birthday feast 1.0

Since it's my birthday(and my dad's) we spent the whole day doing my/our favorite thing, EATING. It was an embarrassing orgy of food. My family devoured a massive pile of dim sum at Dim Sum King in Daly City. The table was buckling under the weight of steaming shrimp dumplings, BBQ pork buns, sesame seaweed and a host of other dim sum delicacies. We had ordered so many different dishes that there was scarcely room to even put our chopsticks down! Initially we had planned to enjoy a day in SF perhaps going to the Opera in the Park or maybe the Cal Academy Museum, but all our best intentions were waylaid by the crippling food coma we experienced after our gluttonous feast. Oh, but the day does not end there...

After taking a leisurely nap to stave off the food coma from lunch, we ventured outside to continue the birthday feast. Our destination was the Embarcadero Ferry Building where my new favorite casual restaurant, Il Cane Rosso recently opened. I had visited this Italian outpost and had a swoon worthy beef bollito sandwich with a cherry tomato preserve and dandelion greens for lunch so when I heard that they were doing a fixed price three course meal for $25 on Sundays, I happily used my birthday as an excuse to try it.

The hubby and I met some friends for the communal style Sunday dinner. As the sky increasingly darkened and the rain splattered on the sidewalk, we sat outside taking a moment to note the great view of the Bay Bridge. It was a refreshing change of pace to not be handed a menu to mull over. Instead we paid our $25 and headed to our table. Our menu was simple but hinted of the Fall's upcoming bounties. The meal began with a Marquita Farm Sugar Pumpkin and Lentil Salad with a sherry vinaigrette. It was delicious and left me with a growing excitement for the upcoming course. Our main course was a Spit-Roasted Fennel and Orange Rubbed Porchetta accompanied with Sumer Squash drizzled with House-made Lemon Oil with Mint and Dirty Girl Fresh Cannellini Beans with Vegetable Sofrito. Each element of the course was tasty and simply served in family style bowls and platters. If I closed my eyes I can almost imagine ourselves back in Pomaia enjoying this same meal amongst the rows of olive trees. The meal was capped off with warm Pink Lady Apple Cobbler with an Almond Crumble Topping. I opted to pair my dessert with Il Cane Rosso's soft serve vanilla ice-cream, it was unsurprisingly a winning match.

Both of my birthday meals were delightful in each of their own ways, but what really set them apart from many other meals was that they were shared with family and friends who so graciously allowed me to bask in the warmth of their birthday well wishes. I couldn't have wished for a better way to spend my birthday :)