Mmm. Cheap, but tasty, eats.

Following the footsteps of cities like Milwaukee, New York and Chicago, Madison's restaurants banded together for a Restaurant Week. The premise is simple -- a bunch of restaurants in the area are offering, this week only, a three course meal for $25.

It's a great opportunity to sample restaurants that you'd normally never go to, such as Harvest. While I wanted to go there, since that's probably the only time I'd sample the goods, they didn't take reservations for a party of nine. As a result, Jeff and I, along with several friends, headed to The Dardanelles for dinner tonight.

The restaurant was crowded with people that had similar goals as us -- good, cheap eats. However, I wish in a way that I could say that the meal was entirely satisfactory.

Some of this is my own fault -- a part of being pregnant is that I can't eat soft cheeses. So no Roquefort cheese on my spinach salad. Damn shame that, because I have a feeling that it would've added a much needed tang to the dish.

Jeff's grilled quail appetizer was really quite good. The meat was tender and well flavored and the yam with it was just nice.

As for the second courses, I enjoyed my Cornish Hen, which was in typical Medeterrian spices. However, the grilled lamb that Jeff ordered seemed overcooked and not very flavorful.

Desserts were also pretty good. The White Chocolate Fantasy was about as decadant and rich as it should be, with carmelized sugar adding a nutty taste to the dessert. A hazelnut cake was more reminicent of ginger bread, but it still was moist and savory.

Dinner was good overall, but the pacing dragged in certain areas -- we were seated at 7 p.m. and didn't get out until 9:45 p.m. Now I know that's normal in France, but there were times when I was ready to begin drinking olive oil and gnawing on the table cloth to satiate my hunger.

I don't want to say whether or not I'd recommend it to someone, because I've only visited it once. I believe that you need to visit a restaurant at least two times before you can make a good judgement call. And really, with something like Restaurant Week, it's hard to tell if it was the predetermined menu or the restaurant itself that is good or not.