Valentine's 2006

There are many people out there who really hate Valentine's and all of the commercialization surrounding it. I personally don't mind the commercialization. It is because of it that you'll have some restaurants preparing special menus for you and your date. I've always done the Valentine's thing, and I've always enjoyed it. To me, it's not all that different from celebrating a birthday, but instead of honoring one person, it's really paying tribute to the bond of two people.

Anyway, that's my Sicilian Defense of Valentine's Day. I don't think it's Sicilian in origin though. Ha ha.

So, yesterday I did the whole flowers to work thing, which isn't usually my thing. Just like in poker, you have got to mix it up some times. Then, it was dinner at Birk's. I had never been there, but I had heard that the food was fantastic. We arrived a full fifteen minutes before our reservation, and so there was a short wait.

After being seated, we were given a bread basket with three different types of bread. I'm not much of a bread guy, but I can assure you that the bread was quite good. The service started off a bit slow, but it did get a lot better as the night progressed.

We started off with an order of the Seared Ahi, which was served with a really tasty calamari seaweed salad. We also went with the Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail, which was okay, but nothing extraordinary. For the main course, I had the Prime Rib, and she went for the Peppered Filet Mignon. The cut of meat was huge. I was not able to finish off the sides that came with my meat, and I also had to help her out a bit. We didn't have any room for dessert.

Now, for my super quick review. The food was very good, but it certainly wasn't anywhere near the best steak I've had... that would be Brook's in Denver (thanks to the GZA of 12th Street and "in-lieu of travel"). The service was good once we got over the initial hump. I might go back one day, but if I didn't, I wouldn't really feel that I was missing anything spectacular.

One last thing... I got a really nice Valentine's gift. It was a personalized wall calendar with a different photo of us for each month. The photos were ordered such that as you go from January to December, you'd be travelling back in time and catch a glimpse of the various places we'd been. I really liked it, and I appreciate the thought that went into it.

Ok, that's all for now. And, to all you V-Day haters, you've got a whole year before you hate again.