Results tagged “restaurantweek”

To celebrate USC Thornton School of Music’s 125th anniversary, Michael Tilson Thomas conductor and music director of the San Francisco Symphony, returns to his alma mater for a concert with the USC Thornton Symphony Orchestra tonight at 7 pm at Bovard Auditorium. The multimedia presentation includes historic photos of him with some of his mentors and fellow students while he conducts Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4. Tickets are $18; seniors, USC alumni and non-USC students are $12; current USC students, staff and faculty are free with valid ID.

Apparently one Restaurant Week just isn't enough for Los Angeles: popular (and controversial) review site Yelp.com has announced their own "1st Annual Yelp Restaurant Week" starting this Saturday, May 30th. The kickoff event is being in conjunction with LACMA's Muse Artwalk. Participating restaurants include Tasca, Little Next Door, Luna Park, Messob Ethiopian, and Amalfi Ristorante, among others, all of whom will be offering a three-course prix-fixe for $15-30. Mention Yelp when making a reservation, and check out their website for more info.

                           

It was standing room only at the wildly succesful launch of DineLA yesterday at SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. More than 100 of Los Angeles' finest chefs filled the rooms of The Bazaar, chef Jose Andres restaurant in the brand spanking new hotel. The building is dazzling with blinding white walls and lots of shiny shiny chrome; the interior design accented is by unusual and exotic pieces.

It's baaaaaaa-aaack! DineLA's Restaurant week, the twelve* days devoted to special pricing and menus in many of the city's top eateries is poised to return from January 25th-30th and February 1st-6th.

Many of LAist's contributors have been checking out L.A.'s dineLA Restaurant Week -- and we've discovered that some experiences definitely offered more value than others. I decided to close out my own Restaurant Week experience with a casual lunch and a more upscale dinner: for the former, I took LAist editor Zach out to lunch at eat. on sunset, while I saved the fancy hotel dinner at Circa 55 for my special guy. Both restaurants offered exactly what I was looking for in a Restaurant Week experience: tasty, unique dishes for reasonable prices in a beautiful location. And did I mention good service? When it comes to dining in this city, nothing sets apart a fine meal so much as excellent service.

After a rocky start, my DineLA restaurant experience last week at The Palm Downtown had a happy ending. (Unlike my fellow LAisters who, unfortunately, didn’t.)

Vermont was my favorite neighborhood "upscale" joint when I lived in Los Feliz. Not only was the food outstanding, but the service was attentive to the point of obsequiousness. Once during a particularly romantic meal, a waiter casually dropped a large cloth napkin on my table and gave it a few pats, then continued on his way with great aplomb. I was confused by the intrusion until I realized that I had set the table on fire. Talk about sang-froid!

We've been hitting DineLA's Restaurant Week pretty hard over here at LAist, but I just wanted to make a few quick observations about my great experience at Simon LA last night. We arrived about half an hour early for our reservation, but the hostess seated us promptly, in a friendly and welcoming way. Our waitress got our drink orders in quickly, and our appetizers came out within minutes of placing our order. This place is ready for Restaurant Week. I saw quite a few other tables with the prix-fixe menu -- Simon LA has been getting some good marks on the boards for its great R-Week experience.

Sitting besides Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, Allegria is a cozy and warm fine Italian restaurant. As part of DineLA Week, we visited to try the prix-fixe menu. LAist has been offering you some great coverage of Restaurant Week: to join in the party, you can find a listing of participating restaurants at DineLA.com. Participating restaurants typically offer a three-course lunch for $22 and dinner for $34.

It was an inauspicious start for L.A.'s first Restaurant Week: when first we arrived at Ford's Filling Station for lunch (the first stop on our two-week tour of the event's featured restaurants), the rain was falling, the wind was blowing, and tables were not being filled. But thanks to a brief respite from the storm, and to a hearty, delicious prix-fixe menu, the day redeemed itself.

Photo by ~db~ via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr

DINE

We always encourage you to press that little recommend button at the bottom right hand corner of every post if you enjoyed it. For one, it tells us what you want more of here at LAist. So here's this week's three most recommended and commented posts, as recommended and talked up by you:

dineLA Restaurant Week kicked off in style yesterday at Neal Fraser's Grace on Beverly Boulevard. Neal Fraser is the only Angeleno ever to have won Iron Chef, against none other than Cat Cora.

The meals are being offered at great prices -- only $15 for a three-course lunch at Luna Park, for instance, or dinner at Sushi Roku for $34 (prices vary according to restaurant and meal). American Express cardholders (yes, they're the event's major sponsor, along with the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau, aka LA INC.) can make their reservations now; the general public has to wait until January 16th to save their spots.

This item in the Los Angeles Times about Restaurant Weeks (a week of discounted dining programs and special fixed-price menus to raise money for charity organized amongst restaurants) in DC, San Francisco and New York reminds us how hard life is for the gourmand who has to pinch-pennies. New York concludes 2 weeks worth of dining discounts on January 31st.