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 Avatar 720 wrote:
Make her a home-cooked meal using the succulent flesh of her closest loved ones, and a healthy variety of garden vegetables.

Oh, and for dessert, you can never go wrong with cheesecake.

Wouldn't you think that, were you serving the flesh of her closest loved ones, you'd opt for blood pudding for dessert?

You don't serve black pudding for dessert! What type of person do you take me for, an uncultured barbarian?

I really, really want to take a bi--, I mean woman to Bojangles for valentine's day. Unfortunately, there are no Bojangles in Japan....

Pfft, Dakka is disappointed. Someone start a news and rumours thread for the new date.

I'd never thought I'd see Cafe Rouge or Bella Italia and upmarket in the same sentence. Remember, dear American cousins, that Olive Garden isn't a real restaurant.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 Corpsesarefun wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:


Hey, if you do not believe me then check it out for yourself:

http://www.thechinesebuffet.com/restaurants/preston/

The pricing and the words "all you can eat buffet" mean it's nowhere near classy for anyone over the age of 18.

Myself, and my friends would disagree, but i acknowledge your right to your opinion, even if i disagree with it.

It's not that you're wrong, it's just your frame of reference is too limited to have an informed opinion.

Come back to us in 20 years and let us know if you still think the place is classy.

Will do

Look, it's perfectly possible to have a nice date at a buffet. But what I think you don't understand is there are problems with a buffet for the OP's situation that go beyond how "nice" the restaurant is.

Problem #1: If you're trying to impress, you want to go someplace with excellent service. A buffet is the opposite of that. Asking her to get up and serve herself doesn't make her feel pampered on Valentine's Day. And all females want to be pampered on Valentine's Day.

Problem #2: The success of a dinner date -- especially a first-serious-date situation like the OP's -- hinges on the conversation. The goal here is one of those dinners where you're talking and laughing throughout and the time just flies. The nature of a buffet means repeated interruptions to your conversation, PLUS the temptation to shove your face full when you should really be focused on impressing her with your wit and charm.

Your Chinese buffet might be "fine." But for a serious date on Valentine's Day, your sights should be set higher than that. Your idea is simply poor dating strategy IMO. And it's really just an okay buffet from the pictures.

 Asmodai Asmodean wrote:
Pfft, Dakka is disappointed. Someone start a news and rumours thread for the new date.

I'd never thought I'd see Cafe Rouge or Bella Italia and upmarket in the same sentence. Remember, dear American cousins, that Olive Garden isn't a real restaurant.

What I earn, their prices make it up market

Also got to make sure the talk doesn't revolve around work. Might put anyone around us off their meals haha!

 gorgon wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 Corpsesarefun wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:


Hey, if you do not believe me then check it out for yourself:

http://www.thechinesebuffet.com/restaurants/preston/

The pricing and the words "all you can eat buffet" mean it's nowhere near classy for anyone over the age of 18.

Myself, and my friends would disagree, but i acknowledge your right to your opinion, even if i disagree with it.

It's not that you're wrong, it's just your frame of reference is too limited to have an informed opinion.

Come back to us in 20 years and let us know if you still think the place is classy.

Will do

Look, it's perfectly possible to have a nice date at a buffet. But what I think you don't understand is there are problems with a buffet for the OP's situation that go beyond how "nice" the restaurant is.

Problem #1: If you're trying to impress, you want to go someplace with excellent service. A buffet is the opposite of that. Asking her to get up and serve herself doesn't make her feel pampered on Valentine's Day. And all females want to be pampered on Valentine's Day.

Problem #2: The success of a dinner date -- especially a first-serious-date situation like the OP's -- hinges on the conversation. The goal here is one of those dinners where you're talking and laughing throughout and the time just flies. The nature of a buffet means repeated interruptions to your conversation, PLUS the temptation to shove your face full when you should really be focused on impressing her with your wit and charm.

Your Chinese buffet might be "fine." But for a serious date on Valentine's Day, your sights should be set higher than that. Your idea is simply poor dating strategy IMO. And it's really just an okay buffet from the pictures.

Each to their own Gorgon, i have to agree on your first point, but im not so sure on the second.
Plus, my dating strategies have worked many a time before.
Forv this Valentines day, my self and my lady spent the day in a rather charming little teahouse.

I was pleasantly surprised by Olive Garden. It was good, solid Italian style stuff much like Strada. Not haute cuisine and not pretentious either.

Previously we had eaten at a swanky restaurant on Ocean Drive. My mother got food poisoning from her Surf N Turf, and they crapped on my credit card. If I had any illusions left concerning how wonderful service is in the USA, they were removed then.

Olive Garden is consistently decent, though I haven't gone to one in several years. Red Lobster is pretty good too, as far as the upper-scale chains go.

We're kind of spoiled in St. Louis by a surprising number of family owned and operated Italian places.

 Azza007 wrote:


What I earn, their prices make it up market

Also got to make sure the talk doesn't revolve around work. Might put anyone around us off their meals haha!

Oh dear god this is so true. The number of family outings that end up talking about bodily fluids, after enough times hearing about things like projectile gak vomit i now say "people are trying to eat you know" not that it bothers me but I am sure people paying for a meal do not want to hear about tumours and other crud.

People seem to be mentioning a lot of chain restaurants in this thread, are the majority of restaurants over there chains? I love small places , the food is more interesting , the service is variable , I cannot think of a reason to sanitise the experience of going to a restaurant by gooing to a chain

All the restaurants we frequent in Cincinnati are non-chain.

We do go to outback for a cheap steak here and there (I usually just prefer to grill our own) but the steakhouses we go to for a bit more upscale aren't chains either.

We will also hit a Quaker steak or frickers for wings.

