5 Picks for DineL.A.'s Summer Restaurant Week

Next week kicks off DineL.A.'s first ever summer-session Restaurant Week, which consists of discounted prix-fixe lunches and dinners at some of the city's most popular restaurants, available July 16-27. For those who've never experienced Restaurant Week, more than 300 restaurants from Santa Monica to downtown — including A-Frame, Blue Cow Kitchen & Bar, Farmshop, Post & Beam, Mo-Chica and Wirtshaus this time — participate in a weeklong event that's become known among foodinistas as a way to hit some of L.A.'s hot new restaurants without putting a huge dent in your wallet.

The prix-fixe deals, depending on the location, are:

two-course lunch menus for $15/$20/$25

three-course or small-plate dinner menus for $25/$35/$45

To save you time thumbing through hundreds of restaurant menus, we've done you a favor and assembled five that caught our eye this time around. Turn the page.

Dan Dan Noodles at Lukshon; Credit: Amy Scattergood

5. Lukshon

At Sang Yoon's slick pan-Asian restaurant, $15 will get you a lunchtime combo of things like dan dan noodles and green papaya salad or Chang Mai noodles with tea leaf salad, plus a glass of wine or beer and a choice of dessert. For $25 at dinner, you can choose three plates off the DineL.A. menu, which includes popular specialties like spicy chicken pops, crispy soft shell crab and Sichuan lamb tartare.

4. Bouchon Bistro

If you've never sampled the fare at Thomas Keller's L.A. outpost, the $25 lunch menu gives you a chance to enjoy French classics like a chicken liver mousse with poached prunes or duck leg confit with green lentils and root vegetables. For $4 more, you can add Keller's dessert of rich chocolate brownies topped with ice cream. Another $12 and you can enjoy a wine pairing with your three-course meal.

3. The Rooftop Biergarten at the Standard Downtown

It may be open only for lunch, but the sunny rooftop space above the Standard Downtown affords one of the most budget-friendly deals of the week: $15 gets you a plate of German salad (cabbage, potato or radish), a bacon-wrapped, Swiss cheese-stuffed Bernerwurst sausage, a 6 oz. taster of German beer and a slice of apple strudel for dessert.

2. Mo-Chica

The new location of Ricardo Zarate's Peruvian joint at Seventh and Figueroa is offering a $20 three-course lunch featuring exotic dishes like roasted octopus with jalapeno sauce, quinoa alpaca stew estofado and a purple corn pudding made with pineapple and apricots. The $35, three-course dinner adds several more options, including an albacore ceviche and roasted black cod.

1. Rivera

The $45 three-course dinner includes items from John Sedlar's “Hallucinations” menu, which he debuted in 2010 at the Test Kitchen. Look for dishes such as crispy tortilla cones stuffed with crab salad, agave-roasted duck with tequila and a “coconut cloud” topped with tropical fruits.

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.