Saturday

Restaurant Week - KC Style


When I lived in D.C., Restaurant Week was a much anticipated event. Like baseball's opening day or St. Patrick's day, Restaurant Week became a city wide holiday for adults. The deals were outstanding and the food was amazing. It was not unusual for many restaurants in D.C. to be completely booked up during restaurant week.

It was with that anticipation that I recently reviewed the Restaurant Week being put on by the Power and Light District. This Restaurant Week was a sham. The menus were restrictive, over-priced, and generally not a value. As I stated previously, Power and Light just didn't get the essence of what drives a successful Restaurant Week promotion. (By the way, for any new readers, I am not a P&L basher intent on supporting only locally owned joints. I am an equal opportunity eater and have been to every one of the Restaurants in P&L, except maybe Ghengis Grill?)

Would my Restaurant Week craving go unquenched? NO! I have been saved by the upcoming second annual KC Restaurant Week. This event, co-sponsored by the Greater KC Restaurant Association and the KC Conventions and Visitors Association, is set to take place next week from January 21st until January 30th. What makes this event "legend"... (wait for it)... "dary" is that it has its very own free iPhone app!
The app lists all participating restaurants, a brief synopsis of the place and its food, their address, a link to their website, and most importantly... their Restaurant Week menus.

To provide a quick guide to the KC Restaurant Week festivities, the participating restaurants offer a lunch special for 15 bucks and a dinner special for 30 bucks. The goal for us average Joes is to get more food than what you are paying for. Unlike the P&L debacle, this event seems to get that principle.

If you want to go to a less expensive place like Pizza 51, the lunch special during the week will get you enough food to feed two people. If you go to a nicer place, like one of my seafood favorites, the Bristol, you will only get enough chow for one person but it will be great options like Grilled Salmon or a Petite Filet Mignon... for lunch... for 15 smack-a-roos.

In all, I have already charted out five eating destinations for that week. A few will be chosen because I haven't been there ever (or in a super long time) and a few will be chosen because they are simply offering an unbeatable value.

And most importantly, by participating in Restaurant Week, you are helping a worthwhile charity. A portion of the price of every meal ordered is donated to Harvesters. Last year over $55,000.00 was donated to Harvesters. So help out a needy group and get your "opening day" on.

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