Food Deals, Tips, and Tricks

In this post, I thought I share some of the food deals, tips, and tricks that I found to be beneficial for me - and of course these food joints are the ones I frequent. I am pretty sure there are more out there - if you know those deals, tips, and tricks, let me know in the comment section and I will try them and add them into this post with credit to you.

Deals:
Restaurants.com: Several times a year, Restaurants.com has excellent deals with their discount code. I bought several coupon for $25 off for certain restaurants for only $3 per coupon, some for $4 (depending on the deals). Be on the look out at fatwallet.com or deals.woot.com for coupon code.

Roosters: on Olentangy River Rd chain, they have appetizers deal on Tuesdays. So each Tuesday they will give you a discount on one selected appetizers. For example, last time I went there, it was $1.07 for an order cheese sticks (has 5 sticks in it).

Qdoba: On Tuesday nights, kids eat free at Qdoba. If you are a Qdoba card holder, get double points on Friday. If you go to the one in 5th ave, they give free chips if you come after 8pm - for any day. Students can have a $5 meal - any day.

City Barbeque: Buck-a-bone Tuesdays. So instead of paying $17.99 for a full slab - pay only ~$12. Some stores have $4 off a sampler Mondays.

Applebee's: 1/2 Price Appetizers with any beverage purchase from 10 p.m. to close. At the bar from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (dine-in only. excludes sampler).

Tips & Tricks:
Chipotle/Qdoba:

• For "more" portion in your fajita/burrito without bursting your tortilla, as for bol/naked with tortilla on the side - no extra charge!
• Chipotle will make quesadilla for you - even though it is not on the menu
• Order a Quesorito in Chipotle - a hybrid of quesadilla and burrito.
• You can get half/half (i.e. chicken and steak) for your meat selection - and pay only for the more expensive price
• You can get "double meat" and pay extra $2 (nore really sure about the price - but should be close)
• At Chipotle, if you are ordering salad, you can add fajita onions/peppers with no extra charge

BD's Mongolian Barbeque:

• Instead of paying the full buffet price ($13.99 I think), you can elect to go once ($8.99 - LUNCH only). For most women, this is usually enough, if not - or if you are a man - read the next point.
• Now, there is a trick on how to arrange your ingredients in your bowl so that you can have plenty (I am mean PLENTY) of food by just going once. The key is to put your vegetables on the bottom and the meat on top - so that the vegetables will get pushed to the bottom by the meat therefore allowing more room. In detail, follow these steps:
  1. If you do not want vegetables, skip to step 2. Get your empty bowl and go to the vegetable section right away, skip the meat for now. Get your vegetables, try to arrange them neatly and allowing an empty opening in the middle.
  2. If you do not want seafood, skip to step 3. Go to the seafood section. If you have vegetables, put your seafood in the opening in the middle of you bowl. If you do not have veggies, arrange them however you want, but try to be neat.
  3. If you do not want carbs, skip to step 4. Go to the carbs section. Get your noodle/pasta and try to arrange them neatly. These "arrange neatly" thing is important but don't be OCD about it. Just make sure they are packed and not overflowing.
  4. Now go the spices section, get the "cooking" ingredients. What I call the "cooking" ingredients are the items that you want to be cooked along from the beginning with your veggies, meat, seafood. For the ingredients that will go later, I call them "sauce" ingredients. So in this step, go get your "cooking" ingredients; usually something like garlic, ginger, some spices, etc - depending on your style and recipe. Don't want to go crazy here, since you can always add them later in the "sauce" - I usually just get minced garlic in this step.
  5. Go back to the meat section. Whatever you do, put beef/steak last - since it is usually sliced thinly - so you use is as a "roof" to hold everything together. Get your meat - in the order or smallest to largest - then put beef strips last.
  6. Now, assemble your sauce. Depending on how much you got to pile on your bowl, you may require more than 1 mini-sauce-bowl to hold your sauce - which is alright. Put your food bowl and on the sauce counter and assemble your sauce, spices, and condiments. 
  7. CRUCIAL STEP - if the cooking area is crowded, make sure you look and pay attention to where do you think you will be lining up at - and go there ONLY WITH YOUR FOOD BOWL, leaving the sauce bowl(s) behind on the sauce counter. If you are not on the cooking counter directly (someone is in front of you with their food being cooked), put your food bowl on the counter and then go back to the sauce counter to get your sauce. If necessary, go get egg(s) as well and go back to your spot in the cooking line and put your sauce bowl(s) and egg(s) on the cooking counter.
  8. Now wait for your turn ...
  9. Pay attention to your food being cooked and tell the cook about your preferences (sauce now/sauce later, egg now/later, etc). When it's done cooking, make sure the cook put your food in the yellow bowl, NOT the blue bowl. Blue bowl is for repeats, so you will be charged full buffet instead of the single. If for some reason, you got a blue bowl, go back to your seat and tell your server about it - that you only went once with 1 ingredients bowl and don't want to be charged full buffet (this only ever happened to me once).

Roosters:

• You can combined up to 3 wings sauces without any extra charge. So if you want your wings to be in "chipotle" an "garlic" - just say "chipotle garlic" on your sauce selection when you order.

For some more food items that are not in the menu:

• Coupon Sherpa - Secret Menu Items
• Consumerist - Guide to Secret Menu Items