Book Your Dining On-Line

A lot of places seem to get booked out way far ahead of time, especially on holiday weekends like Labor Day. www.opentable.com will let you book up to a month in advance (unless a particular restaurant says otherwise). Open Table, connected with the Boston Visitors and Convention Bureau and similar local city hospitality services in other cities, is a free service. All you have to do to sign up is give your name and email. You get 300 points for signing up and additional points for making and consummating a restaurant reservation. When you get 1,000 points, you qualify for a dining discount coupon worth some percentage off the dining bill.

To use it, just select your date, time, city, neighborhood (optional), price points (optional), and ethnic or other food variety (optional) from the scroll-down lists to see what is available. Make your selection, confirm your selection, and either print out your receipt now (or later) or wait for your email receipt to come closer to the booked event. This is a great service, especially for those hard-to-book places in Boston like Spire and Tangeirino.

For those located in the Boston Metro area who are around prior to N4, there is a special event taking place from 23 - 27 August called Restaurant Week. Special prix-fix lunches are available at $20.04 and special prix-fixe dinners are available for $30.04 (excluding tax, tip, and alcoholic beverages, unless otherwise advertised under the specials section). Some of the participating restaurants like Upstairs at the Square are extending their Restaurant Week special meals through 9/4/2004 (the beginning of N4).

-- Sally Mayer