Where to eat during Seattle Restaurant Week

Seattle Restaurant Week, Oct. 18-22 and Oct. 25-29, features a whopping 165-plus restaurants offering three-course dinners for $30 or two-course lunches for $15 Sundays through Thursdays.

This year, more than 60 restaurant participants are also offering vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options. The event’s website has a full list of menu options and restaurants searchable by cuisine, neighborhood, or dietary preference. SRW can be a good way to revisit an old favorite, or better yet, hit a new restaurant that would be otherwise difficult to score a reservation.

Here are our restaurant picks based on the awesomeness of the menus, a single epic-sounding dish, or simply what’s on our current hot list:

Bell + Whete, Belltown

We’re suckers for crispy skin anything, and Bell + Whete is doing a crispy skin pork shank with pickled cabbage as one of its entree selections. Plus, the starter choices sing of the season: from parsnip soup with beetroot and vanilla to shaved winter squashes with spiced farmer’s cheese. Oh, and a freakin’ veal-based meat pie.

Trace, W Hotel, Downtown

We don’t know what a pumpkin crunch bar is but we know we must have one. It’s one of Trace’s three dessert options, which follows entrees such as huli huli chicken (a Hawaiian recipe using pineapple juice) and an appetizer of taro soup. That’s what we’re getting, anyway.

Tray Kitchen, Fremont

They had us at dinner entrees of duck confit fried rice with a cured egg yolk and kalbi-marinated beef short ribs, but then we took a look at the appetizers: grilled zuchinni and white anchovies with walnut pesto and escolar crudo with avocado mousse and a caramelized grapefruit. Have you had caramelized grapefruit before? Yeah. That’s what we thought.

Goldfinch Tavern, Downtown

Think Ethan Stowell’s newest downtown project is just the restaurant inside the Four Seasons? Think again. Chef Joe Ritchie is whipping up some very impressive fare, particularly in the seafood department. We’ll be going for the seared scallops, ricotta gnocchi, and mocha panna cotta.

Vendemmia, Madrona

Brian Clevenger’s first restaurant will likely make our Best New Restaurant list for 2015 for his incredible skill and elevation of regional Italian cuisine. The poached black cod is also pretty stellar. Order that with the beef tartare (a major year-end trend) on grilled bread for your appetizer (a $39 value for just those two) and we promise you’ll be impressed.