Do you love oysters but can't afford to eat a dozen at the usual $2.50-$3.50 price per pop? Fret not, because there are plenty of places and times to eat oysters for just $1 in Boston! Here is a guide to where to get $ oysters in Boston. I'll try to keep this list as updated as possible, but please check with the restaurant before going :)
Of course, do let me know if you know one that is missing from this list!
Whether you're a student or someone with a "real job", everyone loves saving money, right?
Well, Bostonians can now have more opportunities to save money while dining out with this new mobile app startup called GoPapaya.
The idea of GoPapaya is like HotelTonight: they work with restaurants to fill tables during the restaurants' down time by offering discounts to customers, usually between 10-30%. On top of that, since they are new and promoting their app, you can sign up with my referral code "pigs10" and they will send you a $10 Amazon gift card after you complete your first reservation!
The restaurant will set a discount on the app in real time, and you'll have 30 minutes to arrive at the restaurant once you make your reservation. When you open the app, it will show you what discounts are available and for how much, sorted by the distance.
Once you reserve the table, they will hold it for 30 minutes. During this hold and when you're checked in, you can't reserve another table unless you cancel the current one. Here's when I made one for lunch at Patty Chen's Dumpling Room in Central Square.
To use it, you'd turn on your bluetooth, and the app will automatically detect when you get to the restaurant and check you in. You don't need to purchase anything from the app so there's no upfront cost like Groupons.
When I got to Patty Chen's Dumpling Room, I just told them I made a reservation with GoPapaya, and they knew what I was talking about.
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| Pork Dumpling "Ramen" at PC Dumpling Room |
Bostonians: Want free food? Would you sing for free food?
Papagayo Mexican Restaurant is launching a Karaoke Brunch at their Charlestown location and for the month of January, all brunch entrees are 50% off! On top of that, if you call and make reservation and sign up to sing, you'll get brunch FREE!
I'm no public performer, but I'd sure do it for free food! Find the information and the number to sign up below:
If you've shied away from dining at a steakhouse because of the price, head over to Fleming's Steakhouse for their "late night happy hour", which isn't all that late. Called "8 for $9 til 10", you can get 8 items for $9 each from 8-10pm. They also have a "5 for $6 til 7" which may be an even better deal, but the offerings are better for the later night menu.
The same deal is available at all Fleming's locations nationwide. Even better, at most Fleming's locations you also get happy hour prices on some drinks (8 wines and cocktails) including a flight of single malt scotches for $9! Alas, Boston doesn't allow alcohol happy hour (poor me) so I can only show you the food offerings.
First of all, even though you're only there for the cheaper food at happy hour, they still serve you the housemade bread - served with tomato basil butter and Chardonnay-infused gorgonzola sauce.
Forget parties with a high cover charge, a lot of bars and restaurants are throwing deals and specials! Here's where to drink on the cheap for Halloween:
First of all, there's a Boos for Booze bar crawl along Washington Blvd in Culver City. Deets:
This is a hopefully growing list. If you know of a deal, let me know!
Note: I haven't personally checked out these deals, so call first and confirm before you go.
Monday
FIG, a restaurant focusing in seasonal and local ingredients, has as its namesake the 100-yr old fig tree that sits in front of the Fairmont Miramar hotel (where the restaurant is located).
Psst! Now til 6/25/09 they're having a 80% off sale! Just enter code: DISH.
We came late, past 9:00 PM. The restaurant was pretty quiet overall (except for a table of 4 drinking ladies that were quite ... lively), and I liked the decor and ambiance.
The bread at FIG is served warm, each in its own paper bag, and accompanied with arugula butter.
Our first orders were from the Snacks section: Tarte Flambee (fromage blanc, blue cheese, lardon) - $6
Roasted Tomato Soup (mascarpone, basil) - $9
Young Beets with Santa Barbara Pistachios - $8
I thought the portions from the Snacks section were pretty small and doesn't seem to be really worth the price - especially in comparison to the other dishes I had later from the Appetizers section.
Although the next dish I had was called the Mushroom Fricassee ($12), it seems that the focus of the dish was in fact the sweetbreads.
Warm Quinoa Salad (chard, butternut squash, toasted almonds) - $13
Braised Tongue (tomatillo, breakfast radish) - $11
Both the braised tongue and quinoa salad made for a great lunch the next day too!
After all this food, and especially the spicy tongue at the end, I wanted something light for dessert, so I just ordered the sorbet. You get 3 scoops, and I just asked for 2 blood oranges and 1 pomegranate.
The bar at FIG boasts fresh seasonal ingredients and it's currently a great and quiet place to just sit, have a drink, and talk. And of course, eat. I want the restaurant to do well, but hopefully it won't get too crowded!!
Also, with the way we ordered, the $25 certificate didn't put as big a dent as I had hoped. Skip the snacks, just go with appetizers/ entrees and you'll do much better!
Read the reviews from LA&OC Foodie and Carolineoncrack!
FIG Restaurant
101 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 319-3111
www.figsm.com
Bamboodles has kind of been at the periphery of my radar ever since reading Exile Kiss' post on it, but when Wandering Chopsticks told me they had $1 daily special noodles ($1 ???) I immediately asked her to take me there.
The draw of Bamboodles is the bamboo-made noodles, made fresh daily. When we got there the guy was still working on some noodles, but alas, he didn't mount the big bamboo for my enjoyment. WC got a video though so hopefully she'll blog (sorry, vlog) this.
Since I felt kind of bad coming in and just ordering $1 dishes, I asked for an iced lemon tea also and WC got a side of spicy wontons.
Here's the $1 chicken-green onion-noodles:
The noodles are quite good, with a nice chewiness and firmness. There was light fragrance to it. Parts of it were still sticking to each other but I believe these would work wonderfully in a soup. Can't wait to try their spinach noodles also.
