Restaurant week is a semi-annual event in Ann Arbor. The 2017 dates are January 15-20 and June 11-16. It provides a good opportunity for food lovers to go out and try as many great restaurants as they want for an incredibly low price. That means you can have a full lunch for $15 and a three course dinner for $28, and many restaurants offer 2-for-1 pricing. There are 53 restaurants in total involved in the January restaurant week. Also, some restaurants will donate a portion of the revenue from their selected menu to Food Gatherers, which is the first food rescue program in Michigan providing food assistance to low-income adults, seniors, and children in Washtenaw County. Check out the Ann Arbor Restaurant Week website for more information.
It’s worth mentioning that restaurants select their menu based on different strategies. Some restaurants view restaurant week as an opportunity to introduce their new dishes, some promote their popular dishes, and others use this time to sell less known or less popular dishes with a lower price. I’ll give a brief insider view below on some of the restaurants I previously visited. Since I personally enjoy Asian food a lot, my comments will be limited to Asian restaurants.
Nagomi has two sites on campus - one located on E. Liberty St. in downtown Ann Arbor, and the other one on North campus near Courtyard. Only Nagomi Downtown will participate in restaurant week, and it provides both a lunch and dinner menu. As a sushi restaurant, Nagomi has abundant choices of sushi that deserve a try. The selected menu provides three choices for both lunch and dinner: sushi, teriyaki rice, and ramen/udon, which pretty much covers the Japanese cuisine. With several appetizers, you’ll enjoy a full meal at Nagomi. Also, the restaurant will donate $3 to Food Gatherers for each Tokkuri Sake you have during restaurant week. 
Slurping Turtle also provides both lunch and dinner. The dinner menu provides more choices of cold snacks (sushi rolls) and dessert (cream puff) than the lunch menu. The other parts are the same for lunch and dinner. Slurping Turtle has really great cream puff that I promise you would love. I’ve tried three of four flavors: vanilla, green tea, and red bean, all of which are great. It also has a chocolate flavor that people who love chocolate would love too.
Written by Xiaoya Chen
