The Great Valentine's Day Food-a-Thon, Part Three

I should have learned long ago to avoid romantic restaurants on Valentine's Day. Varanese is one of our favorite Louisville restaurants, mainly because it manages to be high end and sophisticated without ever losing that feeling of a small business. Owner John Varanese invariably comes out and says hello when we're there, and we have servers who remember us from visit to visit. The menu is great and the desserts are to die for.

So of course, Varanese seemed the perfect destination for Valentine's Day, right?

Not…really.

You see, one of the downfalls of going to a popular restaurant on a popular holiday is that, well, it's crowded. Even with reservations, which we wisely secured weeks beforehand, we were crowded into a packed room. The room felt tiny, and I felt like a giant lumbering ox as I navigated the tightly-spaced tables.

Quite obviously, because of the enormous amount of people dining, we were not really able to get the kind of service we'd come to expect from Varanese, which is a shame, because in my opinion, they have one of the finest staffs in the city. Everything felt rushed, and any semblance of romance the night might have held was washed away in the production line feel of the meal.

Still, to be fair, it's about the food, and the food is what I'm here to discuss. For Valentine's Day, the restaurant offered a special menu of aphrodisiacal entrees, appetizers, and desserts as well as an attenuated version of their regular menu. For some reason, neither Fey nor I felt drawn to anything on the holiday menu, so we started off with a batch of home-made potato chips, then had the grilled salmon with cream cheese grits from the regular menu for our entrees. The chips were quite good—the quick turnaround in the kitchen meant they didn't have time to sit around getting cold, and the chips we got were still hot and crispy. The dipping sauces were good, especially the dill sauce.

I'm not sure how I managed to go to Varanese so often without ever noticing the grilled salmon on the menu, but I now have a new favorite. The salmon on its own was quite tasty—perfectly grilled. However, it was just a touch salty for my taste. But when paired with the cream cheese grits, it was a perfect bite—balanced and delicious. Of course, I am a grits fan from way back—I prefer mine savory, with salt and butter (as opposed to the hideous concoction of sugar and grits some people eat). I'd never even considered putting cream cheese in grits—fried eggs, bacon, sausage, you name it, but never cream cheese. I am now in love with the concept and can't wait to try it on my own.

As it is, the salmon and grits were the high point of my meal. I didn't heed Fey's warning, and chose a dessert off the holiday menu—chocolate strawberry cake. Fey went with our favorite—the mocha crème brulee with chocolate and caramel spring roll.

Fey is wise, and I would be wise to heed her warning.

This is the first time I've ever had a dessert at Varanese I just plain did not like. The cake was bland, there wasn't a strong enough flavor of either chocolate or strawberry to make the point, and I came out of the experience wishing I had both the money and the calories back for a do-over. Thank goodness my sweetie is generous and shared her crème brulee with me. Because it's Valentine's Day, and that's what sweethearts do, right?

Please do not take this review to mean in any way, shape or form that I no longer love Varanese. It is still one of my favorite places to eat in the city, and Fey and I will continue to enjoy ourselves there as long as they let us past the bouncer. I think, though, in the future, we'll choose a less popular night.

Epilogue: The Taco Bell Tradition

I started this series by mentioning how badly I screwed up Valentine's Day last year. There is no way to comprehensively describe how badly I screwed up, but let's just say from now on I will always schedule Valentine's Day off from work at least two months in advance.

One thing that came out of last year's fiasco was our Traditional Taco Bell Valentine snack. Hard to believe, but none of the restaurants in Elizabethtown could seat us in a decent amount of time last year (reservations don't exist in the country, btw). Seriously, there was a forty minute wait at Golden Corral! Golden…Corral…folks.

So, we did what any rational couple would do in that situation—we put our name in at the best we could find (which was Red Lobster) and then went to the local Taco Bell for a snack and to wait. It turned out to be incredibly fun, and Fey and I decided that every year on Valentine's Day, we would have a bite from Taco Bell to commemorate our desperate attempt at salvaging the holiday.

Mmmmm….tacos…..