J's Birthday!

Time has gotten away from me this week yet again! It's Thursday and instead of Thankful Thursday (well, maybe later I'll add another post), I'm celebrating J's birthday!!!

                                                 The birthday boy! Isn't he so handsome :)

It was on Tuesday September 14 this week!
A tradition for the birthdays for us, involves going out to a nice (fancypants) dinner, and we always get dessert (are you shocked, these are the people who eat ice cream or popsicles on a pretty daily basis).  So this year, J's birthday fell during restaurant week!


sidenote: for some reason I thought Restaurant Week only happened in NYC...thankfully, I was wrong.

At any rate, that means that some of the nicest restaurants in town open their doors and provide a choice of several pre fixe meals (3 course mind you), for a highly discounted rate! In our case, a 3 course meal including appetizer, entree, and dessert, cost $31.10 each! Wow! Yes, you know we jumped on that bandwagon :)

J picked a lovely restaurant that even had a balcony, and I requested balcony seating since it was such a lovely night.

 A little blurry but the string of lights up there is the balcony, and we sat at a table right in the middle along the rail.

We arrived around 7:45 so it was already dark, but the air was still warm (a shocker that I didn't need my sweater but I didn't!). We sat at a table right along the railing looking out over the city. A nice little table for two with a candle (awwwww I know haha). We had both perused the menu beforehand in our emails to eachother during the day. Shockingly, they had something that wasn't too weird for my palate but still a-mazing!

I got a mache salad with radishes for my appetizer, while J got the potato leek soup (with creme fresch)! Let me tell you, my salad was good, but I tasted J's soup and WOWEE! It was like soft buttery potatoes and chives and just melted in your mouth! So smooth and delicious - really I should have gotten that but oh well, my salad was divine with its fig infused balsamic dressing :)

As an entree I had the hanger steak with fingerling potatoes (didn't want to overdo the potatoes w/ the soup too, that was also my rationalization for the salad). And J got a sea bass with a corn salsa and something else but I forget. They were both outstanding! Out-Standing! And perfectly sized for my small tummy! That's what I like about fancy places, they serve such amazing food and the perfect portions. So you're not about to explode of fullness after your meal and coincidentally, you have room for dessert.

Ooooh dessert. We both got the same thing - a butternut squash custard (with creme fresch again), accompanied by a pumpkin seed brittle and two (melt in your mouth) shortbread cookies. Let me tell you, butternut squash might be my new fave! It tasted just like pumkin pie! It. Was. Delicious!

Oh and we also got some bread (our choice of 3 styles, fresh still hot from the oven), I had a cheddar biscuit which was so good, even had some melty cheese when I opened it, along with an herb de provence butter spread (um, hi, J need to make this for us!). And J had some bread with raisins and annise (not to my liking but he liked it).

There we are at our little table for two, on J's birthday :) Such a lovely night, amazing meal, spent with the love of my life :)

ps- the dish in front of us is the butternut squash custard - YUMMMM!!!!

Happy Birthday my darling!