Carrabbas is superior to Olive Garden when it comes to chain Italian and is about the same price.

Late to the party, but do not go to a restaraunt and have dinner. Boring.

Instead, have an action date where you go out and do something. Especially something that breaks the "touch" barrier in an easy and natural way. Something like a dancing lesson, light rock climbing, roller skating, etc.

Just do what I did for Valentine's Day. Invite your special lady to your apartment, hire an expensive call-girl, get both girls to start making out, then attack one of them with a screwdriver.

Toss a coin to decide which one.

Whoa, I was not expecting to see alby anyways it sounds like a fun idea.

 Albatross wrote:
Just do what I did for Valentine's Day. Invite your special lady to your apartment, hire an expensive call-girl, get both girls to start making out, then attack one of them with a screwdriver.

Toss a coin to decide which one.

Patrick Bateman, is that you?

Take her to a strip club ... those girls will be all over her and you will not have to pay to see a good show.

 OIIIIIIO wrote:
Take her to a strip club ... those girls will be all over her and you will not have to pay to see a good show.

What strange reality are you from?

 daedalus wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
Just do what I did for Valentine's Day. Invite your special lady to your apartment, hire an expensive call-girl, get both girls to start making out, then attack one of them with a screwdriver.

Toss a coin to decide which one.

Patrick Bateman, is that you?

I'm back.

Daddy's home.

I wonder if the OP got another date sorted out and hope it all went swimmingly. Bloody better have after 4 pages of pure dakka commitment.

I've got a date next Thursday, incidentally. I've been on quite a few recently as I'm single now. It's fun, but bloody exausting! And christ, expensive! Oh, how my wallet longs for the days when you could take a girl to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet...

That gak just isn't an option for anyone over 30. Hell, 25, if I'm being brutally honest. Once they reach that age, all chicks want is a bloke who's taller than them, pays for gak and lets them talk about themselves. Endlessly.

I've got the first two down, still working on the third.

 Medium of Death wrote:
Daddy's home.

I wonder if the OP got another date sorted out and hope it all went swimmingly. Bloody better have after 4 pages of pure dakka commitment.

Tomorrow, fingers crossed. Shift work has its downsides.

Bring the noise, Azza.



Bring the noise.

 Albatross wrote:
I've got a date next Thursday, incidentally. I've been on quite a few recently as I'm single now. It's fun, but bloody exausting! And christ, expensive! Oh, how my wallet longs for the days when you could take a girl to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet...

That gak just isn't an option for anyone over 30. Hell, 25, if I'm being brutally honest. Once they reach that age, all chicks want is a bloke who's taller than them, pays for gak and lets them talk about themselves. Endlessly.

I've got the first two down, still working on the third.

Then you're meeting with some terrible women . I'd avoid anyone that expects you to pay for them.
Dating is awful and awkward, but sometimes it's a means to an end. I always prefer something much more casual or preferably somewhere like a gig.

 Easy E wrote:
Late to the party, but do not go to a restaraunt and have dinner. Boring.

Instead, have an action date where you go out and do something. Especially something that breaks the "touch" barrier in an easy and natural way. Something like a dancing lesson, light rock climbing, roller skating, etc.

I think that probably depends on you and your date. I have never been on an actual date thoughso what do I know (I have been going out wife my wife for 15 years so I'm not a complete sad case)

 Siberiandreamer wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
I've got a date next Thursday, incidentally. I've been on quite a few recently as I'm single now. It's fun, but bloody exausting! And christ, expensive! Oh, how my wallet longs for the days when you could take a girl to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet...

That gak just isn't an option for anyone over 30. Hell, 25, if I'm being brutally honest. Once they reach that age, all chicks want is a bloke who's taller than them, pays for gak and lets them talk about themselves. Endlessly.

I've got the first two down, still working on the third.

Then you're meeting with some terrible women . I'd avoid anyone that expects you to pay for them.
Dating is awful and awkward, but sometimes it's a means to an end. I always prefer something much more casual or preferably somewhere like a gig.

Yeah, me too. And I've been meeting some lovely women! The problem is, even girls who say they don't expect you to pay (very few women openly expect it), still pretty much expect you to pay. Which is fine. I can afford it.


Not bloody forever though! Dating is horrifically expensive past 30! I want to like a chick for more than that initial dating phase, so once we get past it I can take them to fething Nando's, or better yet, KFC.

Hopefully it all goes well for you good sir Azza, and for yourself sir Albatross.

You're totally right about the payment thing.

I'm so stubborn that I would gladly ruin my own happiness just so I can stick to my own principles of not adhering to traditional gender roles in dating. But then, if I'm meeting a woman who agrees with that we're off to a winner. Plus, I'm poor as gak and have little, plastic men to spend spare money on.

 Siberiandreamer wrote:
I'm so stubborn that I would gladly ruin my own happiness just so I can stick to my own principles of not adhering to traditional gender roles in dating. But then, if I'm meeting a woman who agrees with that we're off to a winner. Plus, I'm poor as gak and have little, plastic men to spend spare money on.

It's OK, women love that.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Medium of Death wrote:
Hopefully it all goes well for you good sir Azza, and for yourself sir Albatross.

Oh, it always goes well for me, brother!

You're totally right about the payment thing.

I know, right? And what is it with girls you meet online and wanting to know how tall you are before they decide to meet you? And why do they get so offended when you ask them, in return, if they're on the Pill? It's a double standard, is what it is...

Agree on the tall thing. It's quite sad the amount of short women who MUST HAVE TALL MEN. Come on, you look like a little girl holding hands with her father... let's even things up a little.

Wait a minute I'm 6'4 she is 5'2 if that...

She is 27 so that puts her over the 25 age limit put forward by Albatross.