’s again today. But, I only ate about half of the meal and got a “To Go” Box for the remainder. There was quite a bit of chicken left over, and a good amount of rice, but only one half of a small egg plant, a little of the Thai Basil, Bell Peppers, and onion. And, half of the spring roll. *I think of Maguro’s spring rolls as more of an egg roll. It has very good flavor.

I got home around 6 pm. I had planned on fixing some corn on the cob & fried okra to go with a little bit of left-over steak, but when I put the bag with the To Go Box of lunch down, I decided to fix some peppers & onions to add to it. This was the perfect addition. I sliced up a little Red Jalapeno, and some yellow, orange and green peppers that I had bought at the State Farmers Market on Tuesday. And, I sliced up some Vidalia Onion and fried it all, using some Grapeseed Oil & some Toasted Sesame Oil and a little dried Basil (not Thai). Once done, I added all of this to the left overs, and mixed it all up.

This was excellent! Maybe better than the original meal. All the peppers seemed to have a little heat, although I had been told several were “sweet”.

Test with my new folding keyboard.

October 20, 2013April 10, 2025 bgibson135

I am at Hwy 55 in Apex.

Sent from my Galaxy S®III

The Hwy. 55 is no longer at this location in Apex. I’ve noted that at least one other Hwy. 55 has closed in Kenansville, North Carolina.

I think it was a couple of months ago, I was passing through Kenansville one night, on my way back to Fayetteville from Hubert, and stopped in to get an order of Onion Rings and a Diet Dr. Pepper. Everything was the same, except for two things I did notice. They had a new menu, on a single two-sided laminated sheet of paper, and their outdoor sign was either not lit, or missing.

Everything was the same! So, I really didn’t pay attention to the phrase on the menu that said, “Friends You Know.” It was only later that I realized that “Friends You Know” wasn’t an advertising slogan for Hwy. 55, but the new name of this restaurant, “FYK.” The woman manager, perhaps owner, brought this to my attention that they had bought out Hwy. 55 at this location but were still serving most of the former items, and they still had onion rings and Diet Dr. Pepper, and all the 50’s glitz was still on the walls, the black & white checkered floor tiles and a full sized Elvis up near the front door.

The onion rings and the Diet Dr. Pepper were both just like they had been before, deliciously pleasing, with a lot of ketchup. And at least once since then I’ve tried to stop by again to have some more onion rings. One time they were closed for a holiday, and another time they were also closed, maybe closed on Mondays? So, I still want to enjoy another order of onion rings.

[NOTE]: On a later visit, I talked with a young (19) man who was a cook. He told me that the woman wasn’t the owner, or maybe even a manager. [end NOTE]

Lunch at Golden Corral & the Weight Loss & Gain

May 3, 2012January 3, 2025 bgibson135

Normally, I have chicken, and sometimes fish, but today, I had roast beef which had some stewed potatoes and onions. There was also the cabbage which is very flavorful and the greens with some chopped onions. I only had one broccoli floret today.

I will normally follow this up with dessert which I put in a soup bowl. I had 3 ripe strawberries, a slice of Bartlett pear, some chopped walnuts & sun flower seeds, raisins, dried cranberries, some sweet chocolate bits and sweetened, shredded coconut.

I’ve lost about 30 lbs. since January 1st and here is my current pants size. These are tighter than the other two pair of pants I bought at the same time at J.C. Penny’s.

[ADDENDUM 01/03/25]: I see from the above photos that this was May of 2012. I would have been 58 years old at the time, and this would have been near the end of my second “stretch of losing a lot of weight,” at which time I would start gaining most of it back again. I made a note that I lost weight at about 2 or 3 pounds a week, and that created a weight loss chart at about a 45 degrees angle downward. But when I started to regain the weight again, I would gain at about half the rate upward (about 22.5 degrees angle upward).

