The Tantalizing Tastes of Oxford’s Restaurant Week: My Michelle’s

Delicious food, in all its savory and succulent forms, is something that we as a species can’t resist. We need it to survive and thrive. And while we all have the understanding that we have to eat to live; most of us can easily flip that adage around and basically say, we live to eat.

That being said; Oxford Restaurant Week is upon us and takes place Jan. 25 through Jan. 31 and gives us a wonderful reason to frequent our fair city’s fantastic array of phenomenal eating establishments. The weeklong celebration showcases participating restaurants and benefits local food charities such as Love Packs, More Than A Meal, Meals on Wheels, Oxford Food Pantry and Good Food for Oxford Schools by offering restaurant patrons an opportunity to go online after their meal and vote for their favorite food charity. On Feb. 1, the charity with the most votes will get a $5,000 check. Now, if that isn’t incentive enough to support our local restaurants, the amazing food will surely whet your appetite into action.

In our profiles of some of the participating restaurants, we’ll bring you mouthwatering photographs and terrific deals and discounts you’ll be offered by the restaurants to come out and participate.

Up first in our Restaurant Week profiles: My Michelle’s on North Lamar.

Michelle Rounsaville-Love

Michelle Rounsaville-Love has many reasons to celebrate these days. Rounsaville-Love owns My Michelle’s and on January 7 enjoyed her one year anniversary of the restaurant element of My Michelle’s being opened. Her Nation’s Best Catering component of the business will be opened 5 years in June. Rounsaville-Love is also extremely excited about Restaurant Week and is anticipating a great turnout.

“This is our first year to participate since we were so very new last year and we’re very excited to be involved this year. We will kick it off with our Sunday brunch on the 25th,” she said. “We’re opened every Sunday for brunch from 8:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. The reason behind Restaurant Week is very important. It’s something that the Chamber of Commerce and Visit Oxford started to promote people eating out locally and supporting their city’s restaurants during what is considered the “down” time for us in the industry, January and February. And the best part of all of this is that after a customer visits one of the participating restaurants during Restaurant Week, they’ll have an opportunity to go online and vote for their favorite local food charity. At the end of Restaurant Week, the votes are tallied and the winning charity receives a $5,000 check. And it’s all food charities that help feed our community, like Oxford Pantry, Love Packs and Meals on Wheels.”

My Michelle’s has three different scrumptious food bars for customers: a fresh salad bar, fruit and dip bar and a buffet that always features 3 different entrees, one starch, four fresh vegetables and two soups each and every day.

“The menus change weekly,” she said, “and we email them out on Mondays and also post them on our Facebook page. We’re constantly changing up, depending on what we can get in that is as fresh as possible. We try to use local farms as often as we can, such as Woodson Ridge and Yokna Bottoms. We aim for fresh and do very few processed foods. Everything is made from scratch: our dressings, sauces and soups. And we use very little canned ingredients; it’s all as freshly made as possible.”

Rounsaville-Love said participating restaurants will offer different discounts, depending on the restaurant and My Michelle’s will offer $2 off a visit to the buffet.

“Our buffet is weighed,” she said, “so whatever a customer’s ticket price is, they’ll get a $2 discount at the register. And then they get to vote for their favorite food charity afterward. So, it’s a wonderful thing for all of us in the community.”

Angela Rogalski is a HottyToddy.com staff reporter and can be reached at angela.rogalski@hottytoddy.com.