Oh happy day! Jan. 15th!

Just a few food scraps to post on, I think the next few will be devoted to Restaurant Week talk. It seems like people like it when I post about half-priced this or value that, so I have a couple that I saw on GAYOT.com:

Tuesdays
Arterra will be offering a selection of sushi rolls and sashimi starting at $2.75 and drinks like the Toasted Pear (tequila accented with pear brandy) and the Black Tie espresso martini for half price. From 8 p.m. to 12 a.m. every Tuesday. Arterra is in the San Diego Marriott Del Mar.

Thursday
Join friends on Thursday evenings for Tapenade’s Bistro and Bar VIP Soirée. Enjoy live music by Flamenco guitarist David de Alva or the Glen Fish Gomango Jazz Trio (alternate weeks); select appetizers are half-priced from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Happy Hour runs through 9 p.m. Tapenade is located in La Jolla.

Ashoka the Great
I do like a good buffet, though I overeat. Kirk at mmm-yoso reminded me of this place. We had been there a few years ago shortly after we moved to San Diego for our first real taste of Indian food. Since then I sometimes get lunch at Sitar in Sorrento Valley, which is pretty good though portion sizes can get tiny. It’s a much, much better value to come to this buffet. The food is pretty mild – I think there are a couple a sauces you can use to spice it up a bit. Hopefully I used them correctly. They have the buffet daily (around 9 bucks) for lunch, Monday and Tuesday evenings for a couple of bucks more.

Z Pizza
Someone on Chowhound mentioned this place as having pretty good “gourmet” pizza. We really don’t have pizza very often but thought we’d give this a try. Fairly good – I’d try it again. They seem to market themselves as offering healthy pizza, with low fat, nonfat and soy cheese options, with wheat crust available and lots of fresh ingredients. When I saw that they have a location close to us (2 doors down from that bastard place (as we call La Bastide – sorry!)), it was an easy choice for a rainy Saturday night. We went with a small American pizza and a small Mexican pizza but they do offer up a variety of pizzas: Mediterranean, Tuscan Mushroom, Casablanca, etc… (They reminded me of Extreme Pizza (locations throughout CA) which at one time had a location between Penasquitos and Carmel Valley which has closed). Toppings are generous: sausage and other meat on one, nice sized pieces of chicken on the other. The tomato sauce was nonexistent. They were just a bit dry, I guess that was the lack of tons of greasy cheese.