Yesterday was the only day in the Birthday Week of Gastro-Debauchery during which I didn’t go out to eat for either lunch or dinner, or both.  In fact, I ate only non-processed foods, mostly raw veggies, the whole day.  Which is my pathetic attempt to cram healthy foods down my throat to compensate for all the crap I’m going to eat the rest of the week.  Yummy, delicious crap.

So, since today is my thirty-fourth birthday, I went to Taqueria with my Paypal for lunch as a treat.  And, wonder of wonders: we did NOT get cheese dip!  It’s really hot today and very humid, and the thought of eating hot cheese dip was unappetizing, so we went for the salsa trio instead.  Very refreshing.  Then I had a Memphis taco and a fried chicken taco.  The fried chicken taco was, well, not bad, but also not nearly as good as it usually is.  It was a big slab o’ fried chicken, badly fried.  Usually it’s smaller, well-fried pieces in the taco.  That was disappointing, but the Memphis taco totally made up for it.

Returning to the office, I found not one, but two deliveries of flowers on my desk!  What a nice surprise!  One was from Ray, of course, and the other from my parents.  (Don’t worry, Dice sends me flowers at work all the time.)  And then my office threw a little party for me with homemade brownies and cookies!  The brownies were perfectly gooey and chocolatey.  And I even get to take them home.

Tonight Dice and I are going to Sotto Sotto* for dinner.  Originally I had planned to go to La Grotta, but in the end I decided I didn’t want to drive all the way up there and would prefer to stay closer to home.  We almost never go to Sotto Sotto even though I think their food is to die for, because it’s just a little bit higher of a price point than we’re willing to throw down on a regular basis.  So it’s still a special meal for me, and let’s not forget that their pasta is really to die for, and they have a wine list that’s fantastic.  Expect a full report tomorrow!

*I shouldn’t have to apologize for a restaurant’s website, but I often feel like I should.  Folks, this particular website is all Flash and really annoying.  If it were up to me, Flash would be eradicated from the web building pantheon, but barring my total domination, I’m afraid we’ll have to deal with hideously amateurish restaurant websites for now.  Why is it always restaurants that have the worst websites?