Restaurant Ideas if You’re Dining Out for Thanksgiving

Dining out for Thanksgiving has its advantages.  No dishes to clean up!  And fewer leftovers.  Boise has several restaurants planning to be open on Thanksgiving Day, and we'll highlight some of them to help you plan your strategy.

The Idaho Statesman offered up ideas about the best places to dine out on Thursday, including these:

Richard’s at the Inn at 500 Capitol, 500 S. Capitol Blvd., and they'll be serving the 3-course meal from 3 to 8 p.m. Thursday. We're hearing rumors of some pretty amazing pumpkin cheesecake there.  Yum!  And for the main course you can choose from salmon, steak, or turkey.  It's $45 per person and you've to to make a reservation at Richardsboise.com.

The Owyhee Tavern Steak & Sea, 1109 Main St., will have a three-course dinner on Thursday too, and that's $40 per person, from noon to 8 p.m. Have some prime rib or salmon, and then hit the dessert buffet. You'll need to make a reservation there too.

Chandlers at Hotel 43 is another idea, at 981 W. Grove Street.  Can we just start with dessert?  Pumpkin pie with a special cream, and warm apple cobbler with cinnamon ice cream are something to look forward to at Chandlers.  And steak, sea bass, or turkey.  It's $49 per person and runs from 1 to 9 p.m., and again three courses with your choice at each round.

And if you happen to be craving cheeseburgers or tacos on Thanksgiving Day, most of the fast food restaurants will be open, and you can be a total rebel that way and skip the turkey and trimmings all together.

I'm seeing different numbers online right now about how many calories we'll consume on Thanksgiving Day, and the range seems to be from 3150 to 4500.  Wow!  And okay, why not.  It's pre-meditated over-eating at this point, and we're cool with it.

Whether you dine out or pig out at home, we hope you have a very Happy Thanksgiving.  Can we burn it off walking and shopping at the mall on Friday.  If not, there's always January.