Food flash: Dine around Seattle deals

November marks the beginning of this season's dining deal featuring 25 Seattle restaurants offering $25 prix-fixe dinners and $12.50 lunches Sundays through Thursdays. The price does not include drinks, tax or gratuity and is not available on Thanksgiving, Nov. 27.

Individual restaurants decide whether they will offer a lunch, dinner or both. The regular menu will also be featured.

Participating restaurants include Andaluca, Assaggio, Barking Frog, Brasa, Cascadia, Earth & Ocean, Etta's Seafood, Fandango, Flying Fish, Hunt Club, Kaspar's, Market Street Urban Grill, Nell's, Nishino, Ponti Seafood Grill, Ray's Boathouse, Restaurant Zoe, 727 Pine, Szmania's, The Georgian, Tulio Ristorante, Vivanda, Waterfront Seafood Grill, Wild Ginger and Yarrow Bay Grill.

In honor of oysters

From a "Shuckfest" to an Ocean Harvest Festival, local restaurants are celebrating the fall-winter crop of oysters.

• Matts' Rotisserie & Oyster Lounge is staging a "Shuckfest," 3-9 p.m. Saturday, 16551 N.E. 74th St., Redmond Town Center, Redmond. The $30 ticket features an unlimited supply of shellfish plus scrip for beer and wine. Activities include a celebrity slurping and shucking competition at 5 p.m.

• Feast on all the oysters you can eat, 1-4 p.m. Saturday, Flying Fish, 2234 First Ave., Seattle, $20. Reservations: 206-728-8595. The restaurant will also begin an Oyster Happy Hour, 5-6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays from Nov. 10 through May 31. Oysters will be 25 cents each.

• An Ocean Harvest Festival concludes with an Oyster New Year and "Beautiful Oyster Contest," complete with oysters, beer and wine, live music and entertainment, 5-10 p.m. Nov. 8, Elliott's Oyster House, 1201 Alaskan Way, Pier 56, Seattle, $70. Tickets: www.elliottsoysterhouse.com

Chili and charities

Sample some chili and benefit a charity. More than 20 representatives of area non-profit organizations will compete in a beer-chili cook off, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Rogue Issaquah Brewhouse, 35 W. Sunset Way, Issaquah.

A $6 donation earns three taste-samples and three voting tokens.

Each charity will collect $2 for every vote received.

Compiled by Lynne Berry.