Cafe Madison: Small town locale, big city style

Cafe Madison
Riverside, NJ

The hubby and I got all dressed up for NYE

Okay, so this post is not shoe related or about saving money, but it does involve wine, so it does remain true to my theme. With the craziness of the holidays, it's really easy to forget to do anything for yourself or your spouse. My husband and I stopped exchanging gifts when we had children, since Christmas became all about them. Both of us tend to be more practical; if we need or want something we'll buy it for ourselves. We'll ask each other first if it costs more than $10; not that we need each other's permission, but it's just common courtesy.
This year, we decided to do something for each other and ourselves by going to Cafe Madison (www.cafemadison.com) in Riverside, NJ for New Year's Eve. While a NY-style Martini Bar (complete with waterfalls) may seem out of place, The Madison is a real upscale gem hidden in a small town. Conveniently located on the NJ Transit River Line, it's easy to get to and just a short drive for us. Since we decided to go to the 6pm dinner seating, we opted to drive rather than take the train last night.

Pomegranate champagne

We arrived 15 minutes early for our reservation, easily found a parking space and went to the bar for a pomegranate champagne (sweet, tart and effervescent, made with pomegranate juice, cranberry juice and Freixenet sparkling wine) before moving to our table for dinner.

Dress from avenue.com;
necklace from shoedazzle.com

My dapper sweetheart

The hubby and I dressed in fancy clothes worthy of our early dating days when we spent more time out than at home with our daughters and, of course, his tie matched the color of my dress (which I scored from avenue.com for 50% on Black Friday).
















Once seated, we ordered a bottle of 2010 Enrique Foster Ique Malbec. Now, everyone knows the markup on wines in restaurants is quite insane, but I must say I'm happy that we paid $24 and wine.com shows the price as $12.29. Our waitress opened the bottle and offered me a taste. After swirling my glass to aerate, I inhaled deeply and was hit by the fruity aroma. My first taste and I was impressed by the silky mouth feel and the smooth fruity flavor. I'm very picky about my reds and find many to be overpoweringly oaky or intense. This Malbec was pure perfection.

My appetizer: Wild Mushroom Ravioli

Hubby's Nantucket Lobster Bisque

The holiday menu included an appetizer, entree and desert for $39.95 per person (at the 6 pm seating; for the 9pm seating, the price was $20 more per person). I had the wild mushroom ravioli with garlic cream Marsala sauce which was rich, creamy and absolutely divine! The hubby chose Nantucket Lobster Bisque, which he said was the best he's ever had.

Filet mignon

Fresh field greens with shaved
carrots, cucumbers and house dressing

Next was a house salad, which was fresh, crisp and delicious. We both chose the filet (medium rare), which was accompanied by haricot verts and a carrot tied into a bundle with a scallion and a potato gratin. The presentation was picture perfect, the steak perfectly seasoned and his was cooked to perfection; mine was cooked a touch more than I liked though not quite medium (we switched since I prefer it redder).

Dessert was an individual chocolate encased raspberry and cream-filled decadently rich chocolate cake topped with a dark chocolate diamond proclaiming "Happy New Year 2012." We each had a cappuccino as well. The perfect end to a perfect meal.








When all was said and done, we spent about $145 for drinks, dinner, wine, dessert and $20 for two wine glasses engraved with the Madison logo (since we have two little ones at home, we don't get out much and I thought this would be the perfect souvenir from our evening out). We had such a great time, I've already lined up a sitter for Valentine's Day so we can go to the Madison again...a bit pricey for a small town, but the food, atmoshpere and service are big city style and so worth the trip (and a return trip, too!).

The staff gave out tophats to the men

The ladies received "tiaras" for the New Year

I  even spoke to the manager about purchasing two Madison wine glasses to take home with us as a reminder of our spectacular date.

Getting a deal takes patience, research and sometimes luck.

I'm a woman who loves to shop, but with two young children, I have to stick to a budget. So how do I get to feel fabulous without spending a ton of money? Research, price comparing, coupon codes and lots of patience.
Whenever I need to buy myself new clothes (and that happens when you lose 40 pounds over 11 months), I refuse to pay full price...enter sales and coupon codes! Since I'm a plus-size gal (though I am finally down to a 14 - I was a 12 when I got married, but I don't think that will ever happen again), avenue.com has been my go-to shopping site. The quality is good for the price and I can get some stylish pieces. I mix in the occasional Lane Bryant purchase, but those take a little more work, since the price is higher than I'd like for the quality you get, so I have to have a really good sale and the perfect coupon code to align like the planets before I buy from there.
So, my go-to sites for coupon codes are retailmenot.com, couponcabin.com and coupon7.com. Another trick that I've learned is that if you have a lot of patience and a little luck, you can tweak the item numbers to get a better price on sites like avenue.com (I haven't figured out the system on lanebryant.com yet). The Redcats brand (Avenue, Roamans, Woman Within, One Stop Plus) sends me a lot of catalogs in the mail. It drives my husband batty because he thinks it's just a ton of junk mail and clutter, since I can just shop for the same things online. But, what those catalogs have is the secret to saving money. In a lot of them there is a little clearance section in the middle and those item numbers are worth their weight in gold. It doesn't always work, mind you, but sometimes, if you get lucky, you can take those last 4 digits from the clearance section and change the last four digits of other items on the site to get a better price. Then if you stack the right coupon codes on top of that, you stand to save a lot. On Black Friday, I had a code for 50% off and used that to get gifts for my mom (two sweaters and a nightshirt), my sister (a sweater and a nightshirt) and my dad (three thermal henleys), plus a little something for myself for less than $65.


