Table for one: Herschthal ranks the best places to dine solo

It takes a little pride, but trekking down Nassau Street in search of a worthy dinnertime table for a party of one isn't such a rare occurrence here in Princeton. It's a town with plenty of eateries that pray on the palettes of single students in search of the next best thing to sex — food.

Wild Oats, Panera Bread and Sakura Express were my top choices after my single experience. The three places made the cut because they had menus exciting enough to substitute first-date small talk. I also chose these local restaurants because the ambience made having a companion unnecessary.

For single diners, Wild Oats takes the cake. Princeton may have a fairly homogenous dating scene, but at the natural supermarket located on Nassau Street, variety is in no short supply.

There's a salad bar — containing everything from a GORP-like trail-mix to a stir-fry of soba noodles and wheat gluten. There's also a deli, bakery and a bountiful prepared foods section. I'll take curried tofu with soy and lima beans, or a wheatberry rice pilaf with dried cranberries over feigned interest in my date's sob stories. Wild Oates has some real culinary treasures, in a reasonable price range of $7-$10, that I would never have considered if I had a date along with me. Who wants to take a date to a supermarket?

If aesthetics is what you're looking for, then Panera Bread is the way to go. The décor is the chic, but now so redundant style of Starbucks — caramel-colored wood paneling, lush sofa chairs, mini-coffee tables perfect for a soup, salad or sandwich. There are plenty of small tables where single people flock for the coffeehouse feel and maybe the complimentary wireless internet access. With the constant grinding and slurping of the cappuccino machines, it'd be tough to create an aura of romance with those noises in the background, which makes it easy to slip into this place in solitude. I had the Fandago salad — romaine lettuce, gorgonzola cheese, walnuts, a morsel of cold chopped chicken breast, topped with a tasty but typical fat-free raspberry vinaigrette — and vegetarian black bean soup. The food lacks flair, but the scene is what matters for this experiment. There's safety in numbers for the single diner and with many small tables at Panera, you'll feel both cozy and calm. Let the jazz music wash over you as you get into that novel you've set aside for a while.

Sakura Sushi Express fits the bill. Tucked away in a corner on Witherspoon just off Nassau Street, Sakura — like many elusive women — plays hard to get. The interior looks like a hybrid of a country-home bathroom and dining hall cafeteria line — pale floral-patterned wall paper, tiled floors, little trinkets on cupboards lining the walls combined with an open sushi kitchenette and mini salad bar. It's temping to go for one of their traditional entrees — perhaps a shrimp teriyaki or chicken katsu and shumai — but don't. All the hot foods are prepared in the back kitchen where the patron is right to wonder about the going's on in there. Instead, go for straight-up sushi. It's entertaining for the singleton to watch the chef prepare your order at the sushi bar and listen to him chat with the regulars. Or, I distracted myself from my overly salty teriyaki, by watching the "Seinfeld" rerun airing on the TV.

At Sakura, my rainbow roll was outstanding — crab, cucumber and roe wrapped in fresh tuna, salmon, yellowtail and whitefish and topped with a sweet eel sauce. My other favorite was the dragon roll — warm, crispy eel, cucumber and roe wrapped in slender slices of bright green avocado. The sushi however comes at a standard sushi price — these two rolls averaged $8 each. Pricey, but so is sushi.

And so is a date.