Fabbie Foodie Bargains

I'm a fabbie foodie on a budget. I love good food at gourmet restaurants, but usually can't afford it. Every once in a while my foodie counterpart and I like to pretend we can afford to eat at the expensive restaurants that boast unique menus with fresh twists on the "traditional". On special occasions we will splurge, leaving me paying off credit card bills for quite some time after the fabulous meal. Our bookcases are overflowing with Zagat guides rating the top restaurants in town. We wait months for a legitimate excuse to splurge on the "28" downtown. Yet, come August, we always feel some foodie relief. August is when restaurant week comes around! This year, as soon as the dates for restaurant week were announced, we jumped at the chance to make reservations at some of Dallas' most notorious restaurants.

For fabbie foodies who don't know about restaurant week, I highly suggest taking advantage of the $35 prixe fixe three course meals. If your city is anything like Dallas, restaurant "week" really turns into restaurant "month" with several of the restaurants taking advantage of the inflated crowds stepping into their doors for up to three weeks. Just be aware that with restaurant week, you're not always guaranteed to get the best that the restaurant has to offer. Sometimes you have to weed through a few mediocre menus to find true foodie bliss. As someone who has frequented more than a few restaurant week restaurants, I've been impressed with a lot of the food I've gotten to taste.

Just the other evening, my fabbie foodie boyfriend and I got a coveted reservation at the world renowned Mansion on Turtle Creek, one of Dallas' only 5-star restaurants (http://www.mansiononturtlecreek.com/dine1.cfm) . We were both wowed by the beauty of the dining room with a stunning view of the gorgeous patio. We weren't disappointed by our meals either. The fact that our new neighbor turns out to be one of the managers at the restaurant...well, was just icing on the cake! My boyfriend dined on a veal breast with corn and bean succotash that he claims was like "butter"- he didn't even need a knife to cut it. I dined on sweet corn ravioli with shrimp bolognese sauce. I've had many takes on ravioli in my life, and this one may have taken the cake. The corn in the ravioli was perfectly sweet and the shrimp bolognese sauce complimented the ravioli perfectly. There was a perfect "shrimp" taste that shone through the sauce just enough to make the flavors come alive in my mouth!

The Mansion also boasts top-notch signature cocktails. At $15 a pop, these cocktails are anything but cheap! Since the manager turned out to be our next-door-neighbor, we were treated to two delicious cocktails. There is something to be said about a good signature cocktail, and these were both delicious! If it weren't for restaurant week, our 3 course meal (and cocktails) would have set us back several hundred dollars. However, because it was restaurant week we didn't even scratch the $100 mark and were able to truly taste the creativity and innovation that make the Mansion at Turtle Creek worthy of it's 5-star rating. For a Fabbie Foodie on a budget like myself, that's one hell of a deal!