Silicon Valley Restaurant Week offers discount prix fixe 3-course dinners
Need a good excuse to try a restaurant you’ve never been to, or are you yearning to visit an old favorite but don’t want to spend as much as you usually do? Silicon Valley Restaurant Week started today: more than 50 local restaurants – from Los Gatos, Downtown San Jose and San Jose’s Santana Row to Mountain View, Saratoga, and Palo Alto – are serving three-course gourmet dinners for $35-65 per person. And you can win a $50 gift certificate from one of these restaurants through my site! Read end of article for details.
Special menus are offered Oct. 16-23, 2013 (or whatever days of that week the various restaurants are open), and typically include three options for each course: appetizer, entrée, and dessert. Customers choose one selection for each course. Some way wonder why the SVRW menu prices vary so greatly. This is because selected restaurants choose to serve larger portions, use more expensive ingredients, and/or want to showcase signature dishes.
Silicon Valley Restaurant Week began in 2009 as an annual event. It’s become so popular that it’s now held twice a year, in the spring and in the fall. Restaurant reservations are recommended but not required.
For more information, and to see menus and prices for selected restaurants, visit the event web site. Remember that the prix fixe cost of $35-65 doesn’t include tax or gratuity.
A few highlights:
One participating restaurant is Mountain View’s Bushido, known for delicious Japanese izakaya dining, sustainable seafood, and sushi created by Executive Chef Isamu Kanai. Bushido’s SVRW $40 menu is actually four courses with two choices for each course. First-course choices include steamed buns with soy-braised pork belly; second-course choices include sushi (vegan or standard).
Italian-American Bistro il Postale, based in Sunnyvale, is serving a $35 three-course menu with three choices for each. Choose appetizers such as steamed clams and mussels with garlic, olive oil, and white wine; entrees such as blackened salmon with fresh avocado shrimp salsa and lemon-white wine-cream sauce, accompanied by risotto and vegetables; desserts such as tiramisu.
LB Steak is offering different menus at its Santana Row and Menlo Park locations. Menlo Park costs $45, and Santana Row costs $65. The Santana Row menu sounds intriguing, with albacore tuna carpaccio and steak tartare included in the appetizer choices. Entrée selections such as potato-wrapped Mount Lassen trout and sweet dumpling squash ravioli and dessert selections such as pumpkin bread pudding and salted caramel crème brulee round out the special offerings.
A couple more tidbits to whet your appetite:
- Persian restaurant Arya in Cupertino and Redwood City has a “dinner for two” for $39; this includes one appetizer (from seven choices), two entrees (from ten choices), and one dessert (from two choices).
- Mexican restaurant Mezcal in downtown San Jose has a $30 three-course menu.
- Palacio in Los Gatos is doing a three-course Peruvian tasting menu for $45 (add $15 for wine pairings).
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THE CONTEST:
This contest is open to readers of examiner.com and santacruzfoodie.com, but employees of Examiner.com are not eligible to enter. Anyone who has won a prize from my site during the last 30 days is also ineligible.
PRIZE – One winner receives $50 in gift certificates for il Postale. Note: because the restaurant is already offering discounted meals Oct 16-23, these certificates are NOT VALID during Silicon Valley Restaurant Week 2013. To enter, email your name to tfatemiwalker@yahoo.com and include the words “Silicon Valley Restaurant Week.” Or post a comment to this article on my Facebook page and include “Silicon Valley Restaurant Week.”
Either way, the entry deadline is Sat. Oct. 19 at 5 p.m. I will pull a name from all entries and notify the winner by email.
On Twitter? Follow me @santacruzfoodie.