Bonjour, friendly folks, and welcome to this special review of one of the most romantically renowned restaurants in town.

In all my years at Iowa State I’ve never been to Aunt Maude’s, so when my “sworn protector” asked me to join him for an early Valentine’s Day dinner, I couldn’t refuse.

While making reservations I asked what kind of prices I should expect. Dinner prices start from $6.95 for a cheeseburger, $12.95 for pasta dishes and seafood entr‚es starting at $19.95. (In other words, you’ll need more money than you can find under your couch cushions.)

Our reservations were for 7 p.m. last week, but in hindsight we didn’t need them. We were there right on time but weren’t seated right away.

I joked that it was probably because they had to clear the table in the corner by the kitchen. Yep — nothing but the best seat in the house for us.

Honestly though, what would have been a bad seat was actually very pleasant, thanks to the hunter green trellis covered with flowers that separated us from the kitchen.

Speaking of which, I felt like I was in a flower garden/art museum that night. Beautifully framed paintings (which are for sale through Interiors on Main, Inc.) adorned the flower wallpapered walls.

With romantic candle-lit tables, stained glass windows and jazz music, Aunt Maude’s was definitely a fancy restaurant in a “no-straws-in-the-pop” kind of way.

Time to get down to business — ordering drinks. My friend didn’t like the selection of beer imports and never did get the hot chocolate that was asked for.

I ordered a dessert drink that didn’t have a price listed. Unfortunately that didn’t mean it was free.

I found out my chocolate monkey (hey, with a name like that, I couldn’t refuse) was $4.95. Five bucks may seem like a lot for a drink, but this was a cream de menthe and creme de cacao ice cream concoction. Ice cream and liquor — a winning combination.

All entr‚es came with sourdough bread and a dinner salad. On the advice of our server, I ordered the $12.95 tequila and chicken fettuccine. This pasta entr‚e was saut‚ed chicken in a tequila cream with tri-colored peppers and fresh herbs, tossed with spinach fettuccine.

OK— first of all, let me talk about the salad — it would have been much better if it had, oh, I don’t know, a crouton or two! The ranch dressing was the only thing that I enjoyed out of the lawnmower-bag-remnant-looking salad.

The tequila chicken didn’t impress me much either, but I think it was the spinach noodles that bothered me.

Turns out the chocolate monkey was the best part of my meal.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to go to Aunt Maude’s again but would order the soup and a steak of some sorts.

Even though the lack of crowd made us feel a little overdressed, Aunt Maude’s is definitely the kind of restaurant you can look nice at.

This holds especially true if you’re there to celebrate something special, like getting engaged or landing a job with the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile.

On a final note, we appreciated our server offering us coffee or cappuccino after our meal. It was nice that she didn’t try to rush us out right after we ate.

Aunt Maude’s is downtown at 547 Main Street. Call 233-4136 for lunch or dinner reservations.

3 1/2 stars out of 5.

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Kim Zangger is a senior in advertising from Mt. Vernon.