This week marks the beginning of Oakland’s 10th annual Restaurant Week. It’s a great opportunity to snag a multi-course meal from an Oakland restaurant at a bargain price, all while supporting the Alameda County Community Food Bank.
Scouring all the deals that restaurants have to offer can be time-consuming, so we’ve done the work for you and picked out the tastiest and best prix fixe meal bargains.
At The Damel in Uptown Oakland, chef and former professional soccer player Oumar Diouf combines Argentinian, Senegalese, and Brazilian influences to tell the story of his life living in all three countries. For restaurant week, The Damel is offering $20 prix fixe lunch and dinner menus. The deal includes your choice of appetizer (with options including but not limited to acarajé, the black-eyed pea fritters that we loved in our September 2019 review), your choice of main including dibi (Senegalese grilled meat) or moqueca (Brazilian seafood stew) with two sides, and dessert options including a beignet, pudim (Brazilian flan) or thiakry (Senegalese sweet millet).
Homeroom also has a bargain for two that includes two of the restaurant’s signature Gilroy Garlic macs, two strawberry limeades, and a Homeroom Oreo to share, all for $30. The garlic mac on its own is usually $11.99 and the limeades are $3.50 each, so you save a few bucks off list price. We’re also intrigued by the $20 per person brunch, lunch, and dinner menu at Dosa, which gets you an appetizer of tandoori prawn salad with mango-chile dressing, a sweet potato dosa, and spiced mini cookies for dessert. Co Nam is also offering a $30 per person four-course dinner menu that includes an amuse bouche, appetizer (including the excellent banh bot loc or bo la lot), a main (including a Co Nam burger or a grilled river prawn with housemade squid ink noodles), and dessert.
There are also some solid lunch-only deals. Brotzeit Lokal is offering you a choice of sausage (or Lokal Wurst, as it’s called) with fries or salad for $10 or a meal-sized salad with potato, croutons, bacon, egg, and avocado for $10. Zachary’s Pizza is also offering a personal thin-crust or stuffed pizza with a Caesar salad for $10, plus there are drink specials on offer — two pints or two house cocktails for $10. The offer is only available at Zachary’s Grand Avenue location.
A number of special events are also booked for this year’s restaurant week. The Just Call Me Chef dinner series celebrates female chefs in Oakland. The first dinner on Jan. 14 at 7 p.m. will take place at Dyafa with chef Mona Leena Michael, while the second dinner on Jan. 16 at 7 p.m. will feature chef Kanitha Matoury of Spice Monkey Restaurant & Bar. There are also a number of food tours available, but we’re particularly interested in the Hide and Go Eat scavenger hunt, a three-hour adventure starting at 1 p.m. on Jan. 12 that leads participants through a number of Oakland’s best eateries while solving riddles and puzzles along the way. Tickets for special events can be purchased on Eventbrite.
For more information, check out VisitOakland.com.