Restaurant Week Is A Delicious Grand Rapids Treat

Restaurant Week in Grand Rapids is wrapping up this weekend and what a 'delicious' 10 days it has been.  Experience Grand Rapids, the organizer for 2011, says it's been another good year.  President Doug Small says, “ indications for Restaurant Week Grand Rapids 2011 show that the Grand Rapids community had room for “seconds”. We’ve heard from most individual restaurateurs that they’ve had solid business."

I certainly second that.  My wife, Kathy and I decided to try 

Rockwell/Republic, and it took a while to get in. We chose the restaurant because we had never been there before but heard rave reviews.  It was great!

Before I get to the food, I have to say what a cool atmosphere.  It is extremely big city, New York, Chicago, and has a very friendly staff.  Our waitress was wonderful, knew the menu and was very helpful.

We started with drinks -- hand crafted and excellent.  Of course we wanted to try the Restaurant Week specials and are we glad we did.  It was a three-course meal with three choices for an appetizer, salad or soup and entree.  Hard to chose but I settled on the Cashew Sage Flat Bread Pizza for an appetizer.  Wow, was it good.  Next, the Balsamic Melon, which was delish, and finally,  the Tempura Rib and Daikon Fettuccini with tomato basil sauce for my entree.  One word, fabulous.  Kathy had the Seafood Stuffed Shells with crab, bay scallop and shrimp stuffing with a saffron-lemon cream sauce.  Compliments to the chef, hers was that good, too.  And, the price?  Restaurant Week sets the price at a super-reasonable $25 per person.

It was a great evening in a new restaurant, to us, in an area not formally known as a 'place-to-go,' South Division, just a block or so from Fulton.  With the Rockwell/Republic, they're sister bar/restaurants, the flourshing art district, the new UICA, and other new businesses opening up, it's fast becoming the latest 'place- to-see and be-seen.'

My one big regret is that we couldn't get to more restaurants. There were 71  participating.

How sad.....so much good food.....so little time.  Can't wait for next year!