In our apartment, Tuesday nights are lovingly dubbed “TND” for Tuesday Night Dinners huddled around the coffee table with The Voice playing on TV. This week, it was my turn to cook, so I prepared the one and only dish I’m decent at making: sushi.
Wondering where I got the ahi, salmon, and hamachi? Yum Yum Fish Market on 23rd and Irving — no joke about the name.
Wednesday, June 1, kicked off San Francisco’s 10th Annual Dine About Town event where over one hundred restaurants participate and offer special two-course prix fixe lunches for $17.95 and/or three-course dinners for $34.95. The foodie in me went a bit crazy and looked up every single restaurant on Yelp, eliminated any below 3.5 stars with less than 500 reviews or with 4 stars and <200 reviews (+ other metrics such as “Is this restaurant on OpenTable? Have we been here already?”), then ordered the decent restaurants into lists for Most Popular (1000+ reviews on Yelp), Best Deals ($$$$ on OpenTable), Closest to Work (for team lunches or crunch days), and The Remaining Contenders.
Day 1 of Dine About Town meant we went with the highest rated (and most popular) restaurant under the Best Deals list: Ruth’s Chris Steak House.
Having been to Ruth’s Chris (in Maui, actually), I thought the prix fixe menu was simply what we were paying for — a cheaper meal at a high end restaurant. The first course was a mixed greens salad (mainly arugula) with a few cherry tomatoes, some croutons, and literally, a splotch of balsamic dressing in the center — neither mixed in nor on the side. For the entree, I went with the petit filet with shrimp and a side of mashed potatoes. Decent, but smaller portions than usual. The dessert was a bit disappointing as it was just a chocolate cupcake and a custard topped with berries, nothing too special.
Day 2, Ryan chose Blowfish Sushi to Die For, since we’re huge on sushi and sashimi. On first impression, this place was more tacky than posh, considering there was a live DJ bumping Missy Elliott while anime was playing on the big screen behind the bar. However, once the food came out, I was deeply impressed. The ritsu roll was solid maguro (+ a little avocado, no rice), the steak appetizer was paired with salsa (unusual and surprisingly delicious) and avocado tempura (what!), and the chirashi was generous in portions (and selection!) and really fresh. Dessert was a green tea cheesecake with a scoop of green tea ice-cream and an almond cookie!
Considering that it’s Friday and we don’t have any reservations, we might just go the gym and eat Subway afterwards. However, I do have a reservation at Chapeau on Monday, which I’m definitely looking forward to! (It’s the highest rated restaurant on my Most Popular list, and highest rated overall!)
Which Dine About Town restaurants do you recommend?
