Tomato red ballerinas or post-box red stilettos? Monday night movie or TV sitcoms? Life’s full of decisions. Ones that you usually share with your sweetie. But you’re taking charge of tomorrow evening’s POA cause you know you want to do something truly spesh on V-day.

Our Trendy Seeker-Outer shows you what’s on offer:

Beach-side story at Salt Water Grill: An eight-course menu starts with Champagne and strawberries and offers exotic options like Truffle Risotto, Duck with Black Lentil Ragout and Fig and Green Tomato Crostini. End with sweet nothings. Along with beautiful memories, take home a Polaroid picture and mixed ‘Love Potion’ CD. H20 Water Sports Complex, Chowpatty, Marine Drive; Tel: 23685485. You’ll spend: Rs 8,000 or Rs 12,000 for a private beach table.

Creative coupling at Henry Tham’s: A five-course Oriental meal prepared with aphrodisiac ingredients. Feast on everything from Chilean Seabass to Tempura Tofu. Get adventurous with their chocolate-coated strawberries on your way home. Dhanraj Mahal, Apollo Bunder, Colaba; Tel: 22023186/22848214. You’ll spend: Rs 4,000.

Mischief on the menu at Zenzi: A naughty-sounding four-course dinner includes Love Bites (welcome snacks), Four Play (assorted appetisers), scrumptious main course and dessert platter, served with a glass of wine or specially created Valentine shots called Libidos. 183 Waterfield Road, Bandra (W); Tel: 266430670/1/2. You’ll spend: Rs 3,200.

DIY for your darling at The Banyan Tree: If he loves his pasta, whip up a special something for him at the special live counter (or is it love counter?!) with Chef Amish’s guidance. Krishna Worli Sagar CHS, Ground Floor, JN Palkar Marg, Worli; Tel: 64527222. You’ll spend: Rs 1,000.

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You need no persuading: SHG’s melon mojito is smokin’! But you’re dining with your dude tomorrow –five courses, plus wine. Should you do lunch with the dudettes like every Saturday, or book into a spa to get over the rigours of V-day?

This Saturday, pamper yourself with a double delight — Chef Mayank Tiwari’s sprightly menu, and the expert therapists from Spa Transformations. Choose treatment for hands, feet, or head; get all the right buttons pushed on your palm, sole or pate. (Like? Call for an at-home midweek! Really love? Send him a massage treat!)

Re-energised? Come eat. Girly portions let you stay light. Not much starch, just enough protein, freshness — and flavours — galore.

Melon with feta, or crab salad with smoked pineapple? Have both. The broth of tenderloin and onion jam has your friend swooning; but you’re not sharing your lemongrass tomato consomme — too good. Crepes with port-braised veggies excel.

Dessert, low cal, high taste, brings no regrets The baked yoghurt boggles; the Jamaican mousse torte topped with Nutella and Philly waves is unbelievable. If this is ‘health food’, you’ll take seconds.

Have your spa, and eat up too.

Smoke House Grill, North Wing, VIPPS Centre, Plot No. 2, L.S.C. Masjid Moth, GK II, New Delhi; ph: 41435530-32. Price: Spa menu Rs 250 onwards, treatments Rs 750 onwards.

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There was a time when you and your man thrived on smoke and loud music. When you partied from 7pm to 2am and still made it to your first morning classes. When good times were graded by the number of beers downed.

You still enjoy loud music and late nights. But, occasionally, you want conversation. Quiet. And Cognac. Well, i-Bar has grown up with you. The seven-year-old lounge bar has reinvented itself from a dark den into a warm, luxe space done up in rose pink and deep red. With patchwork walls, glass screens and sofas, i-Bar now recalls Moulin Rouge, minus the stage. Couple that with in-house DJ Shan churning out the best in lounge music from Dusty Kid, Koljah and John Dahlback and you’re set for an evening of grown-up glam.

The fingerfood and the cocktails keep company. Our Trendy Pubber loved the unique take on Singapore chilli crabs, served in miniature buns. And if gin’s your poison, the Wasp Sting comes highly recommended. Don’t miss the three warm chocolate shots with Cognac, Absolut Pepper and Cointreau.

Step in. Raise the bar.

i-Bar at The Park, 14/7, MG Road, Bangalore 1. Tel: 2559-4666. Cocktails start at Rs400, bar snacks at Rs 200. On Valentine’s Day, i-Bar offers couples unlimited drinks and snacks for Rs4000 plus taxes.

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Cupid’s quiver is freshly stocked. The cherub’s tipped his arrows with strawberries, dipped ‘em in chocolate, and slung ‘em out. Our Trendy Lovebug’s top choices for dinner a deux this Valentine’s Day, for you and yours.

