Santana Row - I headed down south yesterday, to meet Netty for lunch and a day of shopping. While the Stanford Shopping Center has always claimed to be the premier mid-Peninsula/South Bay shopping destination, a new rival has cropped up. San Jose is finally moving to prove the truth of its self-proclaimed title as "Capital of the Silicon Valley" with the introduction of an ultra-upscale new live/shop lifestyle center called Santana Row.

With high class retail outposts like Tiffany and Kennth Cole already across the street at Valley Fair (sorry, I'm getting my branding wrong, that's Westfield Shoppingtown Valley Fair), Santana Row really had to pull out all the stops with luxury stores like Burberry and Gucci. They've also got fine dining options nailed, with new locations of established and well-regarded restaurants like Yankee Pier, the Bradley Ogden take on New England cozy. The food was excellent, even if the execution seemed to have many wrinkles still to be worked out.

Nevertheless, it's nice to see that even in these rough times in the tech economy, somebody is willing to shop. Especially after the center experiened major fire while still under construction last summer.