There must have been some kind of psychological barrier for me to get below a weight of about 230 lbs. A few pounds on either side of this, and all that “easy loss” was out the door. And, it was easy loss. Once I had the mindset, and my metabolism had kicked in gear I had no problem losing weight. I wasn’t hungry, or starving myself. In fact I could eat a bunch of the “right things” and even splurge (or cheat) at times, and still come back to the right path and keep losing weight.

The first great weight loss, I wasn’t diagnosed as a Type 2 Diabetic and that meant I ate almost every vegetable literally from A to Z. Asparagus, avocado, beans (black/butter,/green/kidney/lima/pinto), beets, broccoli, cabbage (chinese/green/red), carrots, cauliflower, celery, corn, cucumbers, egg plant, garlic, leaks, lettuce, mushrooms, okra, olives, onions, peas (garden/sugar snaps/snow), peppers (sweet & hot) potatoes (red/white/yellow/sweet), pumpkin, radishes, ramps, rutabagas, spinach, squash, tomatillos, tomatoes, turnips, and zucchini. I don’t recall eating brussels sprouts at that time, but I now love them. I don’t think I got to Dandelion, Romaine Lettuce and Red & Swiss Chard until later, and two of these went into soups. What I am saying is that there are very few fruits, vegetables, beans, peas or other edible items that I don’t like or would be afraid to try.

Two splurges I recall were: Eating a whole quart of ice cream. Eating a large plate of spaghetti. With each of these “cheats” I would gain a couple of pounds the next day, but once I came back to the right path, by the end of the week I would have lost the normal 2 or 3 pounds. I wasn’t eating bread, and I was drinking a lot of water.

I think I was about 49 years old the first time I lost about 60 pounds over a three month period. And both times, I easily lost the first 30 lbs. or so, but then “foundered” over a couple of weeks and then started gaining the weight back again. These pants appear to be “chocolate” in color, and at the time there I also had a couple of medium blue pairs of pants. *At some point in my life, I started buying two of everything, in clothing, that I bought. Exactly two of the same shirts or pants.

I said I would start to regain the weight each time. Well, this last time I had already bought the next pairs of pants in the next size down. It might have even been a size 34. Amazing. But, I never got a chance to wear them. Within a few weeks it would have been impossible to fit in them, and that possibility got even further away with time. I may still have a brown pair, from that time, that I never wore.

I don’t recall if this memory is from my first severe weight loss period or the second, but I was up at Biltmore… The logic returned to me. If I was at Biltmore, this would have been when I was about 50 years old (2004). The year 2004 was the first time I visited the Biltmore Estate, and because I had just missed the spring planting of flowers, I purchased an annual ticket, and then returned to Biltmore four times that year. I think I paid extra for the Christmas tour. I’ve always thought that I was about 49 the first time.

But, I was at Biltmore and it was a sunny afternoon, and I was about to head out to my car to leave the Estate. But, I went over to the bakery and bought a giant bear claw (an odd shaped sprawling cinnamon & sugar concoction) and some other sickeningly sweet baked good with white sugary icing, and I ate them both on the drive back home. And with that, I started my uncontrolled weight gain.

I’ve been hanging around 250 lbs. for at least a year now. Losing weight is much more difficult now because of all the starchy veggies that turn into sugar quickly. I had been on Trulicity (once a week injection) for several years and then “they” just couldn’t replenish my supply. Dr. Norem first switched me to Rybelsus (a daily tablet), and when that wasn’t effective, she changed me to Ozempic. Ozempic has worked well. I don’t notice much hunger loss, but it has brought my blood sugar back down. Hopefully my next visit to Dr. Norem and my A1C will be back below 7.

One difference between Trulicity and Ozempic? The Trulicity was in a one time injection system and you never saw the syringe. Give the shot and throw away that used pen. With Ozempic each pen provides four injections. You switch out the syringe each time (screw on/screw off) and with the final dose, you throw that pen away. But, you do see the little syringe and for me that always provides a little angst. Not enough to not give myself the shot, and it doesn’t hurt, but enough for me to keep putting it off through the day.

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