BEST GOLDEN ROOM

Soho House (9th Avenue)

The Golden Room is the place you realize you were looking for once you are there. Not that this is a guarantee to happiness. But happiness is there if you can let the Good Part of your Brain take over.

You can mock the glamorous and privileged scenes of New York from the chiller, albeit completely sexless confines of some Lower East Side faux dive like Welcome To The Johnsons (Rivington St.) -- but only for so long. As Carl Jung said: "Even the smartest people need the strobe light and Beyonce every once in awhile."

We can admit -- depending on the company we are keeping -- that we wanted to run into 19-year-old (oh, bother said Pooh) heiress Amanda Hearst and not at KeyFoods (Avenue A).

Dubbed by Blubox as the next Paris Hilton, she exudes zeitgiest hottness courtesy of being daughter of Patty Hearst (techno-celebutante bastard child of sixties radicalism). We wanted a casual clubby path-crossing just for some harmless "not going anywhere" flirting. At least that's the interoffice memo going around signed Your Immature Past.

One of our better shots at "deepness through shallowness" came one autumn night in 2003 when we ended up, by way of a party hosted by natty Nolita clothier Duncan Quinn, at the Member’s Only bar at Soho House.

We're confident that this year we will get the required two members to nominate us for inclusion into the private club. Surely, Duncan is good for one.

But if you can go to the Golden Room anytime you want does it cease to be a Golden Room?