Get ready for a fall full of tastes, crawls, strolls, feasts, fund-raisers and restaurant weeks offering hungry participants everything from fine dining to bar food. Here are some of the highlights:
• Detroit Restaurant Week starts Friday and runs 10 days through Oct. 2; menus for the three-course, $28 meals are at detroitrestaurantweek.com.
• Royal Oak's first Michigan Craft Brew Stroll from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday features 17 restaurants and bars, each offering tastes of at least two Michigan-made craft brews and beer-friendly food items.
The beers have been selected from breweries scattered from Warren to Grand Rapids to Frankenmuth. The food menu is wildly diverse -- from raw oysters (Tom's Oyster Bar) and stuffed poblanos (526 Main) to burnt ends (Lockhart's BBQ) and hamburger sliders on pretzel rolls (Bastone).
Tickets are $30 in advance at participating venues or neptix.com/events/3218, or $35 on stroll day. Availability is limited. The event is sponsored by the Royal Oak Restaurant Association, with proceeds benefiting Friends of the Royal Oak Public Library.
• Royal Oak Restaurant Week, with 24 restaurants offering $15 and $25 three-course menus, is Oct. 3-9. Menus are at dineroyaloak.com.
• The sixth annual PENN-Taste-Tic Downtown Plymouth Restaurant Crawl happens 5:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, offering samples and treats from at least a dozen restaurants and sweet shops. Destinations range from Compari's and Cellar 849 to Yogurt Palooza and Sweet Afton Tea Room. Tickets are $20, $15 for ages 10 and younger, and must be purchased in advance. For details, see plymouthmich.org.
• The first Oakland County Baker Tilly Iron Chef Competition to benefit Gleaners Community Food Bank is tonight at 6:30 and pits brother against brother. Executive chefs Jaime Kalmus of Zazios in Birmingham and Jeremy Kalmus of No. VI Chophouse in Novi will face off to see whose food most impresses the judges. The event's "kitchen stadium" will be in the greenhouses of Bordine's Nursery in Rochester Hills. Guests can enjoy hors d'oeuvres and desserts from local restaurants and bid on auction items. The Baker Tilly accounting firm is the presenting sponsor. Tickets, $50, are available at ironchefevent.com.
• The Michigan AIDS Coalition and the Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS present the second annual Dining by Design Detroit, today through Saturday at Willy's Overland Lofts (444 Willis) in Detroit. The three nights of events feature an array of food prepared by top chefs, cocktails, live entertainment, silent and live auctions of art and jewelry, and spectacular creations from Detroit's design community. For details and tickets, click on events at michiganaidscoalition.org .
• Taste great gumbo from 3 to 7 p.m. Sunday at the Gumbo and Blues Festival at the Pontiac International Technology Academy (60 Parkhurst). The event will highlight the work of ITA students and their community garden. Among restaurants competing for best-gumbo honors are Beans and Cornbread, Howe's Bayou, Louisiana Creole Gumbo, Gumbo's, People's Fish and Poultry, and Steve and Rocky's. Tickets are $25 at the event or at Q4ktoday.com
Contact Sylvia Rector: 313-222-5026 or srector@freepress.com
