Where to Eat for MPLS/St. Paul Restaurant Week, Feb. '13

Restaurant week is scheduled to run from Sunday, February 24 to Friday, March 1, with 54 restaurants participating in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and a few outlying suburbs. How it works: Participating restaurants offer a multi-course menu (with some options) for $10-$20 for lunch and $15-$30 for dinner.

But how to know if you're getting a deal or if you're just being strong-armed into three courses that you would never even order a la carte? We've parsed the list for you and come up with our best bets for getting the most out of restaurant week: places that give you options for each course, and also seem like they give you your money's worth. You can also see all the restaurant week menus here and judge for yourself.

Have a great meal at one of the restaurants on the list? Get a bum deal? Let us know in the comments, so we can all benefit from your restaurant week triumphs (or tales of woe).

1) Bradstreet Crafthouse: Bradstreet is known for its cocktails, but the kitchen deserves the spotlight, too. They're offering three courses for $15, and, while the portions are usually small, that's still an unbeatable price, especially with entrees like braised beef short rib curry and lamb sliders (or veggie sliders) to choose from. But remember, while the cocktails are a must-do, pairing one with your menu will almost double the cost of your bill.

2) Corner Table: You'll get three courses for $30 at Corner Table, filled with your choice of the housemade products that the restaurant is known for: duck confit (in the white bean soup appetizer), sausages/pork belly/smoked pork loin (in the choucroute garnie entree), and pappardelle (as an entree with pork sugo).

3) Haute Dish: This $30 three-course menu eschews the often-insipid dessert course for three courses of Haute Dish classics, including housemade charcuterie, steak tartare, General Tso's sweetbreads, and the famed tater tot hot dish entree.
4) Lunch at any Kim Bartmann Spot (Barbette, Bryant Lake Bowl, Pat's Tap): All three Kim Bartmann joints are offering dinner menus, as well (as is the Red Stag, which is dinner only), but if you can get away from the office for an hour, lunch is the real draw. For just $10, you get a lunch entree with your choice of either an appetizer or a dessert. At Barbette, for example, that could mean a butternut squash soup with toasted pepitas and pumpkin seed oil followed by mushroom risotto with taleggio and truffle. At Pat's Tap, you can start with fried pickles, pork belly skewers, or zucchini cakes, and follow them up with the big cheese burger. And Bryant Lake Bowl's got a crab cake benedict option that makes breakfast for lunch seem super-enticing.

5) Saffron: Sameh Wadi's Middle Eastern restaurant is not only offering a $30 three-course menu, but also an optional $15 wine pairing. For the entree, pick between a lamb and olive tagine, Parisian gnocchi with taleggio-black truffle fondue, and shellfish fideos (a traditional thin Spanish pasta). Finish up with hazelnut baklava served with salted caramel.

6) Meritage: At Meritage's $30 three-course dinner, the hard choices start right away with the appetizer course. Pick between seafood boudin blanc, a chef's selection of oysters, lentil soup with duck cracklings, and paté de campagne.

· Restaurant Week [Mpls.St.Paul Magazine]