Illustration: Emily Flake

I once had a date at Hawaiian Tropic Zone. Yes, that Hawaiian Tropic Zone: the Times Square restaurant where the waitresses are clad in bikinis and sarongs, serving pineapple kabobs my dog Lilly wouldn’t even eat. And she has eaten her own poop.

We went for the irony and stayed to make fun of the businessmen who were there for the beauty pageant. The Hawaiian Tropic Zone website states that it is “unlike anything else in New York City,” and I can assure you that it was a date I won’t soon forget.

It’s been said ad nauseam that dining out is the primary social pastime for New Yorkers—and their No. 1 date-night activity. Maybe it’s just me, but after an initial fascination with the well-known, pricier restaurants, I got really into the unconventional date alternatives like diners and even the Times Square cheeseball tourist traps.

Sure, you could get all fancy and go to Per Se; stay classy and eat at One if by Land, Two if by Sea; or try to be hip (even though you’re three years late) and get a reservation at Nobu. But that’s so predictable. Honestly, any sap can have an extraordinary meal in New York, so why not take this opportunity to make the experience a little more interesting?

“What makes a dinner out in New York really special?” muses business developer Zach Epstein, 28. “There are too many great restaurants in NYC. For one to stand out, it really has to bring something extra to the table.” (Restaurant puns are fun!)

And if that “something extra” is a waitress in a bikini (Hawaiian Tropic Zone), a black belt–outfitted ninja-waiter doing card tricks (Tribeca’s NINJA), or simply knowing that you’re the only “real” New Yorker in the place (Ruby Foo’s), then so be it. The element of surprise will certainly give you something to talk about, and quickly eliminate awkward silences.

Why have a lunch date at Eleven Madison Park Restaurant when you could go to Johnny Utah’s and take turns riding the mechanical bull? My friend Caroline was there once and reports that “a family of tourists from the boonies was trying to bribe the waiters to turn on the bull for their kids.”Apparently it was too early in the day for bull riding. Now that’s a conversation starter.

“There’s something precious-hipstery about it, but the more I think about it, the better an idea like this sounds,” says Moe, 29, a writer. “The shitty part about being in places with people in New York is that you might run into someone else: someone you slept with, someone you wish you were sleeping with, someone whose skin or shoes your date is comparing to yours.”

It’s easy enough to eliminate that concern when you’re dining in a different zip code than your peers.

“I’d just wonder,” says my friend Lena, 20, a student, “if he was trying to make a point about consumerism, tourism or spectacle.” Hopefully he’s just trying to amuse you, I tell her. “I’d be worried about the Times Square aspect,” she adds. “I feel like I’d throw up from all the lights—or have an epileptic episode.”

I insist that having the paramedics show up on a first date would make for a pretty good story. (It’d also register on a new level on the AFS—Anything For a Story—spectrum.)

“This is true,” she admits, quickly resigning herself to a possible epileptic fit.

So, take your next date to T.G.I. Friday’s. Split the bread sticks, and don’t be afraid to admit that you know what “flair” is.

E-mail her at julia@timeoutny.com.

See previous Julia Allison on dating