A little secret...

This may or may not be a secret, but it feels like a secret.... Ever heard of Restaurants.com?

This is a great way to try different dining establishments without breaking the bank. When you visit this website you will find a plethora of restaurants to choose from. You can search by state, city, or zip code. Once you have narrowed down your search, you choose a restaurant you would like to dine at and buy a certificate for a fraction of the price!

For example, on any given day you can buy a $25 gift card for $10.00. The only catch is, you have to spend at least $35.00 at the restaurant and they will add 18% gratuity. (Not a big deal). So you pay $10 for a $25.00 certificate, then you spend $35.oo at the restaurant. After your server deducts $25.00 from your total bill you only end up spending $20.00 total for a $35.00 meal. This includes what you spent on the certificate. Not bad.

However! Here is the best news! I never pay that price for my certificates. Somehow, I signed myself up for email updates from Coupon Mom and she sends me codes and notifications for 80% off restaurants.com periodically. So I stock up on $25.00 certificates for only $2.00 each! Sweet right?

Last night my husband and I used one of our certificates at Picazzo's Pizza in Tempe.

We used to eat at Picazzo's a lot when our daughter was on a Gluten Free diet. They offer a GF menu and have a separate kitchen. When you are on a GF diet pizza is something you would give your left arm for, so this was a sacred place for us. Our daughter was healed of her food allergies so we no longer had a need fo GF pizza and this place kind of fell of the radar for us.Until I saw them while browsing through local restaurants.

Picazzo's has added Organic to their menu vocabulary as well as hormone free and nitrate free meats. This restaurant has always been a fresh and healthy establishment but they have taken it to the next level!

Ken and I had a $25.00 certificate. We needed to spend $35.00 to use it so we started off with some baked wings. We went with 1/2 Buffalo and 1/2 BBQ Maple. They were as good as I remembered them to be. All the wings are baked and GF. Yum! Unfortunately we missed the happy hour by 10 minutes. They have 1/2 price appetizers and organic drinks. Oh well... next tme.

Ken and I have seriously different taste buds when it comes to pizza. I typically go for a no sauce pizza with lots of veggies and pungent toppings like feta, blue cheese and any kind of olive variety. Ken is definitely a meat lover and jalapeños make him happy, at least at the moment. So we ordered two small pizzas. He got something meaty and I got the California. It was a thin crust no sauce pizza with Nitrate free apple wood smoked bacon (shockingly I went with meat.) It had feta or blue cheese, caramelized onions and fresh spinach. I was so excited for it to come to the table, I thought the combo sounded so great. But, NO! The bacon tasted like smoked salmon! It was the weirdest thing. I wasn't sure if it was the way it was smoked or what the problem was. Ken said it was because it was natural. He is such an organic hater, seriously. I picked off all the bacon and the rest of the pizza was good.

Our total came to approximately $39.00 including the tip. After our $25.00 certificate was applied we only spent $14.00 for a really nice dinner out!

Right now Restaurants.com has a deal through November 8Th. You can purchase $25.00 certificates for only $3.00 the code is "meal."

Go! Hurry! Check it out!