I’m not the first to observe that while State Street in Ann Arbor is for students, Main Street is for parents.

The best restaurants—or at least the fancier ones—line both sides of Main, beckoning with premium wine lists and homemade pastas. Alas, when you only have $10 to spend, you’ll have to pass these up until more flush times.

Or do you?

During Restaurant Week, many of the Main Street establishments offer $12 lunches and $25 dinners. Traditionally held only in the summer, the Main Street Area Association is offering a winter version this week. Participating dinner menus feature three courses, and some even offer a two-fer price - which is how I managed to get a decent Main Street meal without breaking the bank.

Going one better than the $12 lunch price, Conor O’Neill’s offers a 2 for $12 special - a cup of soup each and one of six pre-selected meals for each person. I knew the fish and chips were delicious, but not wanting to roll home on a belly full of oil, I opted for the pulled pork sandwich. I don’t often eat meat, but about once a month I will get a mad craving for an actual animal, not one made of tofu with grill marks painted on.

I’m also not a fan of barbecue, so it’s pretty fair praise to say the pulled pork sandwich was amazingly tasty. Or perhaps I was swayed by the Jameson in the barbecue sauce. The potato leek soup was equally delicious, if a bit heavy. Alas, I could not afford my customary Guinness, which would have paired nicely.

I can always be cheaply entertained downtown, and Main Street was no exception. I wandered through the specialty shops, smelling coffee and lamb-on-a-spit from the Parthenon, tasting the coffees in Ten Thousand Villages. I might have gone all day just window shopping. I fully expected to find nothing worth purchasing for the small sum I had left.

I stopped into Peaceable Kingdom to pet the owner’s dogs, and I suddenly remembered the toy bins - a ridiculously varied selection of wind-up toys, finger puppets and plastic figurines. From teeny babies to zombies to dinosaurs, Peaceable Kingdom fills the niche for hip and hilarious desktop flair.

After admiring and dismissing several options that could be stepped or choked on, I chose a wind-up lobster for my cat Lucy, who notoriously picky about what is and is not worth her time. If she hated it or was, more likely, completely uninterested—I could give it to any one of my normal-cat-having relatives. Either way: totally entertaining.

Lunch at Conor O’Neils - $7.26
Wind-up lobster - $2.65

We'll see if the cat currently fighting my typing fingers will go for the lobster decoy.

Sarah Smallwood is a freelance writer living and working in Ann Arbor. She is currently rewriting her first novel, keeps a daily blog at The Other Shoe and hosts a podcast at Stuff with Things. She can be reached at heybeedoo at gmail dot com.