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Taking your sweetheart out to a restaurant doesn't have to mean blowing your weekly food budget. Here are a few dining options that won't put you in the red.
Avenue 805 | 805 N. Davis Ave., 353-2505
Said to be the originator of date night specials in Richmond, Avenue 805 has perfected the art of the cheap date. For a paltry $35 on Monday and Tuesday evenings, you can get their salad bowl (Caesar or tossed and more than enough for two people); a pasta bowl entrée; your choice of pasta and choice of sauces (again more than enough for two); and a dessert to share. Not a bad deal, really. Now, throw in a bottle of house red, white or pink wine, and you've got a deal that's hard to beat. It doesn't hurt that the food is excellent and the wine very drinkable. (Note: For another $5, you can add chicken, mussels or shrimp to the pasta bowl. You can also substitute a bottle from the wine list for the house wine, and receive a $10 discount.) —PEJ
Rowland Fine Dining | 2132 W. Main St., 257-9885
During Wine Wednesday at Rowland Fine Dining, all bottles of wine under $50 are half price, and there are many options ranging from $20 to $30 per bottle, making them only $10 to $15. For the rest of your meal, choose from Rowland's various continental entrées, or make a sampler meal out of appetizers. Try the butter-bean cake with a cucumber-grape tomato-avocado salsa and spicy cilantro oil for $8; the blue lump crab cake with roasted fennel, tomato ragout and Choron sauce for $9; and the pan-seared scallops with pancetta, savoy cabbage, butternut squash and honey butter for $11 (some appetizers change seasonally); and you've got a unique meal for two, with wine, for less than $40. —MM
Café Rustica | 414 E. Main St., 225-8811
Sunday supper at the cozy Café Rustica is a three-course feast for only $15 per person. The menu changes weekly and always includes vegetarian options. On a recent visit, our meal consisted of hearty potato-and-shallot soup; a generous portion of cioppino packed with shrimp, perfectly cooked scallops, mussels and sausage; and an indulgent sli ver of chocolate pâte for dessert. We left happy, stuffed and impressed with the quality for the price. —MM Sushi Momotaro | 2803 W. Cary St., 355-0060
Sushi makes for a great dinner date night, but fancy rolls and sushi pieces can definitely get pricey. Luckily, Sushi Momotaro offers wallet-friendly specials. Selected nigiri pieces like tuna, crab and salmon are only $1 each on Tuesdays (an eight-piece dinner is regularly $17.95) between 5 and 7 p.m., and all rolls (regularly $6.95 to $16.95) are half off on Wednesdays between 5 and 7 p.m., making it more than worth planning an early meal. Also, every day of the week, you can choose to make your own combo with a maki roll such as eel or spicy tuna, two pieces of nigiri, miso soup and a ginger salad, all for $12.95, or about $26 for two. —MM
Fresca on Addison | 22 S. Addison St., 359-8638
Here's an incentive to take your date to Fresca on Addison on a Saturday night: All pizzas at the vegetarian restaurant are half-price with the purchase of a beverage. Choose from traditional pies like the four-cheese white pizza, or go adventurous with the flavor-packed "beckon"-and-egg pizza with potatoes, red peppers and fontina cheese. The regular price on the individual-size pizzas, which can be made with whole wheat or a regular crust, is $7.50, so you can order two for that price on Saturdays. Plus, you can grab a bottle of red wine with your pie for less than $25. —MM
Nile Ethiopian Restaurant | 309 N. Laurel St., 225-5544
There's something romantic about forgetting forks and tearing off a piece of flat, spongy injera bread to dig into perfectly spiced Ethiopian dishes. You and your date can order the special combo: For $33 ($16.50 per person), you receive five dishes each, including options such as yedoro wat, a richly seasoned berbere-based stew, and shiro wat, a spicy chickpea-based dish. There's also a vegetarian-only combo option for $15 per person. Ask to have both meals served on one big plate so that sharing is easy and you both get to experience a variety of new flavors. —MM
Kabuto | 13158 Midlothian Turnpike, 379-7979
This is a fun choice if you're meeting another couple or two. At Kabuto, my husband and I like to share an order of hibachi ahi tuna for $18.50, plus $8 for the second "dinner setup," which includes miso soup, salad with a gingery house dressing, fried rice, a shrimp appetizer and stir-fried vegetables. This way, the tab for two is less than $30, and you get to watch the chef working at your table do knife tricks and set your dinner on fire. —TE
Garnett's Café | 2001 Park Ave., 367-7909
Plenty of us know about Garnett's for lunch, but it's also a nice place for dinner if you want a quiet spot to actually listen to your date's conversation. From 6 to 9 p.m. daily, Garnett's offers two entrées and a bottle of Virginia wine for $30. My boyfriend and I are date-night habitués, and it's fairly unusual for restaurants to offer wine in fixed-price deals. As I've noted before in these pages, the Croque Garnett (Black Forest ham, Irish cheddar and apple) is my favorite sandwich, and my beau likes The Big Daddy (piles of meat and cheese). Throw in a shared slice of pie for $4, and you've got a great date. —KA
Tastebuds American Bistro | 4019 MacArthur Ave., 261-6544
On a recent double date with friends, all of us went for Tastebuds' prix fixe dinner offer, available Tuesday to Thursday: Adding $3 to the price of any entrée gets you a salad (I chose spinach with red onions, goat cheese and lemon-parsley dressing) and the dessert of the day (in this case, a chocolate-filled crêpe). Plus, your first glass of house wine (a Washington state pinot gris for me) is half price at $3.50. My pan-roasted salmon ($16.50) had a delicious crunch on the surface, and a ragout of corn, limas, potatoes, sautéed kale and caramelized onions nicely complemented the tender flakes of fish. My husband's apple-cider-glazed pork chop ($16), topped with curried apple crisps was also a hit, and our bill for the two dinners, minus wine, came to $38.50. Conversation flowed as we cleaned our plates during the leisurely meal in this friendly, intimate North Side neighborhood setting. —TE
Cous Cous | 900 W. Franklin St., 358-0868
A date night that took us by surprise was at Cous Cous, which my boyfriend and I visited on a Monday night (occasion: making it through a Monday). For $40, the Mediterranean restaurant offers a three-course meal for two plus a half-carafe of sangria, which comes in three flavors: red, pear-pomegranate and raspberry. And the flaming saganaki cheese dish adds a dramatic, romantic flair (or flare) to the date. I wouldn't say this date is for folks with big appetites, but I've always come away satisfied. —KA
