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Diverse dining opportunities abound in Valley

Published online on Thursday, Sep. 17, 2009

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There are so many events with food and drink this weekend that my fellow reporters helped write about them. Donald Munro has the dish about the Tamejavi festival on the arts pages. And Mike Osegueda gave Falltini as one of this week's 7 Things to Do.

But that's not all of the foodie news this week. Check out these events and restaurants:

The Crayfish and Jazz Festival returns to Kingsburg's Swedish Village on Saturday. Kingsburg restaurants and caterers will serve crayfish dishes, such as crayfish tacos from Los Pepe's Authentic Mexican Food, crayfish chowder and crayfish cocktail from Diane's Village Bakery and Café, and a Swedish crayfish boil from Jonathan's restaurant.

As in previous years, there will be a crayfish eating contest, crayfish races and a crayfish chowder contest. The festival also will include carnival rides.

Hours are 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Admission is free; cost varies for food and carnival rides. For more information, call the Kingsburg Chamber of Commerce at (559) 897-1111.

If you prefer fair food, the Tulare County Fair should satisfy your craving with deep-fried Oreo cookies, deep-fried peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, funnel cake, gelato, cinnamon rolls, corn dogs and more.

The fair is held at the Tulare County Fairground, 215 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., Tulare. It started Wednesday and ends Sunday. Remaining hours are 12 p.m.-midnight each day.

Admission is $8, or $5 for adults ages 62 and older and children ages 6-12. Children younger than 6 can attend for free. For more information, go to tulare fair.org or call (559) 686-4707.

Sunday kicks off Restaurant Week Fresno, 20 days of three-course, fixed-price meals at various restaurants. Check out getdining.com for all of the deals, which are priced at $13, $20, or $27.

For example, Max's Bistro & Bar has a $27 meal. Appetizers are a choice of salads or calamari. Entrée options include filet mignon, chicken under a brick, pan-roasted salmon, scallops and pasta. And desserts are a choice of bread pudding, crème brûlée or molten lava cake.

At Chapala Grill, where the Restaurant Week meals are $13, diners get a choice of tuna tostada, shrimp kabob or shrimp ceviche as an appetizer. Entrées are grilled skirt steak, sea bass with mixed seafood and vegetables, fajitas, chile verde, or a combination of chile relleno and chile verde. The last course is churros or the dessert of the day.

And here's a heads up on Wassabi's takeover of the old Pangea in Fig Garden Village: Owner K.C. Choi hopes to have the sushi restaurant open in early December.

Renovations have just started on Wassabi's second location, which will seat more than 350 diners, Choi says. It will feature a bar, tables divided among patios and dining rooms and two sushi bars.

Expect to see a lot of the same dishes and televisions as the first Wassabi at Herndon Avenue and First Street. There are some differences, however: The second Wassabi will stay open between lunch and dinner. It also will have a full bar, instead of just beer and wine.

For more information, call Wassabi at First and Herndon: (559) 435-5423.