And so Restaurant Week Begins... Lunch at Kinkead's

For 2 weeks a year, I lose all guilt about eating a ridiculous amount of food and just wear outfits with lots of room for stomach expansion. Those weeks are restaurant week in the winter and summer. Now that the summer week is upon us, I am in full indulgence mode. I scheduled lunches for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday this week. (I probably would have done Wednesday too, but I volunteer on Wednesdays at lunch. Plus, let's be honest. If I had 3 course lunches for 5 days in a row, I might need a lap band next week.) Erin and I started it all off with lunch at Kinkead's on Monday.

When we first walked in, there was quite a bit of confusion about our reservation (which we made ages ago, the day after the restaurant list came out actually). We almost judged the whole place terribly and left because they seemed like they weren't going to seat us, but finally they got their shit together. Although when they did finally seat us, the dinning room we were in was completely empty (and never filled up), which made me even more angry that their host putzed around about seating us because it wasn't like they were completely booked. Even if they had lost our reservation, there was no need to make a big to-do about seating us. Uuuuuug. Anyways...

Our waiter came and was (fortunately for Kindkead's review) fabulous: very polite, perfect level attentive, and not bad on the eyes. Another plus for the review was our appetizers as they were even more delicious than our waiter. I started with a cheese ravioli, stuffed with one kind of cheese and topped with 2 other kinds and a house made tomato basil sauce. Not the most inventive dish ever but very flavorful.


Erin got the lamb sausage with some rice and veggies, and it was awesome. The dish had lots of flavors that all went very well together and was the perfect level spicy. (Sorry I can't remember details very well. I should have written this post much sooner after eating at Kinkead's. I have had too many other meals - accompanied with a glass or 2 of wine - since then to remember every last thing.)


Then we both got the salmon for our main dish. It came with fennel, both sauteed and fried, and tomatoes on a bed of light cream sauce. It was good but not amazing. There were more sides than there was salmon, and although I liked the tomatoes and fennel and salad, I ordered the salmon to eat salmon. The filet was pitifully small, and no amount of fennel was going to make up for that.


The only good thing the salmon leaving something to be desired was that I had plenty of room left for dessert, which turned out to be my favorite part of the meal. I got a mulberry cobbler a la mode. Oooooomyyyyygoooooood. It was awesome. The berry concoction was bittersweet, which complimented the ice cream and cookie crust perfectly. The more I think about it, the more I think I could go for one right now actually... mmm... berrylicious...


Erin got the apricot creme brulee. (Of course. She always gets the creme brulee.) Unlike other flavored creme brulees that I've had, this one actually had chunks of fruit in it. Erin cleaned her creme brulee cup. So I guess the aficionado thought it was passable, but I wasn't crazy about the idea of a creme brulee having chunks of anything in it. It simply made me appreciate my mini cobbler that much more.


I'm not sure how our experience stacks up against a meal at Kinkead's any other time of the year. I did come across a review on Yelp that trashed their restaurant week meals in comparison to their normal meals. I can't speak to that, but I would hope that for their normal prices their seafood portions are much larger. Did anyone else hit up Kinkead's during restaurant week and have thoughts on the subject?