It's here. The day you've longed for. On Valentine's Day you will over- or under-whelm a spouse, significant other or date with a greeting card, bouquet, gift or dinner. If you aren't planning to cook, here are a dozen ideal romantic restaurants. And, if none of these suggestions are appropriate, a dozen long-stem roses make a great a fallback.
Mount Charleston Lodge
Put on a parka and head up the mountain for a rustic dinner, and then stay the night. Mount Charleston Lodge has a special package to honor romantics: dinner for two and a stay in a log cabin for $400 per couple. Dinner alone is $85 per person, and includes appetizers like chef Yves Menes' lobster bisque en croute or Dover sole baked in Taittinger champagne with a turban of shrimp, entrees like pheasant with morels or filet mignon Wellington, and many extras. Snow permitting, sleigh rides also will be available.
Mount Charleston, Highway 157, 872-5408. Package offered through Feb. 15.
Wild Truffles
If alfresco dining floats your boat, order a picnic basket at this comely, new gourmet sandwich and chocolate shop, owned and operated by veteran local chef Georg Paulussen. On Feb. 13 and 14, the chef will prepare a leather suitcase stocked with a Mediterranean-style salad; potato salad; a smoked-salmon wrap; a panini sandwich filled with prosciutto, mozzarella and tomato; various chocolate covered fruit; soft drinks and utensils. The cost is $85. You're on your own for the champagne.
7905 W. Sahara Ave., 242-1542.
Crustacean
For pure sensual pleasure, little compares to one of the upstairs opium beds at this swank Vietnamese-fusion restaurant—actual antiques purchased by co-owner Elizabeth An in her native Vietnam. Reclining on the silk brocade fabric is sexy enough, but the experience is amplified by a choice of Asian-style appetizers like shrimp mousse rolls and grilled satay, spicy meat on skewers.
Desert Passage Mall, 650-0507.
Alize
Andre Rochat's top-of-the-Palms French restaurant has a spectacular view and wonderful food, complemented by an extensive wine list full of old vintages and hard-to-find spirits. Chef de cuisine Jacques Van Staden is creative with specials, and his menu always features foie gras, Dover sole and classic desserts. Window tables go quickly, but the views are great anywhere.
Inside the Palms, 951-7002.
Peppermill Inn Restaurant
The Peppermill, as locals of all ages call it, specializes in old Vegas coffee-shop fare, and isn't a place that would normally come to mind in this context. But when I asked one of my Gen Y'er colleagues for a suggestion as to which place might rock her world as a choice for a romantic evening, she named this, saying: "There's a fireplace, the drinks are cool, and everything's cheap." Anyone for a heart-shaped meatloaf sandwich?
2985 S. Las Vegas Blvd., 735-4177.
Charlie Palmer Steak
There is something fatally alluring about a thick steak and a bottle of good red wine on Valentine's Day, but add plush sofas, soft lighting and an unobtrusive, well-trained staff, and the combination morphs into a Svengali-like seduction. Meals at CP Steak begin with hot corn bread, and side dishes like baked potatoes with truffle cream will melt a stout heart in record time.
Inside the Four Seasons Hotel, 632-5120.
Bistro Bacchus
Dining on the lake-view terrace at Bistro Bacchus is as bucolic an evening as Las Vegas allows, and the cuisine, mostly rustic French fare like moules frites, French onion soup, roast chicken and grilled salmon a la Dijonaise, is delicious, prepared by Kelly Mader, formerly of Le Cirque. Even better is the wine option. Pick any bottle from the wonderful, reasonably priced inventory at adjacent Marche Bacchus, one of the city's best wine boutiques, and the corkage fee is a light $10, an excellent deal.
2620 Regatta Drive, 804-8008.
America
Food is tasty and dependable in this often overlooked restaurant, open 24/7. The restaurant is featuring a special Valentine's Day menu from 4 to 11 p.m. at a great price: $13.95 for Jamaican jerk shrimp, $12.95 for potato-wrapped filet of salmon, and $11.95 for free-range chicken breast. Dinners include a choice of wild field greens or roasted tomato soup, and dessert is a mousse-like confection called chocolate passion.
Inside New York-New York, 740-6451.
Paymon's Mediterranean Caféand Hookah Lounge
Most patrons come to this boisterous, busy place for appetizers like hummus and tabbouleh, kabobs on mountains of fragrant basmati rice, or gooey, honeyed, Middle Eastern desserts. But Paymon's has the added hook of an attached lounge where it is possible to take long, languid draughts from an authentic hookah, a snake-like water pipe filled with exotic, flavored tobaccos. If you don't get a buzz from the food, there's always the tobacco.
4147 S. Maryland Parkway, 731-6030.
Firefly Bistro
This is our only real tapas bar, and for those who may not be familiar with the concept, tapas are savory, Spanish-style grazing dishes eaten while drinking. The menu here is huge, everything from spicy lamb sausage to ham croquettes, and a great many dishes are intentionally salty, so as to promote a powerful thirst. The restaurant thrives after midnight, so for anyone looking for a late-night date spot, this is the ticket; the kitchen is open until 3 a.m.
900 Paradise Road, 369-3971.
Hofbrauhaus Las Vegas
Perhaps your date is a beer-with-friends type and doesn't go in for anything froufrou. In that case, this new facility should serve your needs well. It's a clone of the famous Munich beer hall, an immense place with seating for several hundred and a real beer garden with artificial chestnut trees and lots of gemutlichkeit. The brewskis are terrific, like weissbier, a light, white beer, waitresses wear authentic dirndls, and the food, a variety of sausages and schnitzels, is surprisingly good.
4510 Paradise Road, 853-2337.
Bouchon
Thomas Keller's newly opened bistro is one of the most amazing restaurant spaces in the country, on the lobby level of the new Venezia Tower at Venetian. The French tile floor and soaring cherry wood pillars make the perfect backdrop for grand platters of shellfish shucked to order; French breads made in the bakery specially built for the restaurant; and solid, country French dishes like lamb with white beans, roast chicken and steak frites.
Inside the Venetian, 414-6200.