Birthday: Bistro? Brasserie? Other?

I am being taken out for my birthday dinner on Saturday night by two good friends, one of whom is not very adventurous in terms of food. They want to take me somewhere nice, but I don't want them to spend too much money.

One restaurant we all love is West Town Tavern, so any suggestions of places with similar atmosphere/pricing/quality would be much appreciated. We may just end up going there, which certainly wouldn't be a bad thing, but we're hoping to try a place we've never been before.

Thanks in advance!

liz

Just free associating on good meals with a $$-$$$ aura around them:
Campagne
Bouchon
Irwin
Yoshis
Ante Prima
Cyrano
Merlo (on Maple)
Terragusto
Vivo
Marche
Avec
Fogo de Chao
Keefers
Coco Pazzo
Cafe Spiaggia
Crofton on Wells
Pane Caldo
Kiki's Bistro
Vinci
Cafe 28
DeLeece
La Bocca della Verita
A Tavola
La Scarola

...and possibly 50 others would give you a very nice meal, more or less in the West Town price range, with safe bets for the timid as well as nourishment for the more adventurous, depending on what you're in the mood for. You could search here for illuminating discussion on almost any one of them, many with damn fine photo illustrations.

mrbarolo wrote:Just free associating on good meals with a $$-$$$ aura around them:

Be careful. West Town Tavern is relatively inexpensive. Some of the places you mentioned are in the same price range, but others are considerably higher.

Also, since it's a Saturday night, I would avoid places that don't take reservations. You may want to do a search on opentable.com now, as it's already Thursday and prime times are starting to fill up at many places.