Ok, so I didn’t really celebrate my birthday in Chef Burke’s actual kitchen, but I did celebrate my birthday with my girls at Chef David Burke’s SoHo restaurant at The James Hotel, called David Burke Kitchen. Although we arrived an hour later than our reservation, stupid NY/NJ traffic, but when we got there we were immediately seated as they checked our coats. As soon as we made our waitress aware that we were celebrating my birthday, she returned with complimentary raw oysters topped with champagne foam and caviar. I thought that was so thoughtful, and knew that I was going to have a great evening celebrating with friends.

For my appetizer, though I am trying to get right for the summer, I couldn’t resist trying bone marrow for the first time ever, and well, I didn’t regret it and I still don’t. Can you tell I was eager, the picture is blurry because I was rushing to dig in. They call the dish Ants on a Log, with snails, garlic and pickled mushrooms… AMAZING!!

For my main entree, I decided on halibut, and it was brought to the table and looked like a huge piece of birthday cake, I had never seen such a large piece of halibut.

And finally the best part of the meal was the dessert for an army, called Monkey Bread. I…. just look at the picture.

They serve the monkey bread in a tin like you get cookies in, and it is eewwy and gooey, and of course you have to top it with the fresh whipped cream. What is even more special is they prepared it on the plates table side, so it still looked nice on our plates.

Dinner was finished off with a complimentary champagne toast…Happy Birthday to MEEE!