The Valentine’s Day date is a bit of a test. What will the night say about your romantic relationship? What kind of Valentine’s date would be the most fun and romantic for you? What kind of Valentine’s gift is appropriate – a sweet little candy necklace or a getaway trip for two to Bermuda?

Even without the pressure of a romantic holiday, today’s economy puts pressure on almost any night out. Will the restaurant be worth the money?

Valentine Dining Tip: You’ve got to know where you’re going. Finding a good restaurant doesn’t necessarily mean finding the best restaurant in town. The right restaurant should reflect your tastes, tickle your stomach, and in the end, make you and your date happy.

Do a little research. There are tons of sites that compile write-ups on local restaurants. Start with Yelp.com.  Even in the smallest cities you’ll find mostly honest reviews on Yelp from real people on popular places.

Zagat, online as Zagat.com, has little maroon-colored print guides, and is known for quick, easy reviews. The quality of Zagat’s reviews is solid – basically crowd-sourcing restaurant reviews, condensing them, and publishing a perfect outline of what to expect from the restaurant in about three sentences. Zagat is only available in select cities. (No Eagle River Zagat Guide, I’m afraid.) Zagat’s Valentine’s Day planner might be useful.

Restaurant Row offers quick overviews of restaurants, and the great thing is that you can search a chain, say Tony Roma’s, or Morton’s Steakhouse, and up pops all the locations around the country, with location and contact information. Restaurant Row also offers a “Restaurant Row Top 10” from five cities in every state – and these aren’t restaurants chosen by some snob, these are the restaurants with the most requests on their site.

Open Table hosts reviews of restaurants, and also takes reservations for some 15,000 restaurants nationally and internationally, boasting that their reservations are “free, instant, confirmed”.  Open Table’s Valentine’s Day reservations page, and invites you to make restaurant reservations at your destination if you are traveling.

Wondering what the “experts” think? Well, travel and food writers (see Guyot.com, TravelandLeisure.com, BonAppetit.com) tend to be a particularly critical bunch, offering their opinions on “the best of the best” all the time. Beware of sites that list the “Top 10 Most Romantic Restaurants in the US”, because as soon as something like that is published, the #1 restaurant closes or is topped by something more exotic. Just go with your gut, and keep it simple. Remember, it’s YOU your date wants to be with, not the expensive ambiance, the food, or the “spectacular service” at the restaurant you pick!

Remember that if you’ve got an unused gift card in your pocket, you can always sell your gift card on Plastic Jungle for cash (or trade it for an Amazon.com Gift Card, or fund a PayPal account, and more) which might defray the cost of a night out.

What about outright dining savings? You get that at Plastic Jungle, too. There are tons of restaurant gift cards available on Plastic Jungle; some, like the Darden Restaurants, are good at all the restaurants in the chain. Discount Darden Restaurant Gift Cards on Plastic Jungle are currently offered at 10% off face value, and are good at Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, LongHorn Steakhouse, The Capital Grill restaurants across the US. Or try Restaurant.com Gift Cards, which are good at thousands of restaurants nationwide.

Other Discounted Restaurant Gift Cards on Plastic Jungle Include*:

Applebee’s

Black Angus Steakhouse

(The) Cheesecake Factory

Chili’s (Gift Cards are also good at Macaroni Grill, On The Border, Maggiano’s)

Morton’s Steakhouse (currently at 17% off!)

P.F. Chang’s China Bistro

Ruth’s Chris Steak House

TGI Friday’s

Tony Roma’s

Hurry, supplies are limited. You can always set an alert to be notified when your favorite gift cards come into stock at a discount on Plastic Jungle.

Let us know where you’re going for Valentine’s Day and let us know if you had fun!

*Gift card prices and availability may vary.

The following article was originally posted on ShopperStrategy.com by a fellow savvy shopper. We love it so much we wanted to share it with all of our readers as well . Thanks Denise!

PlasticJungle.com is this really cool place where you can go to sell or exchange any unwanted gift cards that you might have, plus you can buy gift cards for your favorite stores or restaurants at less than their face value.  Check out some of the deals you can get on gift cards:

• Up to 25% off at 1-800-Flowers
• Up to 12% off at Kohl’s
• Up to 16% off at Payless
• Up to 10% off at TGI Friday’s

These are just a few of my favorites — there are tons more to choose from!  The best part about getting gift cards for cheaper from PlasticJungle.com though is that you can also stack them with other offers to save even more.  For example, JC Penney is one of my favorite department stores because they have great sales and they often put out coupons for even greater savings.  Right now I’m shopping for school uniforms for the kids (required in our county) and they have a great selection at JC Penney’s so a good savings strategy is to buy a $25 JC Penney gift card from PlasticJungle.com for only $21, then use it with one of the store’s awesome $10/$25 coupons.  That way you only pay $11 for $25 worth of uniforms!  SCORE!

If you need shoes for back to school then you can save a whopping 20% off a Foot Locker gift card for a great deal on all the hottest brands.  Buy a $50 Foot Locker gift card from PlasticJungle.com for only $40, then use it with a 15% off coupon to get a $60 pair of shoes, or two $30 pairs of shoes, for only $41 ($60 — 15% = $51 use gift card plus $1 and tax).

Check out this video to see how you can get a very nice $50 dinner for two from TGI Friday’s for only $35!  That’s a fabulous savings of 30%.  The possibilities for savings are endless and one lucky reader will win a $50 gift card of their choice from PlasticJungle.com!

Read the full post on Shopper Strategy and learn how to enter the $50 Plastic Jungle Giveaway!

About the author:

Denise is the mother of four year old quadruplets and a six year old son who loves the finer things in life, but hates to pay full price! Her ShopperStrategy.com blog is devoted to sharing deals and strategies that help you get more for less!