If you're planning a Date Night sometime soon (Valentine's Day is coming up--mark your calendars!), you'll want to carefully consider your choice of restaurant.

When you're out to eat, just the two of you, what kind of dining experience do you prefer?  Do you like chain restaurants, where there's plenty of consistency when it comes to the menu and how the food is prepared, or do you prefer more intimate cafés?

Pictured at right is the café that my husband and I enjoy patronizing when we get to dine out without the kids.  This is not the kind of place where you bring your kids.  I think the restaurant seats 30 people.  Often, there is only one waiter.  The menu's only two pages long--but the experience is fantastic.

We went there a couple of weeks ago to celebrate our wedding anniversary.  As usual, the food was delicious, but we were a little dismayed to discover that there were some changes on the menu.  They'd eliminated one of their "signature" dishes, a delicious chicken dish that I cannot for the life of me figure out how to duplicate at home.  I ordered this chicken every single time we went there--it was that good.  In fact, I almost had skipped looking at the menu at all, because I always order the same thing.

My second-choice dinner was good too, but it wasn't what I had anticipated.  Maybe for our next Date Night we'll skip dinner and go straight to the movie.

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