Chowing and crawling

Here's a thought: Instead of eating at just one restaurant, sample a handful of eateries for one price. This is the concept that makes food crawls so appetizing. Enter Dishcrawl, a San Jose-based startup that hosts food crawls in dozens of cities around the United States. The company hires local “ambassadors” from different towns to lead the events; ambassador Julia Simpson kicked off the Davis branch of Dishcrawl last month with a tour that visited Seasons Restaurant, Café Méditerranée, Monticello, and Village Pizza & Grill. At these intimate monthly affairs (maximum 40 people), each restaurant serves several dishes and some offer drinks and conversations with restaurant managers or owners. The catch is that you don't know the names of the locations until the day of the event—which, at a cost of $45, is a bit of a gamble. For more information, or to purchase tickets for the Davis Dishcrawl on Saturday, May 25, visit www.dishcrawl.com/dav25.