The eighth annual Chicago Restaurant Week began, and Chicago area foodies are busy scheduling their meals through Feb. 12. My friends and I already started our food tasting tour and have plenty more stops planned. Choose Chicago, the city’s official tourism organization, organizes Chicago Restaurant Week every winter. More than 250 Chicago-area restaurants offer multicourse dining options starting at $22 for lunch and $33 and/or $44 for dinner. Choose Chicago has a sortable list of all participating restaurants.

Our food tour started at Riccardo Trattoria. Our shared meals consisted of calamari fritti, porcini soufflé, grilled scallops, halibut piccata, grilled prawns, several types of risotto and many flavors of gelato. This was truly an Italian feast. We devoured a Mexican fiesta at Salpicón, with the chiles doña queta being our favorite, consisting of a poblano chile stuffed with corn, mushrooms and zucchini and ancho chile filled with potatoes both served in flavorful, zesty sauces. A large group of us enjoyed sushi treats galore at Enso Sushi & Bar. Between us, I think we had everything offered, and it was all outstanding. Even their simple Chirashi Bowl of assorted fish over sushi rice was awesome. We went just west of Chicago for Smoked on Rose, a unique Greek-American barbeque restaurant. Broiled octopus and their zesty orange cake were the medal winners here. The ladies picked Geja’s Café for a romantic fondue experience. This was my first experience with fondue dining, but it won’t be my last. Their sauces might have stolen the show from the main food offerings. It was fantastic all around.

We tried five new places in five days, and we are excited about the next seven days. Although it is labeled “week,” it really is a two-week celebration, but nobody is complaining about that misnomer. We are too busy eating.

— John Wroblewski, online contributor