Deal vs. Deal: $18 Lunch at BLT, $40 Dinner at Setai

​BLT Steak, Laurent Tourondel's steakhouse in The Betsy South Beach, has launched a new BLT Express lunch offering: $18, exclusive of tax and gratuity, for any two items from among soups, salads, and half-sandwiches -- served simultaneously to insure speedy service.

So you might choose tomato gazpacho with goat cheese crostini accompanied by a half prime steak/fontina cheese panini (all half-sandwich picks also come with fries). Or a baby arugula salad with shaved fennel and pecorino cheese with half an organic chicken/sundried tomato sandwich; or butternut squash soup with sage croutons and a caesar salad; or Boston salad with half a Cuban sandwich; or...
BLT Steak at The Betsy, 1440 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach; 305-673-0044.

Starting tomorrow evening, The Grill at The Setai will also have a clever little plate deal going: One small, one medium, and one large plate, along with dessert, for $40 per person. Of course, if you want food on the plates it costs quite a bit more.

No, seriously, $40 brings tastes such as Prince Edward Island mussels escabeche with bouillabaisse jelly, tomato foam and basil oil; crisp chicken liver beignets with white onion cream and red pepper jelly; a stew of salted cod, pork belly, calamari, chorizo, and smoked pimento chickpeas; and all sorts of really tasty-sounding dishes.
The Grill at The Setai, 2001 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 305-520-6400.

It isn't our place to say the four-courses for $40 Grill at The Setai deal seemingly blows the $18 soup/half-sandwich BLT deal out of the water -- no, wait, it is our place to say it. And we just did.