$35 for all this? My epic date steal.

Josh and I don’t go out on enough dates. We just don’t. So when I had the chance to book a date night with the dating and relationships company HowAboutWe, I jumped on it.

I’ve written before about HowAboutWe for couples. Through their site, I have scored some very sweet deals, including a BBQ dinner for four (cost: $11 with the introductory offer for new members), while my friend got a care package overflowing with gourmet PB&J (cost: free with her intro credit). These were “at-home” dates, which are delivered directly to your doorstep; now I was excited to book a date that was “out on the town.”

HowAboutWe has so many fun date ideas that it was too hard to choose just one…so I ended up planning a “progressive” date that took us all over San Francisco.

We had the BEST time.

We lingered in the late-afternoon sun at a tiny neighborhood bakery, enjoying fresh-baked cookies and coffee; we savored piping hot bowls of ramen in Japantown as the San Francisco fog rolled in around us; we sat at the bar of a packed BBQ joint in the Mission as we drank Miller High Lifes and chowed down on mac and cheese; and we ended the evening with a late-night flight of premium scotches at a bar downtown.

Total cost for HowAboutWe couples? $35 for new members. I’d call that an epic steal.

It’s so easy to plan a super fun night out on their site. You can sign up for free and browse their dates in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Seattle (and they’re expanding to new cities soon). If you don’t live in one of those cities, you can also plan a date (or multiple dates!) for when you’ll be in town.

I’m excited to say that HowAboutWe is offering Points and Pixie Dust readers $50 off your first date (new members only, expires June 15, 2014). Once you’re a member, HowAboutWe also gives you a free date each month, which you can pair with another date (or dates) from their site to create a very affordable, unique evening. This is what we did!

We started at Little Bee Baking Company, a super cute bakery in Bernal Heights.

Stacie, the owner and baker, was so cute and nice! Little Bee definitely has an awesome neighborhood vibe going on. The date included a flourless chocolate brownie and two cookies of your choice to share, one cup of coffee or tea per person and a container of cookie dough to take home.

It was really hard to choose from all of the offerings…especially after we learned that Stacie had been the head pastry chef at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse.

The treats were melt-in-your mouth delicious…but more importantly, we had the best time. There was just something about hanging out in a tiny bakery in the late afternoon, with nowhere else to be, that felt joyous.

I would highly recommend it.

The Bernal Heights neighborhood in San Francisco is a fun place to window shop and wander, so we took advantage of the beautiful day and soaked up a little sunlight as we ambled along the hilly streets.

 Our next stop was for ramen in Japantown.

Waraku is an intimate spot in a great location across the street from Japantown Center.

As a HowAboutWe couple, we got to choose from three varieties of ramen with all the fixings such as pork, bamboo shoots and smoked egg.

The ramen was SO good. As we sat in the window seat and savored every bite, the fog rolled in.

It was beautiful.

For our next course, we headed to Southpaw, a Southern BBQ joint in the Mission District, for an off-menu mac ‘n’ cheese tasting and a couple of Miller High-Lifes.

We had a blast sitting at the bar.

Our last stop was for custom flights of aged Scotch at the Chieftain, a casual Irish pub in SoMa.

We sampled the Dalmore 12 yr, which has a “malty sweetness and hints of light peat.” This one was WAY too sweet for me. Then we tried the Glenmorangie, which is “accented by hints of peat, honey, and a rich smooth finish.” This one was too smooth. Last, we had the Ardbeg 10 year old, which has “deep peat notes, with tobacco and coffee.” Now we’re talking! This one was my favorite.

By the end of this date, we felt like we had been on a mini-vacation. We had been to so many different places around the city and done so many fun things! I absolutely love that this date is also a “steal.” For $35, we had a progressive dinner, drinks, dessert…and an amazing time with each other.

I highly recommend HowAboutWe!

If you are in San Francisco and wanted to and book this exact date, here are the details:

• Sweets and take-home cookie dough at Little Bee Bakery. Cost: free. (Members get one free date per month)

• Traditional ramen at Waraku in Japantown. Cost: $13

• Off-menu mac and cheese at Southpaw. Cost $22.

• Aged Scotch Flights at the Chieftain. Cost: $0. (Free if you use your $50 promo offer, otherwise $40).

If you want to create a fabulous date of your own, you can do that, too. 😉 Check out the dates in your own city with the $50 credit here.  (Tip: Use your new member credit towards your priciest date — in my case, the Scotch flights at the Chieftain. That will start your first free month of membership, and then you can take advantage of your free date that month!)

Thanks so much, HowAboutWe! We had a lovely time!

(This post was sponsored by HowAboutWe, a service that I am now hooked on, but the opinions expressed are my own.)