You always get sick on your birthday
Mrs. Robot said I’m always sick on my birthday. I’m not sure that is true. I need to go back through the archives at the happyrobot and see.
That said, I’m a tad under the weather this week.
Not to go into the details, but last week was a nutso week as far as health and doctors and medicine and my general well-being. We think I had some sort of flu, but it disappeared 24 hours later, so now it’s just the sneezy thing.
But, back to the birthday/sick concept: my birthday is in February and this is the northeast and it’s been cold and miserable and people stay inside and yea, you are often sick.
Squirrel Race War
As I write this, there is a total race war going on outside my window between the grey squirrels and the lone black squirrel. Stupid racist squirrels.
Birthday Dinner
This was a quiet birthday weekend. Last night, Mrs. Robot took me out to dinner at Soto, a little sushi restaurant in the West Village. Soto is the restaurant of chef Sotohiro Kosugi and was originally based in Atlanta for about 11 years. I took my brother and his wife there years ago and we had an outstanding dinner. In 2008, he moved up to the Big Stink and has a handsome little place on 6th avenue. No sign out front - it looks like an art gallery.
It’s serious sushi. For real. If your idea of sushi is only rolls, then you might be disappointed (that said, they have rolls as well). The menu is heavy on sea urchin - that’s kind of his thing.
They do an omakase for about $130 per person that takes at least 2.5 hours.
We bravely chose our own dishes (although the omakase would probably have been the same price when it all worked out (ouch)).
This is what I recall.
- Half bottle of Champagne
- Miso soup with uni and soy broth and lobster. Holy moly. What’s that... the unami thing? Yea. It was all up in that junk.
- Eel with this amazing reduced soy sauce
- Tempura sea urchin
- Sea urchin with a quail egg
- Sea urchin with something else
Then the dish that just killed. The photo above. Lobster with roe/caviar on top as well as an uni mousse. Dig down under the lobster and there was more uni, but there some sort of truffle influence happening. Google images has done of versions of this photos. Apparently I’m not alone in being smitten by this dish.
After that, there were 12 courses of sushi (every single damn piece was stupendous) and then a deceptively spectacular tuna roll (it was not your dad’s tuna roll).
Wonderful dinner.
I will add that the vibe there is pretty serious. I felt like I was 18 years old and eating out for the first time with my high school date. Serious. Also, the staff is constantly communicating in this unusual way - gauging the progress of each table.
“Table 4 - 85%!”, the woman would exclaim to the chef.
Also, because we sat out the bar, we were very privy to the chef’s frustration with one table who was taking their sweet time ordering food. The chef may be a bit too free with his opinions of his diners.
Finally, not to make fun of people (wait, no, I totally am), but if you order bottled water in NYC you instantly get a ‘chump’ badge in my book. C’mon. We have the best water.
Oh, yea. Birthday robot.
Happy Birthday Website!
Many years ago I built this with my own two hands. It’s still here.
The happyrobot e-book will come out this year and we’ll have a book signing party and I will sign your ipad.
