why gift cards make for good date nights.

i know, i know. i'm late to post. we had tried making a new year's resolution that date night couldn't happen unless the person responsible for the past week's post had actually posted. but last night, we still went out. i played the "i've been sick" card, and so - perhaps because it was my night to pay? - we did date night anyway.

but here's the follow up from february 5th:

as much as gift cards can seem like the ultimate cop-out present, they provided an imaginative date night for us a couple of weeks ago. with an envelope packed full of thin plastic cards to all sorts of places (though, to be honest, coffeeshops dominated the bunch), jon and i drove towards the east side. on our way, jon laid out the two rules to the evening:

1) we have to spend all the money on the gift card.
2) we can only spend 10% over what's on the gift card.

our first stop was at family christian bookstores to which jon had received a $5 gift card. among the plethora of gadgets and gizmos imprinted with fish and jesus logos (this is a whole other subject for another day and another post; i will certainly make an abnormally long and passionate tangent if i don't stop writing now), we found a box of chocolates quite quickly, and exited. fast.

so we took our box of chocolates (which cost $0.23 over our $5 - woohoo!!) and hurried through the cold to the cool beans cafe just next door.

i love the vibe of cool beans. i love the orange lights (pictures to come) and the alterra coffee served and the tables and the chairs. and i love the fireplace. and i love the people-watching. if i didn't live on the near west side, i'd be there way more frequently.

with $10 to spend at cool beans, we did quite well staying within the total. sort of. i'm not counting the pound of coffee jon bought himself since buying things for ourselves is hardly date night protocol. but we enjoyed our medium chais and lattes and chocolates and played a couple games of cribbage (or which i lost all the but the last game - and then only by one point).

dinner was at paisan's, a restaurant i haven't been to since it was located at university square during my college years. its new location, on lake monona over by the monona terrace, is quite large, which meant is quite empty for our monday night excursion. we were seated in a booth overlooking the veranda which overlooks the lake. a fire at the end of the 6 booth aisle warmed us up on the cold night while we looked through paisan's extensive menu.

jon's gift certificate to paisan's was plentiful at $40, so we debated a bit with our beers at our side (three cheers for capital brewery's maibock!) and finally decided on the medium deluxe combo pizza, hopeful that paisan's claim to have famous thin crust pizzas would prove that famous = delicious.

so first the bread came (always yum - i will never be a no-carbs girl), and then my iceberg lettuce salad, and then our pizza.

it was good. i mean i don't know if i'd go around telling people about our pizza, so i'd not advocate for using the word "famous" in relation to paisan's, but it was good, and i enjoyed it. but mostly i appreciated that they were open till 11 pm on a monday night, and that the service was friendly and not intrusive.

and the best part? keeping close to our rules of not going far over 10% over the gift card. man, it feels good not to drop a lot of cash ...

so i take back my initial claim of gift cards being a cop-out gift. i would gladly accept them. it makes for a great date night.

and if you want to send me one, i'll gladly email you with my address :)