Restaurant week has arrived, but I'm not sure anyone cares. A story we did a while back, with my top picks for the event, didn't garner much interest. I asked around the office to see if anyone had reservations -- crickets. More than 125 restaurants are giving you a chance to dine on three courses for $35. Does anyone care?
Someone in Dallas does. Of the restaurant's I listed in my top picks, Five Sixty and the French Room have filled out noticeably; both pushed a request for a Monday reservation till later in the week. Fearing's is booked solid, too. But the rest of the field seems woefully under-booked.
I'm going to hit at least one dinner before Restaurant Week comes to an end, but I'm left to wonder: Where are the restaurant week loyalists? Is the $35 price tag a deal, or do the supplements end up driving your bill into the clouds? Do you participate in the spirit of philanthropy (the event benefits the North Texas Food Bank), or are you just looking for a decent meal? Or maybe you're like these guys, whose terrible experience has ruined the promotion for good:
we ended up at one of the area's best steak houses, crammed like sardines into the bar before being seated an hour past our reservation time. The waitstaff were horribly overworked, rushing around like tornadoes & sweating like pigs. We ordered our cocktails at the table since we couldn't actually make it up to the bar through all the people and watched as the kitchen cranked out plate after plate of the same prix-fixe food. It was just so uncomfortable that we left without eating and journeyed back over to enjoy steaks in peace in our neck of the woods.
If you venture out this week and try one of the menus, let us know how things go. Do you think you got your money's worth, or did you feel rushed? Did your service suffer? Also, if you have the skinny on restaurants that don't participate that make good safe-house, chime in. Or is this just the week to hit the grocery store and cook at home?