Another way I like to save is on shoes. Women's shoes cost a lot of money. Too much money, actually, but I love shoes. As with much of what we buy here in the US, much of the retail markup is due to the name. Beyonce's Dereon brand has a gorgeous satin wedge that sells for $64.99 on heels.com. ShoeDazzle.com sells the same shoe for $39.95. Guess which fabulous shoe I'll be wearing for New Years Eve? And guess who didn't pay full price?

ShoeDazzle...the root cause of my shoe addiction...

So, how did I become addicted to shoes? I mean really truly addicted to the point where I have no room in my closet and still want to buy more addicted. I've always liked shoes. Before I was married, I worked an office job for a very large and well-known publishing company and had a nice, albeit small, collection of shoes. I'm very tall  (5'9" or 10" in flats) and am cursed with size 11 feet. I get that from my dad's side of the family. My mom and both sisters are between 5'5" and 5'6"; mom and one sister have size 7.5 feet, so they have no problem finding shoes they like. Though my other sister wears a size 10, finding shoes is not a problem (she owns a pair of sandals, a pair of sneakers, a pair of black flats, nursing shoes and a pair of lavender satin heels she wore to my wedding - that is the full extent of her shoe wardrobe).
So what does this have to do with anything? I love shoes, but I have big feet, so its impossible to find cute shoes in my size, so I had a few catalogs/websites where I could buy shoes within my budget and that was that. Fast-forward a couple of years...I met the love of my life while in between writing jobs (I filled those gaps in my professional writing career with retail jobs) when I was working at Macy's. I got my career back on track, got married and had two kids. Well, that writing job that I've had for the past 8 years is for a very laid-back company and I telecommute most days, so I don't need a ton of nice shoes and since my daughters are 6 and 4, I don't go out on tons of dates that require "going-out" shoes...but you know what? Buying shoes makes me happy. I worked very hard to lose 40 pounds of baby weight (that I had never lost due to stress-induced overeating because of our oldest daughter's heart condition and frequent surgeries), so in March of this year, my husband decided that I needed something for me.
That "me time" came in the form of a shoe club. One of my husband's female coworkers told him about ShoeDazzle. So I checked it out. I created a profile and took a fashion quiz so the stylists could determine the styles that were best for me. 24 hours later, I got my first showroom of 5 shoes, 5 purses and 5 jewelry sets. I wasn't impressed for the first couple of months and I didn't make a purchase, but by July, I was emailed a 50% promo and that was all it took to get me to take the plunge (I cannot resist sales). So I bought a pair of shoes and a matching purse and that was the beginning. Now, the thing about ShoeDazzle is that once you place your first order, it saves your credit card information and because it's a monthly CLUB, you have to log in every month and either buy something or skip the month before the 5th of the month or you will automatically get billed the $39.95 and get one store credit. Now some people freak out about this every month (just log onto Facebook and check out the SD page on the 6th of the month), but as a kid I was a member of Columbia House, so I get the whole "club" concept.
Regardless, I've purchased every month since July (I now have 25 pairs, plus 3 purses and two jewelry sets), so forgetting to skip the month and accidentally getting charged for a credit hasn't been an issue. The styles are fabulous and they carry more size 11s than most stores or clubs. Most of their styles have really high heels which can be an issue for someone of my stature, but I have found a few midheels and bought the high ones just because I couldn't pass them up.
Oh and I almost forgot to mention the best part - you can shop with your friends on Facebook - there is a whole community of shoe loving women just like me and customer service is beyond compare. The girls and guys of CrewDazzle make shoe shopping even more fun...how crazy is that?

Never pay retail for anything!

As a woman, I love shoes and I love to shop, but having worked in retail for a good portion of my adult life (to pay the bills during college and in between real writing jobs), I know that paying retail prices for anything is just not acceptable. The markup is outrageous and if you look hard enough and find the right coupon codes, you can get anything you want for less.
My current obsession is (as my blog title implies) divided between shoes and wine. Shoes win, hands down. I have 25 pairs of shoes in my closet right now that I have acquired since July of this year. I glance at my wine fridge and see a sad sight (only 4 bottles). Money is tight right now, but after Christmas, I'll buy more wine. And I have two more pairs of shoes coming this week, in spite of the lack of funds (as a mom of two young girls, it's hard to have an abundance of cash this time of year). But, if you don't splurge once in a while, you can go crazy with stress. My life is not glamorous as glamorous as I'd hoped, but after a couple of glasses of wine, my life is glamorous enough (the 25 fabulous pairs of high-heeled shoes and boots in the closet don't hurt either).