Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Friday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

$40 Stimulus Menu
Tuesday-Sunday, dinner hours
Pigalle
Tuesday through Sunday evenings, chef Marc Orfaly will prepare your choice of three courses for just $40, including selections like French onion soup with braised short rib, tuna martini with seaweed salad, pâté de porc with mustard aïoli, cornichons and Armagnac soaked prunes, and many others.

Prix Pixe Dinner
Through Feb. 28, every evening
Olives
Todd English’s Olives has unveiled a new, three-course menu for $35 that is available every night through the end of February. The menu will change monthly, and for December, they’re offering first course choices of steamed P.E.I. mussels, tender salad of Boston Bibb & Mache, or ricotta ravioli. For the second course, choose from pan roasted chicken breast, winter flounder, or petite filet mignon. And for dessert, there’s the option of chocolate & butterscotch pudding or tarte tatin.

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Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Friday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

Holiday Baking Class at Rialto
Dec. 13, 11 a.m.
Rialto
The most difficult part of preparing any dessert is the crust. Luckily, we prefer the filling anyway. Rialto pastry chef Susan Abbott demonstrates the use of four versatile doughs that make perfect pies and tarts. The cooking demonstration will be followed by a light lunch, dessert, and sparkling wine.

Rum Cake Finalists’ Competition
Dec. 13, 1-3 p.m.
Prudential Center Food Court
Booze and cake: Everything’s better when they’re together. Bacardi and Where to Eat are hosting the Rum Cake Competition at the Prudential Center. Taste the top three finalists’ Bacardi Gold rum cake recipes and watch live celebrity judging.

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With O Ya getting all the press, and Uni taking on the overflow, we were starting to forget about the city’s other great sushi spots. So Tuesday night we zipped over to Fugakyu in Coolidge Corner to celebrate the Japanese restaurant’s 10 years in the maki biz.

Lucky for us, we had polished our chopsticks: We’d be sampling chef Hiro San’s special B-day menu, which will be available to guests all month. (more…)

Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Friday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

FuGaKyu Turns 10 Special Menu
Dec. 1-31, Restaurant hours
We love that the name sounds like a sneeze and a slur, so we’ll definitely join the party for FuGaKyu’s tenth B-day. Throughout the entire month of December, the restaurant will offer a special celebration menu using ingredients such as apple, watermelon, and pickled daikon to create traditional Japanese cuisine.

A Family Affair
Every Tuesday and Friday night from 5:30-8 p.m.
Aura, Seaport Hotel
We know some particular South Enders loathe children raining on their dinner party. Those of us who have little ones prefer to go places where families are welcomed with open tables. Thank you, Aura, for hosting an impromptu “Romper Room” on Tuesday and Friday nights, complete with an adult prix fixe and accompanying kids menu. Does that mean we can feel free to fling the foie gras? (more…)

Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Friday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

Taste of Cape Cod Holiday Festival
Nov. 23, 1-6 p.m.
Resort & Conference Center of Hyannis
This time of year, the drive to the Cape is shorter than the wait at the new Craigie. The best Cape restaurants, including Barnstable Restaurant & Tavern, Gracie’s Table, Island Merchant, Bleu, Circadia Bistro, and Vining’s Bistro, among others, will be serving up samples of their signature dishes.

Da Vinci Prix Fixe
Every Monday and Tuesday, 5-10 p.m.
Da Vinci
You don’t have to wait for Restaurant Week to enjoy a great deal at Da Vinci. Every Monday and Tuesday, they’re offering diners the choice an entree, appetizer, and dessert for $29 per person. (more…)

Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Friday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

Harvest Pumpkin Dinner
Nov. 14, 5:30 p.m.
Summer Winter, Burlington Mall
You know we love our pumpkin beer, but we also love food that features the orange squash, and not just for pie, either. Summer Winter’s dinner fills our fancy with gourd-laced empanadas, roasted chicken with caramelized onion and roasted pumpkin sauce, and pumpkin beignets.

Home Sweet Home
Nov. 14, 7-11 p.m.
Hyatt Regency Cambridge
Go ahead, skip dinner tonight. You’ve got better things to fill your belly with. Namely, desserts from the best pastry chefs all over town, who will be competing at the dessert tasting to benefit the Cambridge Housing Assistance Fund to help the homeless. Guests will sample delectable treats from Rosie’s Bakery, Zephyr, Burdick Chocolate, Kickass Cupcakes, Toscannini’s, and more. (more…)

Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Friday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

Phantom Gourmet Beer & Food Phest
Nov. 8, Noon-midnight
Suffolk Downs
The brew masters have hand-picked enough local and international beers to fill a 400-foot-long hall. Of course, there will also be some phan-tastic food from favorite spots to keep you satiated amongst all those suds.

Dante’s Ball Brawl
Nov. 9, 2 p.m.
dante
Chef Dante de Magistris has organized a ball game, challenging local chefs to a meatball cook-off on the patio. Guests judge the entries, with the winner claiming the immodest title of “Best Balls of ‘Em All.” (more…)

I attended two very different tastings this past week, each terrific in its own way, one fancy, one rustic.

Let’s start with the fancy, shall we? Like many of you, I’m feeling expansive today.

Let me start by saying that I’m no great scholar of Italian wines. I’ve spent more time exploring France and California, thanks to a stint in San Francisco. My limited exposure to southern Italian wines has yielded to many sips that were harsh, acidic, and forgettable.

All the more delight, then, to sample the wines of Sicily’s Tenuta delle Terre Nere—paired with lovely food by the young chef Justin Melnick—last Thursday at Tomasso Trattoria. (more…)

While I’ve always considered a good meal to be a fine form of entertainment, I’ve never been a big fan of food-with-entertainment. (See: dinner cruises.) That said, last week I was pleasantly—nay, wildly—entertained by a Tuesday night show at the Beehive.

NYC’s Pinchbottom Burlesque brought a Halloween-themed act to town, and the night was a far cry from any dinner theater I’d ever seen. (OK, so my only experience to date had been a 1987 showing of Oklahoma! with a side of rubbery Chicken Cordon Bleu. But still.) (more…)

Your Chowder hounds have sniffed down the best culinary events in town. Check back every Friday for your weekly prix-fixe of foodie festivals, cooking classes, wine tastings, and more.

Oct. 31, 5-10 p.m.
Halloween Prix Fixe Menu
Om
The posh Harvard Square eatery offers a $50 prix fixe menu tonight in celebration of the bewitching hour. Indulge in festive concoctions like Nightmare Salad, Mummy Monkfish, and a tasty dessert that’ll satisfy your Halloween sweet tooth.

Every Monday through Friday, 5-7 p.m.
Economic Relief Program
Townsend’s
The Irish restaurant, recently reviewed by our food critic, Corby Kummer, created a package deal for diners that includes a bottle of the “Wine selection of the week,” and one appetizer, and one entrée—all for $15 per person (yes, $15, we double-checked). Apps include mussels with Smithwick’s Ale or fall greens with red beets, and entrees include Irish-style Bolognese, beer battered fish & chips, or a Wagyu beef burger with aged cheddar. (more…)