Port Washington is about to spend eight days showing off every kind of kitchen it has. Restaurant Week returns Sunday, October 18 and runs through Sunday, October 25, with 17 restaurants from Main Street to the waterfront putting out prix fixe menus built for wandering.

How the week works

The format is the same one that has made this one of the North Shore's most reliable eating events. Participating restaurants offer a three course dinner menu every night they are open, and many add a two course lunch. Each restaurant sets its own menu and its own price, with three choices per course, and the menus are being posted on the Port Washington Business Improvement District's site as they come in. A few are already up.

Two fine print items worth knowing before you book. The prix fixe is dine in only, so this is a week for sitting down rather than ordering out. And on the Saturday night of the week, October 24, restaurants are allowed to end the special menu at 6 p.m., so if you want the deal on a Saturday, go early or pick another night.

Drinks are not included, though some restaurants pour specialty cocktails priced for the occasion, and the tip is on you. The organizers recommend calling ahead, because the week is popular and the dining rooms are not getting any bigger.

Who is cooking

The list reads like a map of how broadly this peninsula eats. There are two ramen shops, AP Ramen at 57 Main Street and Ikedo Ramen up on Port Washington Boulevard. There is dim sum at Jia Dim Sum on Old Shore Road and Asian fusion at Ruka on Main Street. Thai comes two ways, Chada Thai Bistro and Port Washington Thai, both on Main Street a few blocks apart.

The Mediterranean bench is deep: Ayhan's Shish Kebab, the Port Washington Boulevard standby, plus Bosphorus Cafe Grill on Shore Road and Yummy Gyro on Main. Italian shows up in three different moods, from Flora's Wine Bar and Cafe to the dinner rooms at Riva Blu and Toscanini, with Gino's covering the pizzeria and red sauce end of things.

The pubs are in too. Finn MacCool's on Main Street and Sullivan's Quay on Port Washington Boulevard both put dinner menus into the week, and The Wild Goose rounds out the American side. And for one last taste of the season that just ended, Nino's Beach is serving its coastal menu out on Orchard Beach Boulevard, which in late October is about as close to a summer encore as Long Island gets.

Why this week is worth the drive

Restaurant weeks live or die on whether the restaurants treat them as a showcase or an obligation, and Port Washington's has a good track record of the former. Some kitchens use the week to run specialties that never make the regular menu, which is why the organizers suggest checking the posted menus rather than assuming the greatest hits.

It is also simply a good excuse to walk one of the better main streets in Nassau County in its best month. Seventeen restaurants inside one town means you can book two or three nights without repeating a cuisine, and the lunch menus make a weekday errand in Port Washington suddenly look like a plan.

One more calendar note for the ambitious eater: the week opens on the same Sunday the Oyster Festival wraps up across the water in Oyster Bay, which means October 18 can start with oysters at Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park and end with a three course dinner on Main Street in Port Washington. Nobody said fall on the North Shore had to be quiet.

Menus, addresses and a map of every participating restaurant are on the Port Washington BID's site. The week starts Sunday. The reservations have already begun.