Birthday-Palooza: Main Event

My birthday (Monday) was a Tale of Expansion epic enough to make Sarah proud. All eating aside, yesterday was one of the best birthdays I’ve had in recent memory, so I will try to do it justice within the limits of blog-appropriate-ness. My only complaint is that I didn’t have the day off! New York needs a Marathon Monday so that my birthday could have been recognized for the holiday that it is.

I kicked it off on a carb-y note and picked up a sesame bagel with cream cheese from one of the street carts near my office. Sketchy? Yes. Delicious? Always. I can hear you groaning from here, being that I live in the land of good bagels but deliberately picked up the dollar version in spite of that fact. I stand by my opinion, however, that sometimes you just want the ghetto version, and since I do this like, once every two years, I shall take no flack for it. The coffee was likewise lacking in quality, but you wouldn’t know it since any coffee flavor it might have once had was obscured by approximately ¼ cup of sugar. Awesome. :)

My plans for walking to 2nd Avenue for Viva Herbal Pizza were pretty much drowned by the torrential rain, so I consoled myself with 1.23 lbs of delicious from the Whole Foods salad bars. I don’t even remember what-all went into that box, but suffice it to say that it probably consisted of a taste of most everything atop a bed of fresh spinach.

And then, out of nowhere, these tarts from Garden of Eden appeared as a gift from my coworkers. Garden of Eden, how I love thee! My colleague had arranged four tarts on a plate: chocolate pear, blueberry almond, key lime and pecan pie. And of course there was a candle stuck in each one. I couldn’t decide which to choose, so I cut each tart into quarters what so we could each try all the flavors. I had a quarter of each one except the chocolate pear by the end of the day, at which point I was expanded near to capacity, but that does not keep me down, no it does not.

Uptown I went to meet the roomie at her office, at which point we trundled across town to Stir, which is a swanky martini bar on the Upper East Side.

(Apparently I still don't know how to open envelopes.)

We both chose martinis from the specialty menu with names such as “Flirt” and “Temptation.” Roomie and I were totally cracking up at the cheese factor, but then we got buzzed and it didn’t really matter anymore. :)

Me and my date...

The second round (Cosmos) may or may not have been necessary, but we ignore such things as “necessity,” “practicality” and/or “common sense” when it is our birthday.

Caught in the act:

All of a sudden it was 7:30pm already and we had to settle (sober) up and sprint a couple blocks over to Candle Café, where we met the boyf for dinner. Luckily, I was definitely not so buzzed that I couldn’t enjoy my dinner, because I have been wanting to try this place for so long and it did NOT disappoint!

We ordered the Seitan Chimichurri Skewers to start with, but by the time I pulled out my camera, this was all that remained:

Maybe we were a little hungry?

My entrée was the Porcini Crusted Seitan, while roomie and boyf ordered from the specials menu. I tasted both of their dinners (birthday girl’s prerogative), and while I couldn’t tell you what their dishes were called, I CAN tell you that one was tempeh, one was tofu and both were fabfabfab.

And for dessert, I barely even glanced at the menu because my destiny was to at long last eat a slice of Candle Café’s carrot cake. The roomie shared the same destiny, but the boyf had to be all different and stuff by ordering the chocolate mousse pie. Actually, it was really good, so I’m glad he did. :)

And here is the birthday girl in the most-struck pose of the day:

Fin.

Wait, un-fin! An extra-special present was waiting for me upon my reluctant return to the apartment:

Maple Nut Oaties from my personal cookie monster, HEAB! Complete with the recipe and everything. I immediately devoured two as my dessert's dessert. This is another extra-generous and above-and-beyond gift from a fellow blogger, and I certainly owe Heather big-time, especially since this batch of oaties must have made a big dent in her almond butter, and we can't have that.

After all the goodness (and badness, tee-hee) that went in my belly yesterday, I woke up not hungover from the booze, but from the food! I was STILL FULL! I can't say it's the most pleasant of sensations, but it was certainly worth it in a once-a-year kind of way. Indeed, I had a great birthday and I owe it to my amazing friends and family, as well as a certain bit of extra-timely good news, which I look forward to revealing in a future post. I am spoiled right proper! 26 might just be bearable after all.