PHOTOS: LA's Best Weekly Restaurant Specials

In the bad old days of restaurant service, special menus were simply gimmicks to try to get people in the door on slow days - or worse, to use up a kitchen's old ingredients before the start of a new week. Nowadays, daily specials provide a safe space for restaurants like Jar to serve up expensive perishables on a single day so that the items don't languish throughout the week. Or they are opportunities for chefs (like JiRaffe chef Raphael Lunetta) to experiment with ingredients and techniques, going beyond the restaurant's tried-and-true favorites. And some places, like Palate and Eva, just like to throw parties. Below we list a host of Los Angeles restaurants offering deals and special menus, and if you know of any that we haven't mentioned, let us know!