Restaurant Week 2009!! YAYY!! :D

Dallas Restaurant Week 2009 has OFFICIALLY kicked off!!!!!! :D

**for those of you not familiar with Restaurant Week...here are some info**
- Presented by KRLD and Central Market
- It starts sometime in August every year
- Some restaurants only participate for 1 week while others may extend it to 2 or 3 weeks
- $35 for a 3-course prix fixe dinner (part of the proceeds are donated to the North Texas Food Bank)
- Restaurants offer a special menu where you are given a few choices for appetizer, entree, and dessert.
- You must make a reservation and places usually get booked FAST!
- It's a great way to try awesome restaurants around Dallas without paying an arm and a leg. ^.~

Stay tuned for lots of yummy food pics and restaurant reviews!

These are the places I will be checking out in the next few weeks:

1. Al Biernat's - 8-14-09
2. The French Room - 8-28-09
3. Coast Global Seafood - 8-29-09
4. The Mansion on Turtle Creek - 9-4-09

I'm soooo excited!! :)


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Mmmmmm....butterfish.... :P

I went back to Roy's last weekend for a friend's early birthday dinner. We chose Roy's because I had another $20 off discount. :P But also she had never been so we HAD to go try it...since Roy's is freaking awesome!

When I made the reservation, I had told them it was my friend's birthday. So when we were seated, they had decorated the table with confetti and inserted a personalized birthday message inside the menus. That was pretty cool. I've always heard Roy's was a good place for special occasions. We were definitely hoping they would give us a free dessert!

There were 3 of us so we decided to get the Summer Prix Fixe Menu and another entree to share.

They had recently changed their Prix Fixe ($35~) to the Summer Menu so it was a good opportunity to try something new AND get the chocolate souffle cake of course!!!

For the appetizer we got the Curried Ahi Tuna (Nicoise Salad, Lemon Vinaigrette). The salad was very good and it had a lot of different components. Everything was very fresh and had lots of flavor except the tuna. I definitely tasted some of the curry but I wish it could've been stronger and a bit more seasoned. There was a flavor in the vinaigrette that I couldn't quite figure out...it had a floraly scent and taste. It was different and very refreshing.

The entree was "Pulehu" Sirloin (Truffled French Fries, Roasted Shallot Jus). We ordered medium rare but the steak was a little overcooked. I'd say more like medium to medium well...a little tougher than I wanted. But the flavor was still good. The french fries were thinly sliced potatoes that were fried. They were super crispy and sooo yummy! They sprinkled some sort of seasoning on the potatoes...we couldn't stop eating them!

Lastly, the dessert was Roy's Melting Hot Chocolate Souffle (flourless chocolate cake with a molten hot center served a la mode). I have yet to try any other dessert at Roy's because I HAVE to have the chocolate souffle. It is in my top 5 of best desserts of all time!!!! It was just as good as always...and never big enough! The chocolate in the middle oozed out as we cut into it, and the vanilla bean ice cream is always a classic pairing to the chocolate. Warm, gooey, and chocolatey...one of the best combos EVER! :D

I was hoping we would be able to get the souffle with the prix fixe and that they would give us another dessert for her birthday (b/c they usually do that for birthdays). I even asked the waiter...but he was new and said he would check. I don't think he did because we never got that free dessert. He didn't even put a candle on the souffle... I was quite disappointed.

For our other entree we got another one of my Roy's favorites...Hawaiian Style Misoyaki Butterfish (bamboo steamed rice, sweet ginger wasabi infusion) $28.95~ If you ever go to Roy's, you HAVE to get the butterfish. The colors on the plate are so vibrant and fantastic. And it tastes even better than it looks! It is soooo tender that it literally melts in your mouth...no joke! It was delicious! The creaminess of the wasabi sauce with the steamed rice and the fish was just amazing. I recommend this dish to everyone when I mention Roy's. This and the souffle are MUST HAVES when you dine there. Everything else you can go back and try...gotta have these the first time you go. You won't be disappointed!!

