The first summer special menu to surface this year, the Palace Cafe's Temperature Lunch is back again for the twenty-second year. It's a gimmick, but a good one. Multiply yesterday's official Weather Service high temperature at the airport by ten. The total in cents is the price for today's two-course lunch, from 11:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. weekdays. You get a choice of soup or salad to start, then the daily special entree of the day.
The daily Temperature Special and its price are posted on the PC's web page. Going there, I learned that some of the dishes that have been featured include Gulf fish ceviche (lime, cucumber, tomatoes, fried garlic), chilled duck breast with black-eyed pea salad, and crabmeat stuffed swordfish with corn puree and marinated heirloom tomatoes.
Unfortunately, yesterday was a real scorcher, with the temperature into the nineties. So the two courses went up to $9.50. Still not a bad deal. Real penny-pinchers will be on the watch for those rare cool fronts. The promotion is available Mondays through Fridays until Labor Day.
