Restaurant week is almost here!

Reagan and I have a terrible habit of eating out at all of the same places, all of the time. We have a couple of “usual” spots in just about every neighborhood. It is a safe approach. We are never disappointed, because we already know what’s on the menu and what’s good. I’m not going to pretend like I’m some sort of foodie or something, but, there is nothing worse than shelling out the big bucks for an overrated mediocre meal. Ok, there are actually a lot of things that are worse, but overpaying for a sub-par meal is pretty annoying.

The downside to always playing it safe, is that we are missing out on about 9 million other great places to eat. But it is so tough to weed through all of the mediocrity and locate a place that really hits the spot.

There are couple of methods that we employ for branching out. Reagan will normally go by, either a place that she read about in some local mag at her salon, or a place that she walks past and thinks looks cute. I normally choose something that has been personally recommended to me. Actually, I normally just shoot down Reagan’s choice and go to one of the usual spots. Empirically, none of the above methods are foolproof. It is always a bit of a gamble, no matter how cute they look.

Wellllaaahhhh, there is a solution to this debacle that comes around every now and again, called Restaurant Week. During this time, the participating restaurants will offer three course meals at a prix-fixe lunch for $24 and dinner for $35. Summer 2009 Restaurant Week begins on Sunday and contrary to the name (which seems to indicate that it only lasts for one week), Restaurant Week lasts for three weeks! In past years, Reagan and I haven’t really taken advantage of it, as much as we would have liked to. I have already been checking out the menu and planning different ways to get fat over the next three weeks.