Bib Gourmand: Dining About Town BEFORE Dine About Town

Today, Gentle Reader, The Foodie brings you the second installment of the Bib Gourmand Series (The first being Affordable Michael Mina: Unpossible!). Eating well isn't particularly difficult...just pricey. He||, with Opentable and an iffy economy, even getting tables at places that were unpossible have become very possible as long as your plastic can take the hit. I have no problem dropping $400 on a dinner, BUT if I can get a $100-200 dinner and only PAY $75-100, well, it makes me even happier and the food taste, somehow, a little tastier. And, that, in a nutshell is the Bib Gourmand Series: Top Food at Top Restaurants on the cheap - “cheap” being a relative term here :p

So, Dine About Town S.F. Is coming up next month (JUN 1-15) BUT I've got a deal for you that's SUPERIOR to Dine About Town at one of Michael Bauer's (a.k.a. SF Gate's Food Snob) Top 100 Restaurants: Chez Papa Resto (at Mint Plaza).



First off, The Hottie loves Chez Papa - It's prolly her go-to place in The City for dining out. And, seemingly, everybody she's told about Chez Papa now loves Chez Papa as well. Seriously, she told her boss about it and, like, two weeks later she took a call for her boss and before she could transfer the call, the person was “OMG, thank you so much for pointing out Chez Papa. We love it!”. Mind you, The Hottie didn't tell this person about Chez Papa...she told her BOSS about Chez Papa who then told THAT person about Chez Papa and, apparently, gave The Hottie credit for the find. And then, that person liked it so much she wanted to thank The Hottie so, yeah, I'm guessing they REALLY liked it. And, unless you're a tard, you will too.

Okay so here's the deal, Chez Papa has a traditional tasting menu ONLY late in the week (like FRI-SUN) but has introduced a lighter 3-course Prix-Fixe Dinner for $34.95 on MON-WED. Sound familiar? As in Dine about Town's 3-course Prix-Fixe for...$34.95! Imagine that. HOWEVER, if you compare their “normal” Prix Fixe to the one they offer for Dine About Town, you'll see that it has more options. Now, this might just be laziness on their part and they truncated the menu at the Dine About Town site but, either way, it'll be AT LEAST as good a deal and, more importantly, you can do it now before the crush of Dine About Town. And the stuff available on the menu is tasty too. I've had the Kobe Beef Tartare, Duck Confit, Lamb Daube, Panna Cotta AND the Profiteroles and I licked my plate clean each and every time. In fact, we're taking The Meat Guy there next week as part of a Culinary Bingo Week (the previously mentioned Micheal Mina deal, The Plumed Horse and a trip to the Wine Country -so something Bouchon/Redd/Bistro Jeanty- are also in the crosshairs) and I don't expect anything to be left on his plates either.

BTW, Chez Papa Resto is a bit of a Hot Spot and fills up early with people that just got off work and pretty much stays crowded the whole nite thru. This means it's loud and tends to be full of pretty people (or, at least, people that THINK they're pretty). Fortunately, they DO have outside seating when the weather is nice like, oh say, right now. So if a bustling scene isn't your thing, just grab a table outside. Oh, and Happy Hour (5:00-7:00) is also good for the prudent diner: $6 cocktails, $3.50 Full Sail Draft and lots of affordable wines by the glass. The Hottie highly recommends the Raspberry Gimlet. See you there!