If you asked 100 people in St. Louis what two things deserved weeks in their honor, the top two answers would most likely be our food and beer scenes. With St. Louis Craft Beer Week having happened a few weeks ago, it is now time to celebrate the food scene with Downtown Restaurant Week.

DRW started on Monday and runs until August 25th. 27 restaurants are participating this year, the event’s ninth. Over 19,000 people dined out at participating restaurants last year. Take that 19,000 number how you want, however. The same number was used to describe the 2011 event, where fewer than 20 restaurants participated.

Downtown Restaurant Week isn’t nearly as structured as its alcoholic sibling.

Each participating restaurant will be offering a three-course menu every night for $25. You can choose a glass of wine or a cocktail from the drink list for an additional $7.  With 2-4 choices for each course at each restaurant, there are a ton of possible combinations. I went straight to our Accounting Department to figure out just how many possible combinations there were. Luckily, an intern in the department had just taken a class in statistics. Using the average of three choices for each course, there are 27 possible combinations at each restaurant. That means over 700 combinations are possible across the list of 27 restaurants.

Picking out your dinner seems like a daunting task. Lucky for you I’ve gone through and picked out some ideal meals. Since this list is coming from a guy who loves food, you should trust it like a Buzzfeed list.

Robust– Start with the Robust Chowder followed by the Bacon and Egg Flatbread. Finish it all off with the Heath Toffee Dark Chocolate Mousse Crunch Bar.

Lucas Park-Start with the Smoked Missouri Rainbow Trout. Next, take a leap with the Fried Rabbit and Waffles. Finish by satisfying your bacon and chocolate cravings at the same time with the Fried Chocolate Covered Bacon Caramel Candy Bar.

Hiro-Start with the Pork Belly Gua Bao followed by the Hiro Ramen. For the finish, it’s a toss-up between the Green Tea Cheese Cake and the Grilled Pineapple with coconut-lime ice cream.

Rosalita’s Cantina– Rosalita’s is technically offering four courses for the same $25 price. They give you the option of Chips & Salsa or Chili Con Queso while you make your choices on the rest of the courses. To follow the chips, I’d go with the Empandas followed by the Oaxacan Grouper. The grouper dish comes on a bed of coconut rice, squash and zucchini, which sounds delicious.  Dessert is again a toss-up with a tough decision between the Sopapilla Cheesecake and the Bananas Foster Fried Ice Cream.

Here are some other random highlights from the menus:

Top Of The Riverfront: Located on top of the Millenium Hotel, they are offering an Apple Jack Onion Soup that comes with roasted garlic brioche croutons and Gruyere cheese. The restaurant is also back to slowly rotating.

Mosaic-Not only are they offering four courses, but you have seven choices alone for the second course and ten choices for the third.

Lombardo’s Trattoria-Housemade toasted ravioli

Takaya-The Beef Teriyaki dish is served with seasoned rice and topped with a housemade teriyaki sauce.

Lola-The Chicken Waffles dish comes with hot maple honey butter.

So many choices to be made dining out for the event. This week is not one to stay in or stay on your diet. Get out and enjoy one of the scenes that make St. Louis an awesome place to live. Get out and check out Downtown Restaurant Week.

Brought to you by Mills Properties.