Yesterday was my birthday. I never do anything too crazy for my birthday. I do like to use it as an excuse to eat lots of good food, though, and this year was no exception! On Sunday night, my family and I went to Kingfish for my annual birthday dinner. I’ve written about Kingfish before so I won’t go into it too much here except to say that, man, their desserts are huge! I had heard that they were “oversized” but apparently I didn’t quite understand what this really meant. We ordered three desserts to split between the seven of us, and we would have easily been satisfied with only two (we did somehow manage to finish all three though!) The dark chocolate cake was an encyclopedia-sized slab, the cherry cobbler was served in a trough, and the strawberry shortcake was piled sky-high with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. It was truly awe-inspiring. If Robert and ever go there alone and want dessert, we may need to go in on it with another table or something. It was so good, I think it would be worth it. The cherry cobbler was my favorite.

My friend took me out for lunch yesterday at one of my favorite restaurants in the International District: Shanghai Garden. We ordered hot & sour soup, mu shu vegetables and spicy szechuan bean curd. One of the things that I love about Shanghai Garden is the table service. If you order soup, they bring it out in a big bowl and then portion it out for each person at the table. They also assemble your mu shu for you, putting the perfect amount of hoisin sauce and veggies into each pancake. I really like the way that Shanghai Garden makes their fried bean curd. Instead of using firm tofu like a lot of restaurants do, they use a soft, silky tofu. It is crispy and light on the outside but soft and pillowy on the inside. The szechuan bean curd was served in a slightly spicy sweet & sour sauce with broccoli and snow peas. We had this with brown rice which was pretty unusual; it was more of a reddish color with lots of darker kernels sprinkled throughout. It was all so good!

After so much dining out, I was more than happy to stay home for dinner on my birthday. I didn’t feel like cooking, though, so I headed down to Pike Place Market after work and picked up some items for a deluxe smorgasboard. I got a really nice piece of freshly-smoked salmon from Pure Food Fish which ended up being way more than I needed (We only ate a quarter of it. I used the rest to make smoked salmon & pickled onion sandwiches on rye tonight.) From DeLaurenti, I bought a small wedge of Taleggio cheese and another small piece of Rogue Creamery’s Smoky Blue from Oregon. If you’ve never had this cheese, you must try it! It is so unusual; it is a blue cheese that has been lightly smoked which makes it taste a little bacony. Mmmm…blue cheese and bacon. But, the true hit of the night was the Taleggio. I just love this cheese. It is kind of stinky, but its flavor is mellow and nutty. And it is so deliciously creamy. I also picked up some Rainier cherries and the last of the local asparagus, which I grilled rather successfully on my little grill pan. To drink, I served another Oregon product: A to Z Winemaker’s 2005 Pinot Blanc. It was a really fantastic wine. It was very full-bodied but without the oak that is usually associated with heavy whites. It just had a really nice, full fruit flavor. Ah, so much good food in such a short amount of time. I can’t wait for my next birthday!