Romance and Dining in Silicon Valley

Anyone can book a table for two at the hottest restaurant in town, so what is the #1 key to impressing your dinner date and setting the stage for an unforgettable romantic evening?  Location, location, location!

Far too many Bay Area diners excitedly book prime time dinner reservations at expensive restaurants only to be seated at less than desirable tables for romantic meals.  Your $200+ dinner is well worth it when you’ve scored a private table with a view and feels like a horrible mistake when you’re seated next to the bathroom or an inch away from the couple seated next to you.

Think about it – would you ever spend the same amount for a middle seat in Economy Class on a plane as you would for a window seat in First Class?  Of course not!  In the restaurant business, why should you pay premium prices if you’re sitting at a lousy table? You shouldn’t.

There are a number of steps you can take to improve your chances for a successful dinner date.  Obviously, showing up on time and dressed in a manner that shows that you care about your appearance and that you respect your date’s time and attention are top priorities.

However, if you’re in charge of choosing the restaurant, you’d be well advised to also follow my maxim, “You don’t want a romantic restaurant.  You want a romantic table.”  Our new website, mostromantictable.com, helps diners find and book the most romantic dinner tables at restaurants around the world.  We’ve launched in New York, Palm Springs, Lake Tahoe, Wine Country, San Francisco and the Silicon Valley.

Here in Silicon Valley, Chez TJ, is well known as one of the most romantic restaurants in the area.  For over 30 years, the restaurant has been the preferred location for innumerable proposals, engagements, and birthday celebrations.  All tables at Chez TJ are great, but dining at either Table 42 or Table 43 will transform your dining experience.  Both tables are located in the quiet, comfortable, tastefully decorated front parlor room of the Victorian mansion that houses the restaurant.  Both are next to windows that will provide you and your date with plenty of conversational fodder as you watch the world go by.  The food at Chez TJ is exceptional, as evidenced by the Michelin stars it consistently earns for its outstanding contemporary French cuisine.

Perhaps the most romantic dinner experience in the valley is in The Champagne Room at Saratoga’s The Plumed Horse Restaurant.  The Champagne Room holds a table for two in a curtained alcove off of the restaurant’s lounge.  Piano music greets you as you sit down at your table while candles and light from a stained glass window illuminate the room.  The Champagne Room offers privacy and an ambiance conducive to an intimate meal.  The Plumed Horse is celebrated for both its food and wine – it’s food has been recognized by Michelin with at least one star every year since 2008, and the Wine Spectator has given The Plumed Horse 1 out of only 81 worldwide Grand Awards for its wine program.

According to OpenTable, almost 70% of their diners wish they could have table specific information when making their dinner reservations.  In general, it’s good advice to call a restaurant either before or after making a reservation to ensure that you’ll be seated at a table appropriate for the occasion.  You can significantly improve your chances for a successful date by choosing your restaurant and your table from the incredible selection available at www.mostromantictable.com.

Guest Blogger Jay Ward, founder of MostRomanticTable.com. After taking his girlfriend to more than 160 restaurants in the first two-and-a-half years of their relationship, Jay conceived of the idea for MostRomanticTable.com.

Ferragamo Would Be So Proud: What to Know About Women’s Shoes

We’d like to draw your attention to an article entitled ‘What Can You Tell About A Woman From Her Shoes’ that appeared in a 2014 Issue of Men’s Health. In it, the authors cite a 2012 study from the University of Kansas, which asserts that “people are able to accurately judge 90 percent of a stranger’s personality, including their emotional stability, simply by looking at their most-worn pair of shoes.”  Well, we haven’t seen the study, nor are we interested in disputing its findings. But we are very interested in your acumen (or, more likely, the  lack thereof) for women’s footwear because we think that this is more practical in the context of coaching you as you embark on your dating adventures.   Why?

Two reasons:

(1) Even if you wanted to, you can’t apply the results of the above study if you don’t first have a solid working knowledge of women’s footwear.  Moreover, though, there is definitely value in ascertaining the emotional stability of someone by assessing their most worn pair of shoes, we feel fairly confident that most people don’t wear their most worn pair of shoes out on a date. So, in the context of dating we feel it is much more important, pragmatic and constructive to teach men about what actually lies behind the doors of a closet dedicated to shoe apparel before they go much farther.

(2) To even get beyond an initial introduction to a lady of interest, you will need to sustain her attention and you should be able to converse about more than just what you are comfortable with – i.e. you need to be comfortable out of your comfort zone. Women’s shoes are a great example of a “high yield” topic with which you should be familiar.  If you are seeking a long-term relationship, which most of my clients are, the chances are good that you will spend quite a bit of time shopping with your significant other or at least enough time that you will want to know a thing or two about women’s shoes.  Our clients tend to be interested in fashionable women, and fashionable women tend to appreciate men who have some appreciation for women’s shoes. After all, some of the women you will meet will have quite an obsession with shoes, possibly own hundreds of pairs, including some that have only been worn on a single occasion.

