DC’s Restaurant Week, WHICH STARTS TODAY , is a mixed bag. We ran this guide before, and we are rerunning it this year, since the rules remain the same. Comment away: For the under-funded, it’s a great way to enjoy a meal at a nice restaurant without racking up credit debt and for the occasional restaurant-goer, it’s a good reason to get out of the house or change the routine. For others, the specter of the bi-annual Restaurant Week filling their favored restaurants with the teeming masses, dumbing down menus and driving down quality sends them scurrying to those places not among the 200 participating in the promotion. If you decide to test the waters, a three-course lunch goes for $20.08 and three-course dinners run $35.08, plus drinks, tip and tax. The best spots fill up fast, so make your reservations now

How to plan

• Picking the right restaurant is critical – you can end up paying for a $35 Restaurant Week meal at a place serving $15 entrees, or walk into a place where the menu is littered with up-charges, turning your $35 meal into something much pricier.

• The best tool for Restaurant Week is Open Table. Start plugging in times and neighborhoods, see what’s open and book a meal or two They have a dedicated page set up just for restaurant week.

• When planning for dinner, realize that Restaurant Week is a trying time for restaurants. Many of the kitchen and front-of-house staff are working doubles through the week, a lot of the diners are not experienced restaurant-goers, some menus are limited and later in the week some items will be unavailable. Use the opportunity to try new things and make sure to keep it simple. Restaurant Week may not be the best time to pull a really large dinner party together and it may not be the best opportunity to celebrate a special occasion.

What to watch out for

• Many restaurants use Restaurant Week as a chance to get new customers. That’s great, but be a smart consumer. In some cases you may end up at a restaurant whose menus cost the same as the deal offered, or you may find yourself eating a moderate meal in a hotel lobby. Beacon Bar and Grill, we’re looking at you.
• Given rising food costs and the crush of Restaurant Week, some restaurants end up serving reduced portion sizes. This is a shame as quality, less-expensive ingredients are readily available and so many restaurants are able to put together great plates for their diners. Be advised that if a menu claims a lot of luxury ingredients, you should probably speak with your server about portion size.
• If you are TRULY on a budget-please keep an eye out on your drink orders (trust us, we've been there)
• ALSO! Places with smaller plates, even though loved and delicious, are not the way to go on Restaurant week, since you'll pretty much end up with the same deal as you would year round (Zaytinya, Oyamel, Gaffiato etc)

What the experts are saying

In the past  years DC Foodies has done a really comprehensive job of covering Restaurant Week.

They have some fantastic tips like:

• Avoid "special" menus unless you know exactly what the restaurant is offering and it actually sounds interesting to you. Restaurant's offering most, if not all, of their normal menu are the restaurants to go to as these are the best deals.
• When choosing a restaurant, consider whether or not they always have a deal similar to the Restaurant Week offer. For instance, a lot of places always has a pre-theater menu for around the price of a Restaurant week dinner.

The Best Bets

• Washingtonian has a nice round up of the newcomers to the Restaurant Week Scene 2012 (including the much buzzed about Fiola, the Lounge at Citronelle, SAX and Elisir) , which is a great first-line-of-attack place to start.
• In the same vein, checking out old favorites with awesome new chefs may be the way to go too:
• MIO's newly arrived Giovanna Huyke just got a CRAZY GOOD review by Tom Sietsema (he called her pork his new "last meal ever" choice) and the time to check it out is now.
• Dennis Marron has been cooking up a STORM of a newly expanded menu @ POSTE (check out our food porn USA report on it here)

We're also big fans of using restaurant week to check out places in Neighborhoods we usually don't go to 24/7. So maybe check out:

• SONOMA or BELGA in Capitol Hill
• DINO'S OR ARDEO+BARDEO in Cleveland Park
• or one of the fancy hotel restaurants you keep hearing about: J&G Steakhouse @ W Hotel DC,  Susur Lee's Zentan @ Donovan House, Sou'Wester @ Mandarin Oriental....

Plus, according to the meals we had this year:

• All of Ashok Bajaj's restaurants are doing restaurant week, and are an awesome choice either way-whether you pick RASIKA, or 701 or BIBIANA-the standard of food is going to be amazing. Still, when it's a slow work day, we still dream about a lunch we had at the OVAL ROOM a few months back. Chef Tony Conte is one of DC's most under-buzzed about culinary stars and well, -check out our full report here

• BIRCH & BARLEY-sure you eat at the bar upstairs at CHURCHKEY ALL THE TIME-but this is a great opportunity to treat yourself to the more upscale experience downstairs.
• CASA NONNA - Italian seems to be all the rage in DC right now (see also your Fiola, Elisir etc options) but Amy Brandywein has a massive, well thought out menu, and yes-the desserts are delicious too (an important thing to consider when digging into the 3 course option)

• ADOUR @ St. Regis - because sometimes you want a beautiful place to eat your beautiful food in. And ADOUR's dining room (designed by The Rockwell group) is one of our favorites in town.

Let us know in the comments WHERE YOU ARE planning on going.

Previously in BYT Guides:

• 5/4: The Bourgey Guide to Guacamole
• 4/9: What to Wear to Work - Spring Edition
• 3/30: BYT STYLE GUIDE: SPRING/SUMMER 2012!!!
• 3/26: ARTS Guide: Spring/ Summer 2012
• 3/23: Creative Cocktailwear: BYT + Corcoran ARTINI 2012
• 3/22: Theatre Guide: SPRING/ SUMMER 2012
• 3/21: Food Guide: Spring/ Summer 2012
• 3/20: MUSIC GUIDE: SPRING/SUMMER 2012
• 3/19: FILM GUIDE: SPRING/SUMMER 2012
• 2/29: I Spy: A Movie Marathon