Winter Restaurant Week 2012 in Newton and Chestnut Hill

Winter Restaurant Week is here again! Twice a year, local restaurants offer special menus at greatly reduced prices. While their regular menus are also available, from March 18 – 23 and March 25 – 30 several Newton and Chestnut Hill locales will offer a three-course lunch for $20.12 and a three- (or more) course dinner for $33.12. Some restaurants even offer wine pairings at an additional cost.

Reservations can either be made through Open Table or by calling the individual restaurants. Please remember to tip your servers on the full, rather than discounted, cost of the meal.

Newton

Dinner –  is once again putting his stamp on Restaurant Week in Newton. For your first course, choose from:

• Roasted beet flatbread with goat cheese, arugula, prosciutto and balsamic vinegar
• Fish taco with spicy Napa cabbage slaw, siracha aioli and cilantro and lime. 

Your second course can include:

• Pork loin Milanese with wild mushroom risotto, grilled Bavette steak with pancetta hash and truffled potato puree 
• Roasted salmon filet with spinach and a shitake mushroom ragout. 

If you have any room left, indulge in:

• A vanilla bean crème brulee with cranberry compote
• Flourless chocolate cake with ice cream and sauces.

Dinner (Week One) –  is one of the few chefs to offer a different menu each week of Restaurant Week, and his wide selection of first courses, entrees and desserts is a terrific sampling of the type of food Lumière serves year-round.

First courses include:

• White bean soup
• “Little gem” lettuce salad 
• Thai squid salad
• A charcuterie trio

Main course offerings are:

• Homemade ricotta cavatelli primavera (one of the few vegetarian selections for Restaurant Week) 
• Gloucester hake
• Roasted chicken breast
• The famous Lumière burger “with all the fixins’” 

Dessert options for week one include:

• Mango sorbet
• Caramelized apple-almond crisp
• Goat cheese mousse parfait
• Dark chocolate pave

Dinner (Week Two) -

Start off with:

• Cauliflower leek soup
• The “little gem” salad
• A warm house-smoked fish salad
• The charcuterie trio 

Main course offerings are:

• The homemade ricotta cavatelli primavera cavatelli 
• Roasted Pollack
• Coq au Vin Blanc
• Lumière’s signature beef kielbasa

For dessert, try:

• A red grapefruit sorbet with lime-tequila syrup
• Lemon cornmeal pound cake with wine-poached apricot compote and crème fraiche
• A passion fruit parfait with tropical fruit salad
• Chocolate-coffee terrine with whipped mascarpone and Kahlua caramel sauce.

Chestnut Hill

Lunch or Dinner –

For your appetizer, choose from:

• Mussel soup
• Chicken liver terrine

Your entrée can be:

• Slow-roasted pork belly
• Pan-friend golden trout
• Maine lobster ravioli

Dessert gives you a choice of:

• Dark chocolate and salty caramel tart 
• Aquitaine’s famous orange vanilla crème caramel

Dinner –

Start with:

• A field greens salad with spring vegetables and a shallot champagne vinaigrette
• Clam chowder

Move onto your entrée choice of:

(You get an extra choice of mashed potatoes or creamed spinach as a side)

• Filet mignon 
• Parmesan and herb marinated beef tournedos 
• Kona-crusted bone-in sirloin with shallot butter 
• A citrus-glazed salmon 

Finally, finish your meal with:

• Crème brulee
• Chocolate espresso cake
• Handcrafted ice cream
• Seasonal fruit sorbet

(Wine pairings available at lunch and dinner) 

Lunch –

Your appetizer can be either:

• A cup of Legal’s award-winning clam chowder
• A house salad

For your entrée, select a:

• Classic Caesar salad with grilled salmon
• A tuna burger
• The “Jasmine Special” (steamed broccoli over jasmine rice with melted jack cheese)

End your meal on a sweet note with:

• Bon bons
• Cheesecake.

Dinner –

As with lunch, start with:

• Clam chowder 
• A salad (for dinner, a wedge salad with bacon, tomatoes and blue cheese) 

Entrees include:

(each of these comes with selected side dishes)

• Wood-grilled mahi mahi
• Lemon caper grey sole
• Baked stuffed shrimp

Your dessert options are:

• Cheesecake
• Boston Cream Pie

Lunch-

Begin your meal with:

• A shaved iceberg salad (dressed with bacon, veggies, spicy shrimp, crispy tostada and a lime ranch dressing) 
• Duck spring rolls

For your entrée, select:

• Spare rib bites with coconut sticky rice
• A fried fish po’ boy with fries and slaw
• Sirloin steak frites

End your meal with:

• A strawberry panna cotta
• A black-and-white whoopie pie

Dinner –

Appetizers include:

• The iceberg salad 
• Prosciutto and comte “grilled cheese fingers"
• The “Chop Chop” spare rib bites offered as an entrée at lunch migrate into the appetizer course for dinner

Your entrée can be:

• Peking-style half chicken
• Steak frites
• Seafood cacciatore 

Similar to lunch, dessert offerings include:

• The panna cotta
• Whoopie pie