Baci’s Aphrodite Meal: Aphrodite, aka Venus, is Cupid’s mom. This lover-ly menu oozes aphrodisiacs, beginning with bubbly. And startling couplings. Love apple (tomato) and parsley (Venus’ herb) with olives and Parmesan crisps. Cocoa fettuccini (!) with squid in white wine. Savoury strawberry risotto! Dulci: baked mascarpone, strawberries and dark chocolate. Rs 2,500

Olive Beach Presents: A bridge over pebbled water leads to a custom-candlelit dinner. Lift a flute of Moet et Chandon. Feed each other oyster croutes or creamy pate. Do a surf-and-turf duet with wild rice. Or scale a polenta-red snapper-mushroom tower. Sweet ending: strawberry bruschetta with cinnamon ice cream, creme de menthe chocolate. Rs 4,800

Raise a Toast at Ploof: Splash into love with sparkling wine. Net a romantic start with fingerfoods: Cajun-spiced prawns, lemongrass-skewered fish, pepper chicken. Sustain the warmth with winter veg-barley broth, and linguini. Ultimate love bites: warm chocolate pud, strawberries and cream. Rs 2,000

Eat your way into his heart.

Baci, 23 Sundar Nagar Market; ph: 41507445. Olive Beach, 9 Sardar Patel Marg; ph: 46040404. Ploof, 13 Lodhi Colony Main Market; ph: 24649026, 24634666. Prices are meals for two, taxes extra.

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Back-to-back meetings. Dinner dates, squeezed in between office and bedtime. Workouts have been ‘worked’ out of your twin daily skeds. And sleep-time is fast following suit.

Coax your significant other into checking out Nap to exercise various body parts while taking a nap — and actually lose inches. That’s motorised calisthenics for you.

For eight weeks, our Trendy Tester tried out the sand-bag table, leg table, sit-ups table, waist-trimming table (she loves this one!), stretch table and vibrator table for 10 minutes each. She has had her muscles stretched, shoulder and back exercised, cycled, walked for two miles, did 90 sit-ups and 900 hip-rolls, practised 1700 back-kicks — all without getting off her back. And she noticed ‘remarkable’ inch loss.

With motorised calisthenics, the machines do all the work for your benefit. The various ‘tables’ stretch and contract muscles like elastic bands, toning and firming them. All of which, the Nap staff say, add up to lower stress and cholesterol levels, improved blood circulation, increased flexibility and agility, better posture and — whoo hoo — reduced subcutaneous fat.

Save the sweat for other stuff you do together.

Nap Figure and Fitness Boutique. 817 Girija, 80ft Road, 20th Main, 8th Block, Koramangala, Bangalore 95. Tel: 41205555, 9900705555. Packages start from Rs 6000. Till Valentine’s Day, a sign-up entitles your spouse to a free deal for the same period.

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Shopping sure makes us hungry. Something that Abedin Sham, owner of the newly opened WichLatte seems to have figured out to his advantage. He didn’t major in psychology at Cornell, but his hotel management degree from there helps too. His inviting little cafe on Colaba Causeway is strategically located to make the most of the peckish pangs that plague shoppers.

But any which way you look at it, the tiny 20-seater with a live cooking counter, has a lot going for it. Unusual ingredients like guacamole and sauerkraut set this place apart from most other snack parlours. And they make all their own desserts and bake all their own bread. Besides, our Trendy Taster can’t stop raving about the pizzas here. Inexpensive and with just the right of crunch and munch to put them on top of the charts. She recommends the Pizza Chickonara (roast chicken, jalapenos, shredded mozzarella, zucchini and red, yellow and green bell peppers). And then there’s everything from sandwiches to hot dogs to salads to coffee and dessert (you just have to try the Tiramisu, she begs).

They’ve clearly worked their magic on her. Put down your shopping bags, you’re up next.

WichLatte, Shop No 4, Ground floor, Western Breeze Building, Colaba, Mumbai 400 005; Tel: 65254827; Prices: Beverages range from Rs 25-Rs 60, desserts from Rs 25-Rs125, sandwiches Rs 95-Rs 150, salads Rs 120-Rs 150, sweet or savoury pies Rs 30-Rs 40, pizzas Rs 95-Rs 135.

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“Let’s do coffee at Java City.” “Brunch at La Mad?” “Meeting at Mocha.” “Lunch at Sunny’s?” You’ve done evening meets and weekend mornings with your man on Lavelle Road. Now stoke another passion with the new stores on this stretch.

Ziehl. Vintage fashion for the elegant woman and man. Favourites include feminine tops — stringy, high-waisted, lace-trimmed and elegantly bowed. In soft jersey and crisp cotton. Pinstripe shirts with just a hint of feminine pink and baby blue. Knee-length shorts in suburbia shades of beige and white. Jeans in a variety of fits, and funky belts too.