So all in all, it was a great dinner because you can't go wrong with the dishes we ordered. But I was disappointed that they didn't do anything special with the dessert for her birthday... Oh well, the yummy food still made it a good night!

Quality of Food:

Service:

Cleanliness:

Value (after discount):

Overall Experience:


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Ladies Nite~~

**Update 12-29-10**
I believe Trece is no longer doing Ladies' Night...they might still have other happy hour specials though.
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Trece
4513 Travis Street
Dallas, TX 75205-4126
(214) 780-1900
http://www.trecerestaurant.com/
Price: $ (for Ladies Night)

I went to Trece's Thursday Ladies Nite about 2 weeks ago. It goes from 4-9pm and offers $3 margaritas and $3 blueberry mojitos. They also provide complimentary chicken quesadillas/chips and salsa, as well as complimentary valet parking. What a great deal!!! (especially for the drinks since they are normally $11 a piece!) O.o The blueberry mojito has become one of my favorite drinks...although I would still never pay full price for it.

So from what was going to be a small girl's nite out turned to a full blown party! :P We found out that this awesome deal is not just for the ladies but for everyone, so then all the guys wanted to go too! hahaha. We ended up having like a group of 14 people at one point.

About the food...the blueberry mojitos were awesome just liked I remembered from the first time I had it. And at $3 a pop, I definitely had more than I should... hehe. The quesadillas were also really good, they just didn't come out fast enough.

Now for the service.....HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!! The first time we were there for dinner the service was already kinda blah...but this time was down right RUDE. When I first got there the hostess came up to greet me. I asked her if we're here for Ladies Nite if we can get a table or is it only restricted to the bar area. She told me that we can get a table. Then I told her we had about 14 people and she was a little worried. She told me that might be kind of difficult...although the entire dining area was empty at the time. But I told her no hurry since most of the people weren't there yet...in the mean time we'll just hang out at the bar. After a good 15-20 minutes I told her that it was no longer 14 but 12 people. She said that was "MUCH better"...uhhh ok....I didn't think 2 additional people would make SUCH a big difference... But anyways, she was still friendly about it so I was ok with that. Finally, most of the party had arrived and the hostess said we can be seated.

As soon as we sat down she started passing out the dinner menus. Then the waiter came by and immediately asked if we wanted to start off with some guacamole. (Keep in mind from my last post that the guacamole...altho very good...was $12/order...not worth it). I mentioned to him that we were there for Ladies Nite. Guess what he did next!?! He immediately turned to the hostess and says..."oh. they're here for ladies nite...." in a really snooty tone, and turned around and disappeared. WTF!! They are obviously offering these specials..and that's why we were there... It's not like we were there to cheat them for free food. There's no need to be all arrogant about it!

So during the time we were sitting there, we saw very little of him...or any other waiters... We had to ask him numerous times for more quesadillas. Which we waited over 30 minutes to get a plate of 3 pieces. THREE!! There were 12+ of us. ALSO...half way through, he and a team of waiters came thru like a whirlwind and removed us of all our plates and silverware. They were very pushy about it...didn't say 'excuse me' or anything.

Finally we had enough, we had MUCH better service while we were at the bar. The bartender was SUPER nice! We decided to go back out to the bar area. From the bar, we were able to quickly get more drinks and food as well.

So a warning to all who goes to Ladies Nite. Do NOT sit in the dining area because they will treat you like crap. Stay in the bar area where food and drinks are wayy more accessible and more people w/ more energy. As for dining there....good luck...the waiters are not much better even when you ARE paying for your food.

As for me...I still plan on going back for Ladies Nite just because its such a great deal and the mojitos are yummy. :P I just know to stay at the bar next time!

Quality of Food:

Service:

(the 1 cookie is b/c the bartenders were great...otherwise I'd give it a ZERO!):

Cleanliness:

Value:

Overall Experience:

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