Fun. Food. Fun. Food. Cake. Fun. Oh, birthdays. It's good you only come once a year.
Friday tried to kill me Sometimes I seize the day when I should really not seize it, but maybe hold it lightly and put it down often and drink more water. That day, there was a long lunch with co-workers that consisted of fun, flat pizza covered in arugula and prosciutto. And there was corn. And bottles of wine.
Then there was cappuccino. Then birthday cake. Then glasses of champagne. Basically, nothing got done Friday and when I got home that night I felt like sitting very still and quiet. Which I did - but then had a tasty dinner of spicy thai fried chicken from the place on the corner. It was tasty - but my body was like, "You did not just order spicy fried chicken!"
Birthday Saturday This is what I do. Birthdays always begin first thing with sitting in bed and opening gifts. That's how we roll. There were Cashmere socks (oh so luxe) and a really cool bathroom travel kit thing from that cool travel shop - but the coolest and most hilariously extravagant gift had to be the titanium crystal wine glasses that Mrs. Robot got me. Granted, I picked them out, so the "hilariousness" of it isn't Mrs. Robot's fault. They are huge. Oh, but first, these look like normal wine glasses but they are made from titanium somehow (no idea, don't ask me) which means they are light weight, elegant, *and* quite sturdy. You can smash hooligans on the head with them.
But, lordy. They are huge. They are so tall that they don't fit in our cabinet - which is awesome since we have plenty of extra space in our apartment. Or not.
John Ball and Number Two Saturday was also birthday #2 for John Ball Junior. We went to his party. He's about six feet tall now - which I think is tall for a two year old. He also really likes the ladies.
Dinner Jin Sushi, down on the lower east side, does not have its liquor license yet. That means I brought my own champagne. The restaurant is handsome, yet the service was spotty. At least when you had their attention, they were very pleasant, but I somehow expected a bit more from them since they weren't *that* busy. It wasn't a food preparation issue because once we ordered the food came quick. But there was a lot of waiting to place orders or to get checks or to have our table set up when we arrived.
Nonetheless, it was a very good meal. We ordered some appetizers (the vegetable gyoza, of all things, was a crowd favorite), a number of the large sushi and sashimi combo plates, and some rolls (the best being the "Tuna Fantastic" which was, surprise, fantastic). MattyJ had the Miso Black Cod (seaweed is his nemesis) and it was all savory and delicious like you'd expect.
I poured champagne the whole time which is what I like to do. We had a 1999 Clicquot Rose, Krug Grand Cuvee, a fancy California sparkling wine, and a secret Malbec and Chardonnay sparkling wine from Argentina - it all worked well with the food (there were no empty glasses or plates).
Cheapest Birthday Dinner Ever When you bring your own drink, you naturally save a bunch of dough. I believe it came out to be $32 per person, which may be the most inexpensive NYC birthday dinner I have been to in a long time.
Mina. Party. Afterwards, we rolled to the party thrown by robotkeeter Mina (aka "Mina") in honor of her boyfriend/fiancé (did I say fiancé?). Oh, there was more champagne. And vodka. And cake. So much cake. And Mrs. Robot and her ginger vodka drinks.
The Superball As you know I am a huge American football fan. We had been invited to a superball party, but it was uptown and we were lazy and Mrs. Robot wanted to make a fancy dinner, so that is what we did. She bought these little organic chicken breasts from the butcher shop (oh, butcher shop, how I love thee) and prepared it with onions and peppers and some other mystery element that I missed. She served it over polenta and we had a little greens-n-herb salad with blackberries. My contribution was an Australian Pinot Noir served in our new big-ass glasses. Delicious.
We watched the SNL from the night before with Drew Barrymore (oh, DVR, how I love thee) which was one of the better SNLs in a long time.
I poured champagne the whole time which is what I like to do.
So much cake.