The Spicy Wontons ($1.95) contained of eight wontons lightly covered in chili sauce.
(These wontons, plus the chili sauce from YunChuan would be zomg amazing!)
The most expensive item on our check ended up being my iced lemon tea for $2.45 (expensive for an iced tea but I guess they have to cover overhead somehow)!
I'm going to be back to try their other items, but in the meantime ... guys, if you're feeling poor, just come here, get your $1 noodles, but please be considerate and tip reasonably (the dish usually sells for $5.95).
Oh, and the $1 special only lasts while the daily supplies still last, so go there early.
Bamboodles
535 W Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 281-1226
www.bamboodlesrestaurant.com
Don't cancel that hot date because of the recession just yet!
For 10 days on March 20th-29th, the restaurants in South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa are offering prix-fixe $20 3-course lunches and $40 4-course dinners for a promotion they're calling Fashion Plates.
We're talking the fine dining establishments here, and these ten days span the weekend also - sounding better than DineLA already here ...
Participating restaurants include:
Pizzeria Ortica (David Myer's new restaurant)
Marche Moderne (Lunch only - but their lunches are always $20 weekday, $25 weekend anyway ..)
Morton's the Steakhouse
Leatherby's Cafe Rouge (dinner only)
Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale's
Pinot Provence
Hamamori
etc.
For more info, visit http://www.southcoastplaza.com/ or just call up the restaurants directly! :)
Wakasan is one of my favorite recent discoveries. Why? Well, 1) they're open late - 11:30PM M-Th, and 12:30AM F-Sat (they close at 10:30 on Sundays). I don't know if you remember my ordeal on finding late night places on Mondays, but, well, this about fixes it all! 2)It's a great deal. They prefer you to do their prix fixe menu that's $35 - when I did, I ended up getting 12 items and was stuffed - probably too much so for 11pm on a Monday ...
Thanks to Mattatouille for pointing this place out to me!
1. Cold bean sprouts
2. Bean curd - before it's formed into tofu with vegetables, and
3. Ankimo with ponzu sauce, cucumbers and salmon eggs
The ankimo was also good, and I really like the combination with the cucumbers!
4. Sashimi: Tuna, old yellowtail, red snapper
They're not the best quality sashimi, although it wasn't bad. I wondered why the "old yellowtail" - because, yes, it tasted pretty "old". Anyway it wasn't bad and for $35 for this and a lot more I wasn't going to complain.
5. King crab legs
6. Grilled items: Miso salmon and green beans wrapped in wagyu beef
7. Braised Skate wings
8. Shrimp with sweet potato fried rolls
9. Chawanmushi
10. Miso soup
11. Chirashi with tuna, scallops, uni.
12. Vanilla ice cream
Overall we had a great variety of dishes, and some of them very interesting ones I've never had before, and all for $35. Plus they're open late daily. I'll be back here, and I think you know when :P
Wakasan
1929 Westwood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 446-5241
I found out about CozmoDeck not too long ago - a friend of mine got them for free from a shopping event and gave me a few cards.
So what is a CozmoDeck? It's a promotional tool for restaurants - each card in the CozmoDeck is a gift card that gives you $15 off a meal ($50 or more minimum order on FOOD ONLY).
Not bad, not bad ... since an uncustomized CozmoDeck is only $30 apparently. You can also get a customized one for $65 - this lets you get multiple gift cards from just the restaurants you want - 52 cards total, hence a "deck".
I got one for James Beach, Ciudad, and Pink Taco from my friend, Kat (and they were free! Even betta! Thanks Kat!)
You can see the list of participating restaurants on their website.
They have The Wilshire, Tagine, and Luna Park among others. It's actually a pretty good deal I think. $50 is pretty easy to do even with just two people at these places if you order dessert.
Oh, another note though! I won't recommend buying them now, since they expire December 29th, 2008! If the price remains the same next year, I may get myself one.
On Saturday I went to South Coast plaza in Costa Mesa, killing two birds with one stone: 1)visiting Kat in OC who's been complaining that I don't visit :P and 2) trying out the 4 courses for $40 deals at the Charlie Palmer's at Bloomingdale's. This post is kindof late for those who want to try out the deal, since tonight is the last night ... but I thought it was still a good intro to Charlie Palmer's.
They had an eye-shaped window that looks into the kitchen. It was pretty cool to see them at work, and one guy even posed for a picture!
Besides the waiter/waitress, one of the sommeliers came by and introduced himself, which I thought was nice (we haven't ordered wine or anything).
So the 4 for $40 meal started with: Tasmanian salmon tartare with passion fruit-lavender, watermelon radish
Next is the Roasted Corn Soup with Chanterelle mushroom Ravioli:
The burger was pretty standard - the meat was very very juicy, which I liked, but at the same time was a bit 'rough'.
For the entree I got: Pan roasted sea scallops, with sunchokes, sugar snap peas, herb jus
Kat's friend ordered the Prosciutto crusted pork tenderloin with salsify, black mission figs
The chocolate molten cake for the dessert was not bad. It was not anything special either. Without the ice cream it's a little too rich and sweet. But then again, a rich chocolate molten cake is good.
Instead of petit fours, they gave us 'beignets'. They were tasty, but I think they're more like donut holes. Good donut holes.
All in all I'd say the 4 for $40 was a good deal. As for the restaurant itself, it has solid food, ambiance, and service. It's pretty 'standard' high-end restaurant with all the right components, good for business meetings, taking guests, etc, but not one I would make as a "destination."
Charlie Palmer's at Bloomingdale's
3333 S Bristol St
Costa Mesa,, CA 92626
Phone: (714) 352-2525
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