RESTAURANT PREVIEW:

Though the Newport Beach Restaurant Week was barely a month ago, it is nice to see that restaurants in the city are participating in Orange County Restaurant Week, which begins Sunday.

There are 13 restaurants in the Newport Beach area that are involved and another 12 in Costa Mesa.

Each restaurant is offering either a lunch and/or dinner prix fixe menu. Lunch costs $10 or $20, while the dinner can be $20, $30 or $40.

Diners have seven days to hit as many as they can and even if you ate lunch and dinner at the participating restaurants, you would still miss out on 11 of them. So let me see if I can guide you to some highlights for next week.

The first place I would recommend for lunch would be Bayside. The staff is offering its oven roasted wild mushroom crusted organic salmon. It comes with a potato puree, green asparagus and a Riesling sauce. The sautéed tiger prawns would be a nice choice as well.

The Ritz Restaurant and Garden is offering a three-course meal. I would get the wild mushroom “cappuccino,” a unique dish that comes with a Parmesan cheese straw.

The main dish would be a choice between the peppered grenadines of filet mignon or the pan-sauteed barramundi. The filet features medallions of pan-seared pepper-crusted filet mignon with a Diane sauce and Ritz potatoes. The Australian sea bass is served over fresh asparagus, spoonleaf spinach and sauce Beurre Blanc.

In Costa Mesa, 118 Degrees has a nice $10 lunch that has a main course of either a pesto roll or living lasagna.

The roll is a coconut basil wrap filled with pistachio pesto, heirloom squash, Roma tomato and marinated portobello mushrooms, topped with sweet basil marinara and crispy tomatoes. The lasagna is layers of macadamia ricotta, Italian squash, Roma tomato, and sun-dried tomato marinara and topped with basil and cheese.

This would also be a good opportunity to hit Scott’s Seafood for lunch. The restaurant has a two-course menu for lunch that includes a blackened salmon Caesar salad, French-dipped sandwich or roasted mahi mahi.

The Club House has five items to choose from at lunch for an entrée — the chicken piccata, vodka pasta, carne asada Cobb salad, pecan crusted tilapia and the prime London Broil.

You’ll see plenty of deals for dinners. Even the most expensive price of $40 is going to be a deal for a lot of restaurants.

Wildfish seafood grille is a perfect example of that. The eatery is charging $40 for dinner but is offering a three-course menu.

The lobster bisque would be my choice for a starter and then I would follow it with either the Georges Bank lemon sole or the swordfish steak.

The sole is served with a Parmesan crust and sautéed with plum tomato and lemon-garlic butter sauce.

The swordfish is broiled with Jonah crab, avocado and red chile vinaigrette.

I also like what Il Farro Caffe Trattoria is offering for dinner. For $20, diners can choose from appetizers carpaccio di bue al sedano (thin slices of raw filet topped with celery, capers, shaved parmigiano cheese and extra virgin olive oil); mozzarela con melanzane (fresh buffalo mozzarella with fresh tomato, grilled eggplant, basil and extra virgin olive oil); and ravioli di funghi al Gorgonzola (homemade mushrooms ravioli in a Gorgonzola cheese sauce).

The dinner is just as inventive. The three dishes are braciole al forno (flank steak filled and rolled with rosemary, Parmesan , sage, in a sherry sauce); pollo alla pizzaiola (two chicken breasts sautéed with Pinot Grigio wine, garlic, tomato, kalamata olives, capers, oregano and served with a side of pasta or veggies) and salmone al champagne (salmon, garlic in champagne sauce served with a side of pasta or veggies).

The last place I would recommend is the First Cabin at the Balboa Bay Club and Resort.

The dinner the restaurant is offering has three pretty good entrees. They are baked Atlantic salmon with jumbo prawns, prosciutto and spinach on a beurre rouge sauce with a balsamic reduction; beef tenderloin tips in mushroom cognac sauce with crisp pastry crust and mousseline potatoes; and classic veal cordon bleu, which is filled with Gruyère cheese and country ham, panko crusted and sautéed golden brown.

No matter where you go next week you should find something you haven’t had before and it is a great way to discover new dishes or a new restaurant.

ORANGE COUNTY RESTAURANT WEEK

WEBSITE: www.Orangecountyrestaurantweek.com

WHERE: Twenty-five restaurants in Newport Beach/Costa Mesa are participating.

ENTRÉE PRICE RANGE: $10 and $20 for lunch, $20, $30 and $40 for dinner

JOHN REGER reviews local restaurants and may be contacted at Nolimepublishing@aol.com or P.O. Box 2984, Seal Beach, CA 90740.