Where to eat out on New Year’s Eve

If New Year’s Eve for you is more about the food and less about the party, several restaurants will be open.

These places book up, so make your reservations ASAP.

If you want a good meal, but have plans to celebrate the stroke of midnight with friends elsewhere, a couple of restaurants have special menus for the night.

Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar its offering its regular menu Thursday, but also a special New Year’s Eve menu for $69.95 per person.

It features a proscuitto-wrapped shrimp, salad, an 8-ounce filet mignon with an 8-ounce lobster tail and a Belgian flourless torte with topped with whipped cream and chocolate-dipped strawberry. Wine or Champagne can be added for an extra cost.

The restaurant does not have a formal celebration at midnight, but will do a Champagne toast if there are still customers left in the restaurant.

Ruth’s Chris Steak House is open from 4-10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.

It will be serving its regular menu, but also a special New Year’s Eve four-course meal. That menu features a choice of a swordfish, ribeye with sun-dried tomato basil butter or filet mignon for $55.95 or surf and turf – two lobster tails with a 6-ounce filet mignon. Each meal also comes with an appetizer, a side and dessert (a turtle cheesecake with cranberry-pecan chocolate bark).

Erna’s Elderberry House in Oakhurst – the central San Joaquin Valley’s only 5-star restaurant – always does it up big for New Year’s Eve. This year’s theme is “All about love.”

The early bird seating at 5 p.m. costs $135 person. The 9 p.m. seating that will ring in the new year costs $245 per person.

The menu is a decadent parade of foie gras with persimmons, beluga caviar, seared loin of young rabbit, and filet mignon.

This story was originally published December 23, 2015 at 7:00 PM with the headline "Where to eat out on New Year’s Eve."