Let’s pose a question to demonstrate what you probably don’t know… and don’t feel bad… you are in the great majority of men on planet Earth if you don’t know the answer to the following question. Here it is: What’s the difference between a slingback espadrille wedge and a peep-toe ankle strap platform wedge?

Most of you are computer savvy. So if you look up “espadrille” you’ll find a Wikipedia entry that reads as follows “Espadrilles or alpargatas are normally casual, flat, but sometimes high-heeled shoes originating in the Pyrenees.”

Wedges, which were made popular by Salvatore Ferragamo, also have their own entry, which reads “Wedge boots, wedgies or lifties are shoes and boots with a sole in the form of a wedge so that one piece of material, normally rubber, serves as both the sole and the heel.”

We are assuming that you don’t have the time or inclination to do a ton of “field research” on things like this.  As such, we are here to help.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, we decided to introduce a comprehensive infographic covering just about every contemporary shoe style you might find in a woman’s shoe closet……

Pop-Chart Lab published the Charted Collection of Contemporary Footwear (and we think it is pretty phenomenal and helpful.)

So with that introduction, we direct you to the following infographic. For the guys out there, the next time you’re at the mall running some quick errands consider our advice and head to women’s shoes in a high-end department store. Strike up a conversation and ask a cute girl trying on a pair of d’orsay pumps her opinion on which shoes she would recommend getting for your sister/mother/aunt/cousin/etc. It’s a “target rich” environment with high yield potential for single guys or dare I say someone with a serious foot fetish.;-)

Geek is Chic: Guys Get Your Glasses On

Think of Bono, Karl Lagerfeld, Spike Lee and Elton John. These gents are iconic, and so are their spectacles. In fact, you probably wouldn’t recognize them without their signature frames.  Glasses have become extensions of their faces, if not their personas.

The frames of the rich and famous are not only synonymous with the people wearing them, they have become fashion fixtures embedded in popular culture. The stylish eye wear of celebrities are often so iconic in their own right, they transcend time and continue to set fashion trends. Some may simply be fashion accessories but, regardless of their purpose, they have become part of our culture. You don’t have to be a fashionista to sport some trendsetting glasses.

Pop Chart Lab, Inc. in Brooklyn, New York produces an eye chart of famous eye wear. So if you are out shopping for a cosmetic touch, you can first test the look of some famous frames, including Benjamin Franklin’s bifocals, Elvis’s sunglasses, Maverick’s aviators and even MC Hammer’s oversized glasses.

It is always interesting to us that so many people seek elective corrective eye surgery only to later adorn glasses for cosmetic purposes.  But the data speaks for itself and it says frames are “in” with or without anything in them, literally. LeBron James has popularized eye wear sans lenses at press conferences. And curators at the London College of Fashion, where the exhibit Framed received much acclaim, asserted in recent years that overt design has replaced a trend of minimalism when it comes to eye wear.

But you need to pay attention and stay current as it seems minimalism is back for the Fall of 2015 along with some audacious rims. Sleek seems to be chic with retro-90’s and 60’s looks designs making their way into fashion publications, but so too are bold, thick frames from the 70’s.

Three years ago Harris interactive conducted an online survey on behalf of the new eye wear retailer Ditto.com. They found that 87% of women find glasses on men to be sexy and 91% of women found that sunglasses on men were sexy.  Indeed, everyone looks (fill in your favorite adjective) -> hotter/sexier/bolder/mysterious/polished/hip/cool/trendy in sunglasses.

BUT, before you head out to the nearest retailer, heed some of our advice on what frames to consider and what to ignore. Not all spectacles are spectacular. And just because you think Will Smith’s sunglasses look great on him in Men in Black, it does NOT mean they will look great on you. They don’t have to fit your face, but they do have to fit your look. If you are bold enough they can even MAKE your look. 

If you can’t figure out what to consider buying, you can’t go wrong with the classic black rim glasses. They are simple, yet sophisticated and are perfect for just about every occasion. But if you aren’t looking for something safe, but really slick and avant-garde, we’d be remiss if we failed to introduce you to Tom Ford’s Hugh Polarized Square Wayfarer Sunglasses

Beyond those glasses, we also love Tom Ford’s Marko Aviator Polarized Sunglasses. If you’re thinking you want to mix up your look this Fall and try a new optical look think Oliver Peoples. Our top Oliver Peoples Optical frames include: Jack Huston RX, Executive I, and Calidor.