January and February are usually slow months for restaurants. People just tend to stay in more, you know, because it's cold and the huge credit card statements from Christmas just arrived. This is why restaurant week bargains tend to happen around now.
Irvine's Restaurant Week begins today, Friday, January 9 through Thursday, January 15. And like last year, it doesn't seem to have a hard and fast rule on what restaurants are actually in the city. Slater's 50/50 is technically in Lake Forest, and both Bluewater Grills (in Tustin and Newport Beach) are participating. But who cares? The more bargains the better. This year there are 42 restaurants offering deals.
A handful of Diamond Jamboree restaurants like The Balcony and SWSH are also playing along, which is noteworthy because they usually shut themselves out of OC Restaurant Week. And three new Irvine Spectrum entrants (Brio, Del Frisco, and LYFE Kitchen) are on the list this year.
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So which one you gonna try? Check out the full list on the website and click on the offers linked.
According to some sites, Dana Point is supposed to have a concurrent restaurant week starting Saturday, January 10th, but there's no proof that this is actually going to happen on Dana Point's Chamber of Commerce site.
But don't worry. Check back here when Anne Marie writes about upcoming Newport Beach's restaurant week. That's going to be a good one!
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.