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How to Have a Perfect Valentine's Day Dinner
It’s Valentine’s Day, and the advice from those in the know is simple—stay home.
San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic Michael Bauer sums it up: “Valentine’s Day, like New Year’s Eve, is a night to stay home. It’s a time when restaurants charge a premium for seats, and the expectations generated by the price are rarely met.”
His commenters tend to agree—especially those in the restaurant business who refer to it as “amateur night.” “I am so glad I no longer work in the restaurant business,” writes one commenter. “St. Valentine’s Day, along with Mother’s Day, are the two worst days to be near a restaurant, either as a diner, or employee!”
Meanwhile, on the British blog Fire and Knives, Tim Hayward offers a thoroughly amusing explanation of the V-Day dilemma, an extended version of an article titled “We can fit you in after 10pm,” which appeared in The Guardian. You’ll definitely want to read the entire post, but here are some of the highlights.
Valentine’s day has become all about eating out and failure to secure a reasonable booking on the 14th can be cited, if not as grounds for divorce, at least for weapons-grade recrimination for the rest of the year.And so, for one blissful night, the balance of power shifts away from the whiney, demanding and unpredictably fickle customer and firmly into the hands of the restaurateur … this is a time he can be sure of filling every available seat several times over. If you can’t fill a place on Valentine’s night you have no right to call yourself a restaurant.
It’s not just the quantity of customers that’s different on this, the catering trade’s most magical night of the year, it’s also the quality … as far as the restaurant trade is concerned, it is the time when they’ll get the most inexperienced diners.
As one high-end chef, anonymous for obvious reasons, put it, ‘Everything shitty, clichéd, and horribly 80s gets wheeled out. Duo of lamb chops, cut to resemble hearts. Coeur a la fucking crème. There will be at least one nancying, ninnying chicken dish, especially for the ladies, and steak, which will be ordered by 80% of the men. Well-done, of course—medium if you’re lucky.’
Dining out on the 14th of Feb is an experience that doesn’t reflect well on any of the participants. We go because we feel we have to, we’re served by people who’d rather it was any other day of the year, with food that the chefs are ashamed of because they know they could do better.
Tim’s solution is to postpone Valentine’s Day (the Vatican took it off the official calendar in 1969; it’s only Hallmark that keeps it going these days). According to him, “You and your partner can choose any other day of the year to go out, get treated well by a decent restaurant and create your own romance.”
Do you hear that? It’s the sound of reservations being canceled.
What do you think? What is, for you, the perfect Valentine’s Day Dinner?
Posted by | Tuesday, February 13, 2007 at 4:13pm | 7 comments
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I dislike the whole concept of Valentines Day in that it forces romance and requires that it be delivered on that one day. I believe that the best romance comes from the little things - flowers from the supermarket when he was picking up groceries, sweeping the snow off my truck before work, you get the idea. And restaurants in our little town are good but frankly we can do just as well. My solution in the past has been to stay home, break out some great champagne and red wine from our small collection, cook something we wouldn't eat on other days, and relax in the hot tub. However, this year a new twist....orphan valentine dinner prepared by us for a group of single, or single for the moment, friends complete with aforementioned champagne, wine, and great food. I'll save my dinner out for a time when I really need it and know I'll get the best service.
Valentine's day, New Year' Eve, Mother's Day....All holidays when the amateurs come out.
Agreed. Actually, the whole week is a terrible dining week because there are the pathetic losers who didn't get a reservation and the poor losers hoping to get a slightly better meal on an off night. Neither win.
If you want a nice dinner out, and hey, who doesn't? book another week. Better yet, book into something like Oliveto's Whole Hog Dinner the week before. *That* is what holiday eating is all about!
Our tradition is to get all the trashy frozen food (pizza bites, jalapeno poppers, spinach and artichoke dip, etc.) that we never let ourselves eat the rest of the year. And we make bread pudding for dessert.
Here's one option--bail on Valentine's Day, and create your own holiday altogether: http://culturecloud.com/Articles/0000...
One of my favorite V-Day celebrations was an house party with the girls. We cooked, drank bubbly pink wine, and celebrated being together. I'd rather push Valentine's Day with a S.O. to the closest weekend in order to spend some real quality time, and do something simple and sweet to mark the day-- perhaps going on a Valentine's after-dinner walk or making ice cream sundaes.
If you want the best Valentine's day.Hire a chef at your home,let him cook for you and enjoy your night.
Restaurants are known to be packed and even the worst are full on that night.