Belated Birthday Post

Birthday lunch at Jean-Georges

Happy belated birthday to me!

I had a lovely quiet birthday celebration with Ben, my family, and another one with my friends. Ben actually started my birthday celebration a month early by giving a birthday bag full of running goodies. Along with some running clothes and a box of crunch peanut butter Clif Bars, he bought me a pink Garmin Forefunner 10.

I was absolutely delighted and thrilled because I had been wanting this Garmin for almost a year. I had been using various different apps to track my distance, pace, and time. For various reasons, the apps were becoming less convenient and I wanted a running watch. Until I found out about the Forerunner 10, I wasn’t really interested in having a running watch. I didn’t care for or need the various features the GPS watches had. I wanted a small stripped down GPS watch. The Forerunner 10 is perfect for me. I’ll write a review of my experience with it sometime, but I just want to say that I’m really happy with it. Ben gave it to me early because he wanted me to have it for the Wineglass HM.

On the day of my birthday, I went up to Westchester to see my cousin and her family. We celebrated with my favorite chocolate mousse cake from Cannelle Patisserie in Jackson Heights, Queens. Cannelle is truly an undiscovered French bakery gem in Queens. It’s located in an nondescript strip mall, but the flavors are pure heavenly delight. Everyone is always really amazed by their pastries. The chocolate mousse cake is sinfully rich, without being too sweet, and full of intense pure chocolate flavor. The texture is light and fluffy. If you live in New York, get a cake from Cannelle, you won’t regret it. If you’re visiting NY, go out to Queens. You won’t regret it either.

On Saturday Ben and I came back down to the city and went to lunch at Jean-Georges, a 3-Michelin star restaurant, near Columbus Circle. If you ever want an affordable way to dine at a 3-Michelin star restaurant, the 2-course lunch pre-fixe menu at Jean-Georges is it. Two courses for $38 is not shabby at all. A few of the plates require an additional supplement, but this is affordable haute cuisine.

Jean-Georges give you an amuse-bouche before your meal. I don’t remember everything (despite the photo), but the little nugget of deep-fried wasabi was amazingly incredible. It was perfect with the spinach ball. I ordered the “Seared Gulf Shrimp with Baby Artichokes, Lemon Fennel Emulsion and Paprika Oil” as my starter and the “Caramelized Beef Tenderloin Miso Butter, Parsley Root Puree, Brussels Sprouts” as my entree. Ben ordered the “:Sea Scallops Caramelized Cauliflower, Caper-Raisin Emulsion” and “Black Sea Bass Crusted with Nuts and Seeds, Sweet and Sour Jus.” Then I had a chocolate dessert tasting. The food was delicious. The best thing I ate was the root puree. I think it was 50% butter because it was so decadently rich, creamy, and smooth. I definitely recommend getting the tenderloin just for the puree.

Amuse-bouche

Rock Shrimp

Sea Scallops with Cauliflower

Carmelized Tenderloin with Brussels Sprouts

Black Sea Bass

Chocolate Dessert Tasting Menu

Finally this past Sunday I went out for a Sunday brunch with my friends. We have a tradition of going out for a birthday brunch whenever it’s one of our birthdays. We ate a lot, drank, laughed, and talked. And we ended our meal with birthday churros and Mexican hot chocolate. It’s hard to beat freshly made churros and chocolate. It was lovely hanging out with them for a few hours before needing to go back to work.

Birthday churros & chocolate