Love Bites

[February 9th, 2005] Attention, bumbling Casanovas and Casanovettes: Bite Club's been busy brainstorming sweetheart deals so you don't have to. Here's a handful of easy-peasy Valentine's Day recipes for success—for everybody from soft-hearted sluts to rustic revelers.

Tiny Bubbles

Really pamper the chef in your life: Mediterranean small-plater Tabla is wooing diners with a four-course dinner, champagne, flowers and a manicure or pedicure treatment for one at the restaurant's super-sweet girly neighbor, Spa La La (Tabla, 200 NE 28th Ave, 238-3777. Friday-Monday, Feb. 11-14. $99 per couple. Reservations required.). Mount Hood's answer to Vegas matrimony, the Resort at the Mountain , is offering a deluxe one-week-notice "Wedding Elopement Package " that includes everything from officiants and boutonnieres to a room and a cake for $775. Anybody can pop the question during the woodland inn's Red Heart Valentine's room sale and finish the hitchin'—gulp—whenever. (68010 E Fairway Ave., Welches, 622-3101, www.theresort.com. Red Heart Special: Sunday-Thursday, Feb. 13-17. $79-$99.)

Sticky Fingers

Nab a box of infused ganaches, filled chocolates and truffles you helped dip during Western Culinary Institute pastry chef Ian Titterton's Chocolate Truffle Workshop (Whole Foods, 1210 NW Couch St., 525-4343. Noon Sunday, Feb. 13. $45.). At a loss for what to do for the rest of the meal? San Francisco's sexy Style & Entertaining Romantic Dinner For Two Kit ($29.95, www.styleandentertaining.com) includes cooking tips, shopping lists, pre-measured ingredients, candles and napkins. Culinary talent not included.

Icy Hot

Spring for an evening of sweaty high-stick action and savory 'cue. Treat your home-court honey to a Winter Hawks hockey game (Memorial Coliseum, 300 Winning Way, 232-1101. 7 pm Friday, Feb. 11. $7-$20.75.). Doris' Cafe does catering honors for the Rose Quarter complex, which means you can chow on hot wings and shredded-beef sammies ($3-$7) while you cheer.

Anti-Date

You really wanna rock the love boat? Book your V-Day luncheon at the Congress Center Cafe. This subterranean downtown cafeteria is serving up romance, lunch-lady-style, with tray-toppers like pepper-crusted filet mignon and dessert for two (1001 SW 5th Ave., 223-6161. 11 am-1:30 pm Monday, Feb. 14. $17.99 per person. Email unit10084@compass-usa.com for reservations). Or, give Cupid the finger with local chanteuse Susan LeMaster's ill-tempered "Take Back Valentine's Day" concert at Abou Karim (8:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 12. 221 SW Pine St., 223-5058. No cover. 21+ after 10 pm.). Bitterness is so much easier to swallow along with a mouthful of Lebanese food.

A little piece of Bite Club died the day that LOW (Laid Off Workers) BBQ, Rodney Muirhead and Kyle Connally's slobber-worthy cart, closed last September. Who wants to live—and love—in a world without lamb ribs? But now, with a little help from a friend, LOW is back. Brian Spangler, the former Scholls Public House pizza genius and current owner of Hawthorne's new Apizza Scholls, is letting Muirhead "fire up his pit" on Apizza's back porch for "Monday Night BBQ." Now that's what we call true love.