Crumpler. A bags-brand from Australia. In bright colours and sturdy, weather-proof materials, these bags promise to take a beating and still look great. Also bright laptop cases, mobile pouches and camera bags.

Dockers. Just because this is the season of generous hearts. And this is an all-men’s store. And while you lurrrrrrve him so much, you need him out of your hair while you decide between the young love-green laptop case and the heartbeat red one.

There’s an extra La in Lavelle. And it’s not love.

Ziehl, 13 Vittal Mallya Road (above Coffee Day), Bangalore 560001. Tel: 41710105. Prices: Rs 600-Rs 3500. Crumpler (just below Ziehl): Rs 600-Rs 15000. Dockers, 52 Vittal Mallya Road, Tel: 4149144, 41278397. Rs 1499-4000.

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He’s among India’s most esteemed artists even though he’s based in France. His paintings sell to the tune of US $1.4 million. You’ll find the current show of 22 of his career’s most significant works exciting, whether you understand the nitty-gritties of art and commerce or not.

Especially now that Our Trendy Art Buff is here to give you a peek into the artist’s thought process, so that his abstract work won’t seem, well, so abstract. Look for the central dot or circle in black or white in all his art. It’s what he calls the ‘bindu’, the germination point of all his paintings. It is the heart of his work and of his artistic philosophy.

But what will really strike you is his use of bright colours and geometrical forms, both of which have symbolic meanings. Here’s a painting with vibrant triangles and inverted triangles (to signify male and female) with one white inverted triangle on top; which, explains Raza, is mankind’s inner quest for peace and spirituality.

Another large one, titled Satyam Shivam Sundaram, is inspired by his inclination towards the Indian philosophy of Truth, God and Beauty — a personal favourite of Raza’s. Also observe how Sanskrit shlokas or lines from Urdu poetry are interwoven into his paintings.

This exhibit isn’t just a sight for sore eyes, but the opening of a creative window to the mind. And with Raza, you won’t miss the point.

Satya by SH Raza, on till Feb 22 at Tao Art Gallery, Dr Annie Besant Road, Worli, Mumbai, from 11 am to 7 pm; Tel: 24918585; Prices: Only four of the paintings are for sale, but the prices are confidential.

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East is East. West is West. A-p-a-r-t is how they should stay, says fusion-frazzled you.

But the twain do deliciously meet at Indochine. This Singapore brand, finally in Delhi, brings you a medley of cuisines of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia fused with international flavours — Thai meets Chinese meets colonial French. Giant terracotta soldiers flank your walk into the intriguingly-named Forbidden City, with its three stops: the AlFresco terrace with its great view of the neighbouring golf course, the low-lit Bar SaVanh, and the formal dining space, Madame Butterfly.

Stop off at the bar for a fruity, bittersweet Terracotta — one of their signature cocktails. Nibble juicy chao tom, prawn fritters on sugarcane batons. And crunchy baskets of miang tofu, with tamarind and peanuts.

Ascend to Madame Butterfly, adorned with a lavish red chandelier, and a sweep of clustered bamboo staffs. Pathbreaking for your palate: aloe vera and pomelo salad. A fresh twist on sweet-and-sour chicken — strawberries, dates, green apple, capsicums. Peanut butter-ed Double Element chicken, with its lingering aftertaste of aniseed and sesame. And king prawns teamed with melt-in-the-mouth Imperial Banquet tenderloin.

Segue smoothly into crackle-crusted lemongrass brulee. The ice cream alongside crunches with coconut and black sesame.

The way to heaven (savanh in Lao) lies through the Forbidden City. And the doors are open wide.

IndoChine’s Forbidden City, Lado Sarai, Aurobindo Marg (beside Qutab Golf Course), New Delhi; ph: 29523330. Dinner for two: Rs 2500 onwards.

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Once upon a time, a daughter was born to a nobleman. She grew up and married a king. And they lived happily ever after.

Nah, that’s so boring. The Rani of Jhansi’s story began when she wed the ailing — and much older — king of the small Maratha kingdom. Through personal trials and those of the princely state was honed a character so fine that it lives on long after the queen died fighting British imperialists on the battlefield.

Jaishree Misra takes the legend and infuses it with life in her fourth book, simply called Rani. Beginning with her girlhood in the house of the deposed Peshwa, it follows her through her grand wedding (three pages devoted to the bride’s toilette!), her ascent to de facto power and, ultimately, her decision to rebel against the British during the mutiny of 1857.

Facts are the base of the story. Misra adds fiction in the form of the Rani’s romance with the British agent in charge of Jhansi, Robert Ellis. Horseback courtship leads to together-nights at the library and a supremely touching scene in the garden.

Languid, visual and richly textured, Rani is the book to curl up with on a lazy afternoon. Doze off, dream a little.

Rani. A novel by Jaishree Misra, published by Penguin. Available at all leading bookstores for Rs 350.

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