Since I had pretty much done what I thought was all my birthday partying and eating over the weekend, I hadn’t confirmed any definite plans for my actual birthday. So I spent most of the day not being completely positive what I was going to be doing, complicated by technology problems like my friend’s phone not being charged and the fact that I’m a moron and still haven’t read the manuals for my new phone and headset, so I was apparently missing or disconnecting a bunch of calls. Finally by 8p I had everything sorted out and despite offers to be taken out again by various friends (thanks again everybody!), I decided I wanted shabu shabu and to meet up with P, whom I hadn’t seen in probably over 5 months. We intended to just keep it mellow and grab a quick dinner at Shabu Tatsu when I discovered she had never had shabu shabu before. Oh boy, we all remember our first, don’t we? 🙂 Since it was a school night, I opted to just drink sake since I know that in absence of Heineken Light, sake is the only thing I can drink to excess without getting a hangover the next day. I don’t even know what brand it was, but it was goooood. The perfect sake flavor profile for my taste, especially with food. It was a bit on the lighter side, a clean rice flavor, semi-dry with absolutely no astringency. Still on my kimchee bender of late, I had to do my double order- one assorted kimchee and one chinese cabbage kimchee. The waiter dutifully pointed out to me that the assorted kimchee already has chinese cabbage kimchee. *duh* What do I look like, some sort of baggage handler? Of course I knew that, just bring it on!

I didn’t really touch my salad because the beef came out right away and I just wanted to dig into it. I was a little concerned at first because I recall P’s chopstick skills were practically nonexistent when we went to Morimoto back in February. She must have spent the last five months up in the mountains practicing in the 36th chamber of Shaolin or something because she was actually able to pick up the meat and dunk it on her own. Ok, so she wasn’t exactly Pat Morita with the chopsticks, but still, it was serviceable. Seeing as I didn’t have to worry about her anymore, I told her she’d have to fend for herself because I was about to go to town on the beef myself. Damn good as always. Just what I wanted for my birthday. P went nuts with her first bite, an expression I hadn’t seen in quite some time! I can’t even remember the first time I had shabu shabu, but I’m sure it felt exactly like what I saw on P’s face. 🙂 Shabu Tatsu was really “on” last night. The beef was so good that we ended up ordering another plate after we killed off the first! That’s my kind of eating baby! So much meat in fact, that we had to get them to add water back into our hotpot because we hadn’t turned down the heat and the broth had boiled down to nothing. So we finished off the meat, had our noodles, and after that we still had room for their superb green tea ice cream which P also flipped out over. I’m pretty sure I’ve written about it before, but good green tea ice cream has to taste like green tea, complete with the hint of bitterness. Shabu Tatsu’s is exactly that, not the over sweetened Americanized crap you find elsewhere. A terrific close to a great meal. Happily sated, we closed out the evening by taking the short walk over to Angel’s Share where we stuck to the sake theme and P bought us a few more rounds of sake (Otokoyama this time) before calling it a night. A very pleasant night it was and a great way to end my birthday festivities. Thanks P!