Reader Survey 2012: Best Restaurant for an Illicit Affair!

“O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright”

People think an “affair” is such a tawdry thing. Illicit kisses under darkened stairways, knowing looks over a spouse’s shoulders followed by furtive rendezvous in cheap hotel rooms… I always get nasty comments about this question.  I am glad, however, to dispel this myth, and admit here that I once had a glorious affair:

World English Dictionary

affair  (əˈfɛə)

1. a thing to be done or attended to; matter; business: this affair must be cleared up

2. an event or happening: a strange affair

3. a sexual relationship between two people who are not married to each other

Five hot summer weeks in Sacramento, nights so humid that the car windows would fog before we ever opened the doors. Fleeting passion; other students, so quick to judge. Stolen moments birthed illicit kisses, until nighttime brought us to the banks of the river delta, merging sweat and the warm leather seats of  my old DeSoto.

That’s an affair. Yes, we were both single. True, it ended in a spectacular way… but all these years later I wonder… what could have been if we were older… wiser.

This is what I had in mind when I asked the question, “Best Restaurant for an Illicit Affair”. Pretend you are Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Pretend you aren’t married. Just pretend!

Now for the results:

1. The Driftwood Room at Hotel Deluxe – 729 Southwest 15th Avenue  Portland, OR 97205  Map  (503) 219-2094

2. The Gilt Club – 306 Northwest Broadway  Portland, OR 97209  Map  (503) 222-4458

3. Ringside Steakhouse at Glendoveer – 14021 Northeast Glisan Street  Portland, OR 97230  Map  (503) 255-0750

4. Wilfs (at the Amtrack Station) – 800 Northwest 6th Avenue  Portland, OR 97209  Map  (503) 223-0070

5. The Secret Society – 16 Northeast Russell Street  Portland, OR 97212  Map  (503) 493-3600

My choice(s): I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy, so I’m thinking we’d hit The Driftwood Room first: sexy, curvy, dark… all film noire. Next, Wilf’s, the latter being twice as romantic because I could come by train.

Why yes, I do like old movies.

Notes: Never had a DeSoto, but it sounded better than ‘old pickup truck’. Come to think of it, the seats weren’t leather, the summer wasn’t particularly hot, and we parked next to the trash bins behind a bowling alley, after a hot date at the Old Spaghetti Factory (even then, not my choice).

The first time I wrote about Gilt Club, I mistakenly put “Guilt Club”. Apropos perhaps.