Valentine's Day is nigh!

Some folks hate Valentine's Day. They think it's a holiday invented by the greeting card industry to make single people feel bad about themselves. I respect this viewpoint. But I don't agree. As far as I'm concerned, Valentine's Day is a holiday invented by the chocolate industry to give all people, whether single or coupled, an excuse to eat more chocolate. And what could be bad about that?

Here are a few special Valentine's Day chocolate-eating opportunities:

Winter Warmers, in Park Slope, is doing a $24 per person s'mores tasting menu, complete with a personal hibachi for roasting your own marshmallows. More details on their facebook.

The Chocolate Room is doing a $10 per person, two-course Valentine's Day tasting menu. Details here. This is a good choice if you're into Riesling as well as chocolate.

City Bakery will be offering their traditional Love Potion hot chocolate, which is available once each year, on Valentine's Day. Last year David finally tried it. Spoiler alert: it's basically City Bakery's normal amazing hot chocolate, PLUS a layer of fudge on top. WINNING. Incidentally, if you can't make it to City Bakery on Valentine's Day, don't forget that all of February is their Hot Chocolate Festival, a.k.a. our favorite month of the year.

Similarly, February is Pancake Month at Clinton Street Baking Company. Not every day's pancakes involve chocolate, but their Valentine's Day special obviously does: chocolate chunks, fresh raspberries, and raspberry-caramel sauce.

Also, just in time for Valentine's Day, both Amedei and Laudree Soho are now open, so if you want to buy yourself or your loved one some brand-new-to-NYC chocolate products, those are your best bets.

If you don't want to eat chocolate for Valentine's Day, but you just want to think about eating chocolate, then you can go to The Chocolate Show!, a musical about, well, chocolate, running from now until early April. No show on Valentine's Day itself, but tickets are still available for February 15 (or, as we like to call it, the Boxing Day of Valentine's Day).

Finally: a fantastic round-up of Valentine's Day chocolate gift boxes, thanks to NYMag: http://nymag.com/guides/valentines/2014/best-chocolate-boxes/.

Did we miss any important Valentine's Day chocolates? Tell us in the comments, or tweet at us @NYCChocolate.

BOTTOM LINE: We don't really need an excuse to eat chocolate. But we'll take it.