Best/Worst Day Ever Options, Round 1: Gilt and Biwa

While most will recognize February 14th as northwest restaurant Carlyle's last day of service before owner Bruce Goldberg wanders off to other projects and Jake Martin wanders over to Fenouil, a few will recognize it as the best/worst day ever. Yes. As it is every year, it will be Valentine's Day.

With that, Eater's interested in rounding up a few options. For today, let's start with the obviously sauce-o-matic joints, and work our way down. First up, Jamie Dunn's (left, with the greatest date flower of all time) pun-tastic Guilt/Gilt Club (i.e. it's for the girlfriend, not the wife) goes there with a menu, courtesy Chris Carriker, that includes the Valentine's-appropriate venison heart tartare, blood orange salad, and a bone-in (har) veal chop. East side Japanese ramen/yakitori shop Biwa is offering their regular menu (along with a couple "extra-romantic special dishes"), but the thrill there is that they encourage "reservations for parties of all sizes." Which means either they're down with everything from a size two to a size twenty, or they're fully embracing Portland's ambisexual poly-etceteraness.

Got others? Whisper it in our ears.