Cafe Lapin
In the Peachtree Battle Shopping Center; 2341 Peachtree Street, Unit C, Buckhead; 404.812.9171
Indiana Jones-type flicks always find the hero grabbing a particularly tempting artifact from a tomb or temple, only to trigger the release of giant boulders, a skeleton army, or Billy Zanes. For a diabolically booby-trapped date spot, visit Cafe Lapin.
Just now serving dinner, Lapin's a date-impressingly hidden (their sign's not up yet) dining room armed with candlelit white-clothed tables, a grand 19th Century mirror, and a mesmerizing white floral chandelier -- plus a trio of man-traps that could render all the aforementioned crap romantically moot. For starters, the menu's loaded with politely delicious fare (crab & leek quiche, herb roasted chicken w/ banana-orange puree, even a Muenster-topped sirloin burger), all of which'll look like children's crayon drawings of food when stacked up against the glorious bacon-wrapped meatloaf -- the one dish you must have, yet under the circumstances, the one dish you can never have. Further peril: Lapin is BYO-wine, with no corkage fee, which is awesome -- but of course you'll buy two bottles, and unless you're dating Kitty Dukakis, that second bottle's all you.
The final pitfall: desserts like almond-pear tart pie and orange-almond streusal pound cake are displayed conspicuously on a round table in the center of the dining room -- a situation which, assuming you failed Test #2, might cause you to Garfield out on pie. So basically, one misstep and you'll have no one to go home with but your own Short Round.
