Chew on This: 1. Too fancy to eat; 2. Too cheap to miss

Restaurant food is getting really silly. In a "happening" restaurant the other night, I swear the decoration on my fish dish was grass. Not lawn cuttings, I admit. More likely, strands of wheat grass.

Compounding the miscalculation, the dish itself contained everything the supplier had sold the chef, from the multi-fungi-infused 'nage' for the moat surrounding the polenta-crusted blackened roast cod, to the beads of fresh corn, shards of sugar snap pea, julienne of leeks, dice of various colored peppers and flakes of wood ear that also swam in it. I wouldn't have been surprised to have come across a mislaid line cook fighting for breath at the bottom.

I picked it because from the novel-length menu's description it seemed to be the least messed-about dish on offer. I couldn't make head nor tail of the day's specials - the server kept forgetting his lines. There's something wrong with cooking when waiters need to memorize a script each night.

But...

at Ristorante Spezie during Restaurant Week, Cesare Lanfranconi is offering pretty much all of his regular menu, at highly irregular pricing. For $20.08, this year's Restaurant Week deal, I've just eaten, Monday January 14, four different dishes with Foodie Friend #1, who's prepared to switch plates half way through. So two each became four to try. Each one was truly scrumptuous. These were, in the menu's straight-forward words (apart from the appetizer which I forgot to note down of grilled calamari with a thin streak of pesto on a bed of spinach leaves and tiny tomato halves, and I'll accept complaints about the detail of that description...)

Polenta alla griglia con salsiccie e funghi trifolati
Pork and parmesan cheese sausage with grilled polenta and sautéed wild mushrooms
Tortelli di zucca e amaretti al burro, salvia e parmigiano
Homemade ravioli stuffed with roasted pumpkin and amaretto cookies, fresh sage and parmesan sauce
Selezzione di Pesce Alla Griglia
Selection of grilled fish served with extra virgin olive oil

which, in our case, was plump rockfish, and came with a tangle of hair-thin cabbage slow-cooked with nibs of bacon, and a mound of sautéed mushrooms.

It was all as delicious as could be, especially the ravioli. Oh, and the fish. And the polenta and sausge thing, and the calamari. Such clean flavors, said Foodie Friend #1. Get down to 1736 L St NW, 202 467 0777, before it gets booked up.

Now I'm going to put my head down for a few minutes to recover. Bring back the siesta.