A Bazaar Birthday

J surprised E with a most amazing birthday dinner!

E has been a fan of Jose Andres since her bridesmaids' tea at Tres earlier this year.

Yes, she's the kind of tasteful and classy lady who licks her fingers at teatime

Anyway, we started with cocktails...

...then moved onto these guys.

"Modern" tapas with all kinds of awesome surprises. Burrata + Japanese peaches + hazelnut....YUM

Mmm, FOAM

We also sampled some more traditional tapas...

Best thing ever!

...And a paella that was both modern and traditional.

Instead of rice, it was made with thin noodles that were cut, cooked, fried, dehydrated and rehydrated. We waited forever for this - our waiter said the chef had messed up the first one and was taking his time to get the second one right.

Needless to say, we were stuffed. But we couldn't resist dessert at the Patisserie. We walked over, admired the goodies and some art on display for about two seconds, then snuggled into the couch to plot our next move.  

Our 4-hour-long meal ended perfectly with a "nitro coconut island" (a cross between a merengue, panna cotta and ice cream?) and a lemon-poppyseed "light cupcake."

Getting older sucks...but a thoughtful and perfect surprise definitely softens the blow!

Magnolia Bakery

NYC's Magnolia Bakery recently opened and, even though cupcakes aren't really our thing, we just had to check it out. It really was a team effort because parking on West 3rd was an ordeal as usual, so one of us had to dodge the parking police while the other dashed in to grab some goodies.

The bakery itself is so feminine and cute that it's almost scary...it definitely worked out for the better that J stayed with the car.

All kinds of baked goods and cutesy stuff perfectly on display.

We quickly selected a couple of treats then dove into them at home.

Surprisingly, Magnolia's claim-to-fame cupcake was just ok. It seemed a bit too dense and dry, but again, we're not cupcake connoisseurs. The coconut cake, however, was great -- super rich, moist and covered with a light meringue. Maybe even parking ticket worthy!

LoveFat, Coast to Coast

This week, J was back East for 15 meals 5 days. Fortunately, we were both in great company and had some great dining adventures...LoveFat did not suffer.

From J - some comfort food from Satay Malaysian Cuisine.

Noodles, bamboo shrimp rice, lamb curry, pineapple chicken curry

NYC and the World Trade Center

From E - a pre-show picnic from Shoop's, a German deli.

Tofu wrap

The "Clevelander" - a corned beef sandwich with housemade sauerkraut and all kinds of other fixings

To round things out - a fruit salad and these peanut-flavored corn puffs

And for dessert - some sweet sweet music

Double the Love Fat

We are kindred spirits with B+A. One day, we're going to live in the same South County gated community, shuttle each others' kids to school in matching minivans and argue over who has the better lawn. In the meantime, we get to bond over sports (for the boys) and food (for the girls) every now and then.

It's hard to get together regularly, so every double date is a momentous occasion. This evening was no exception, marked by a visit to House of Big Fish and Ice Cold Beer in Laguna Beach.

We started off quite civilized, with chips, salsa, and some drinks to accompany our exchange of pleasantries.

Beer for a boys, a margarita for E and this cute little drink with a gummy shark in it for A!

Then it was time to get down to business. First, we thoroughly confused our waiter with our long and unusual order. When the food was ready, the madness continued as the waitstaff scrambled to figure out which dish should go where -- and how it would fit -- on our table.

Why? Because of this:

This wasn't all -- we also had a huge plate of shrimp scampi pasta

It would've made perfect sense for the four of us to share seven tapas-sized dishes...but no. These were full-size appetizers and entrees, and the boys were only "allowed" to eat the two items on the far left. The girls appropriated everything else. 

In the end, we were happy and full, and had enough leftovers for the next day's lunch. But because this was a night of epic proportions, we weren't finished just yet.

During a stroll around the Village, we stumbled upon some gelato and just couldn't help ourselves.

Hazelnut, chocolate, plum, pistachio

As we lingered over delicious gelato and conversation on this cool summer night, it was obvious that the only thing better than LoveFat is...LoveFat²!