50 "First" Dates Restaurant Guide

Happy Valentine's Day! ♥ I have to admit I'm not one to make a big deal about Valentine's Day in the past. This year Chad and I decided that with the money being spent on the basement we wouldn't get each other gifts. So it worked out prefectly when I thought of a great "homemade" gift: A Restaurant Guide!

Chad and I LOVE to eat out at different restaurants. We have our favorites that we frequent often but we also love to try new places we have never been. I thought that it would be nice to have a book full of places around the city we have never been to eat. I put together a book "50 'first' dates" (credit to our friend Ben for coming up with the name). There are 50 places to eat in the book and they range from fast-food-type burgers and fries to extremely fancy steakhouses with everything in between.

I started by asking our friends for suggestions of really good restuarants they have eaten at around town that they would recommend. Boy did they respond. I got some amazing suggestions. It was important that these were all places that we have never eaten before. (This seriously slimmed down our options, but that's what makes it fun!)

After that I had about 25 places our friends had suggested. (I was only half way!). I researched on cincyusa.com and Yelp for local places that have good reviews. I found another 15 places that were highly recommended. The last thing I did was look on GoogleMaps for "food" near our house. I found another 5-6 places close to our house that we have been wanting to try/looked good. I thought this was important because most of the time when we go out to eat we don't really want to travel far. So having a good portion of the places close to our house was crucial.

Then I had 46 places to eat. 4 more to go! It took me longer to find the last 4 places than it did to find the first 46. I had exhausted all my options! I am pretty sure I had gone through every restaurant in the city! Either it was on the list already, we have eaten there before, I knew Chad would not eat the food they served (i.e Thai, French, ...etc) or it was way too far away. Finally, after going back through our friends and the websites again and again I had reached my goal of 50!

Once I had all the restaurants in a list. I put the restaurant logo at the top of the page with the name, location (what part of town), what kind of food they have, any description/saying/fun facts, price range and who recommended it to us all listed below. I sorted the binder by price range and then by location. I put a set of instructions on the front and we were good to go!

The idea is that on "date nights" when we can't decide where to eat, we will go to the binder and choose a place (based on price, location...etc). I got a set of stickers (green, orange and pink) and once we went and ate at a restaurant, we would use the binder to mark whether we loved it (green), it was okay (orange) or we would never return (pink)! I left a spot on each page for "opinion" with a box for the sticker to go.

Over the years we can add to the binder and I think it will be a fun keepsake. If nothing else, it will help with the hour long battle of "where do you want to eat tonight?" "I don't care, where do you want to eat?"

He gets a recycled Victoria's Secret bag....

I had to buy the 1/2 inch binder $3, dividers $1 and colored stickers $2 for a total of $6.  It was a cheap, cute and personal Valentine's day gift! Those are my favorite.

He loved it!

I also made him some Valentine's day cake pops out of his favorite cake (Marble Fudge) and icing (cream cheese). I colored my chocolate a festive pink and added sprinkles for fun and flare!

Recipe:

1 box cake mix (egg, oil, water)

1 jar icing

Bake cake according to box. Allow to cool. Then cut up cake into small pieces. Place cake bits in mixer with jar of icing and mix away! Put remaining cake/icing mixture back into cake pan and cool in refridgerator over night (at least 2 hours). Form mixture into balls.

These are cake balls, not meatballs..... I got 50 cake balls out of my recipe but it depends on the size ball you make.

Melt chocolate in microwave (add coloring of choice). I used Crisco to thin out the chocolate, when you add the coloring it tends to thicken up. Also you will have to microwave your chocolate several times thoughout the process because it will harden up on you. Dip balls into chocolate, I used some candy sticks to dip the chocolate with, a toothpick will not work, it's not strong enough. You can use nothing but its REALLY messy that way. I recommend the candy (lollipop) sticks. Add sprinkles or design and allow to dry!

They were super easy and amazingly cute! Enjoy!

I'll leave you with my Valentine's Day Chalkboard design! I hope you all have a 

♥ HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! ♥