Friday night all my closest local friends were taking me out to dinner at Sakagura in midtown to celebrate my birthday (which is actually today, 7/31). But to kick my weekend off, Dawg & C came up to Westchester to check out my new pad before dinner. They brought me a bottle of Pride, a wine I hadn’t had since the last time I was at Sparks steakhouse after either Jones or I lost a golf bet and had to pay for dinner, probably six years ago. So we killed off the bottle of wine while I showed them a couple of episodes of No Reservations, the Quebec episode so they could see the heart-warming raw seal carnage, and the Korea episode, so they could see Nari Kye, in case there were any doubt as to the kind of girl that would be a perfect match for me. After we finished the wine (mostly between Dawg and myself, since C was driving), we headed into the city. Sakagura carries over 200 brands of sake to go along with all manner of small dishes, and from what we sampled they are really good at it. R picked a bottle of medium dry sake which was absolutely perfect for noshing. Not overly floral, and clean without being bland. Not sure how many bottles we went thru, but there were nine of us, so it must have been a few. Since Sakagura is near Grand Central, I was able to leave the car at home for a change and drink worry-free. The food was a veritable parade of tasty treats. We opened with very respectable yellowtail and tuna sashimi, had some excellent soft shelled crab (pre-cut into quarters and claws, which is the right way to prepare it), superb little seared nuggets of medium rare beef, and a few other dishes which uncharacteristically I can’t remember the details of, partly because of all the booze and partly because of all the other eating I did this weekend. I guess I should have written my blog entry Saturday morning, but who really wants to write on the morning after a night of drinking? Anyway, it was a great night, capped off with a little dessert tray the waiters brought out as everyone sang happy birthday to me. I was really surprised they did something like that in a place that normally seems so reserved, especially because I vaguely remember that the last time we were all there we were given some uncomfortable looks for being too loud. The details of the dessert tray escape me too, although I do remember that they had written happy birthday to me in chocolate sauce around the border, and there was a delicious little kernel of what I believe was green tea ice cream in white chocolate. Thanks for a wonderful birthday dinner guys!

Saturday I had lunch with my new friend S who imposed an arbitrary $8 cap since it was our first date. Normally I would consider this a cruel and unusual restriction, but S has enough going for her that I was willing to look past that. I committed to making the best of it (turning my frown upside down as it were), and came up with Rai Rai Ken for ramen which comes in at a cool $6.95 per person. Shoyu ramen for her, Shio ramen for me and it was delicious as always (we often order delivery from there when we play poker at R&L’s). I know, I know, very strange having ramen on a day when temperatures were running north of 95 degrees! But to cool off after sweating it up at RRK, we headed across the street to Chikalicious, which we could technically do without blowing the $8 cap because K&R bought me a gift certificate for my bday. Since it was so hot out, we went with fruit themed desserts rather than chocolate. We were not disappointed. One was a parfait of some sort with thin long slices of santa claus melon draped over it. I had never heard of such a melon, but the slices resembled honeydew and the flavor was slightly more delicate. Really delicious, but the other dessert was even better- a peeled nectarine which Chika sprinkled with sugar and then seared with a blowtorch. It was firm, sweet with a hint of tartness and served alongside a refreshing basil sorbet. Simply awesome.

We dutifully surrendered our seats at the dessert bar since it was starting to get crowded and headed out to just walk around a bit. S was game for anything, and since all my favorite things to do involve food, I ended up driving us out to Eddie’s Sweet Shop in Queens for a second round of desserts. 🙂 I had the raspberry freeze and she had a cherry vanilla float. As you know, I’m a huge fan of Eddie’s thanks to Stoopid V who is currently living the high life in HK, now able to justify her culinary cravings by attributing them to her pregnancy. I told her I went to Eddie’s and she started rambling off all the things she would have ordered. Awww Stoopid V, did you want a raspberry freeze too? You did, that’s sweet. 🙂 Speaking of Stoopid V, she’s in the process of moving into their new apartment and just got a Japanese maid that sounds like her dream servant. The lady loves to serve and really gets disappointed when they don’t come home for dinner! How sweet it must be!

And finally, to round my weekend out, yesterday Twoin took me to Flemings for our usual: David Bruce petit syrah + tenderloin carpaccio + cajun ribeye + side o’ mushrooms + side o’ mac n’ cheese, and we really went over the top by finishing with a bottle of Inniskillen icewine. The waiter was so impressed by our order, he even went and got us a complimentary creme brulee. He even chased us down as we were leaving to make sure Twoin took his business card, telling us to ask for him anytime we come back. And no, since I’m sure you’re wondering, I don’t think he was trying to hit on Twoin, but who knows, my gaydar/homometer may be a little off.