Newport Beach Restaurant Week allows you to “Savor the Flavor” of the OC’s best restaurants for a reasonable price (reasonable for Newport Beach anyway). Running for a full nine days and two weekends during January 20th – 29th, this citywide culinary celebration, serves up special prix-fixe gourmet menus that would normally cost you an arm and a leg, but during restaurant week, will cost you only an arm.
The Cannery Restaurant in Newport Beach covers nearly 90 years of history. It started life in 1934 as a real cannery and turned into a seafood restaurant in 1973. Since then, the Cannery has been a place to see and be seen by Orange County’s rich and famous. It’s waterfront location offers a great view of the Newport Harbor. You won’t see fishing boats anymore, but you will see a lot of big, expensive yachts, and $10+ million waterfront homes.
In addition to fine restaurant dining, the Cannery can offer dining by sea or air. The restaurant can arrange boat rentals so you can dine in the harbor (or just pull up in your mega-yacht and they’ll take care of you too). If you’re looking for the ultimate way to impress a date, the Cannery can arrange for a helicopter to fly you and your girl to Cote de Caza below Saddleback Peak. You’ll enjoy a nice tour of the OC Coastline and savor the moments of a romantic lunch for two. If this doesn’t make her fall for you, then nothing will.
Dining at the Cannery is normally a $75+ per person affair, but during Newport Beach Restaurant Week, you can enjoy a gourmet three-course dinner for only $40 (plus wine, tax, tip, and valet parking). I didn’t go to the Cannery because of restaurant week. I was there to meet some people for dinner and didn’t know that the Cannery was participating in restaurant week. It was a happy surprise, but didn’t really matter since my friends insisted on picking up the bill.
My three-course meal consisted of a panko crusted crab cake appetizer, boneless rib-eye steak entree, and a white chocolate creme brulee dessert. The crab cake and the steak were awesome. The brulee could have been better, but overall, the Cannery is a pretty awesome restaurant. You have three more days to experience the Cannery at restaurant week prices. After that, you better be living the Dot Com Lifestyle if you want to dine there.
