By now you’ve probably heard it’s Restaurant Week.  It seems like just about every third tweet in our Twitter feed is talking about a completed or upcoming RW reservation, and most local food writers have already offered their recommendations, or a list of participants’ menus, or a passionate argument for or against the concept and/or its execution.  Some have even taken to recycling previous years’ recommendations, as the song remains (mostly) the same.

But we’ve been a little bit distracted this year, and so we haven’t embraced Restaurant Week with the anticipatory fervor we have in the past.  Sure, we made a reservation.  But there are so many more meals between now and then that we could be using to experience new restaurants or revisiting old favorites!

This got us thinking: what if we just heard that Restaurant Week was going on today?  Would there be any prime reservations available at all?

As it turns out, there are.  A quick search of the OpenTable participant list conducted today at noon for a 7 PM reservation tonight yielded 121 restaurants with availability! Sure, it’s Tuesday night and not Friday or Saturday, but that’s still a pretty healthy list of options to choose from.

Some of our favorites include:

A la Lucia (Old Town Alexandria)
Johnny’s Half Shell (Capitol Hill)
Kaz Sushi Bistro (Downtown)

And there are still a number of available “four dollar sign” restaurants (mostly steakhouses), which represent the greatest value for a Restaurant Week meal relative to regular prices.

But what about the marquee nights?

100 restaurants with availability at 7 PM on Friday, including popular options like AGAINN, Cafe Atlantico, and Indique Heights.

107 restaurants with availability at 7 PM on Saturday, including Agora, Kellari Taverna, and the Oval Room.

There are definitely choices (including some highly recommended options) still out there, so don’t worry if you’re late to the Restaurant Week game.  We’ll check in again on Thursday to see what the weekend holds, but don’t wait until the last minute if you see something you want to lock in!