AfterTaste (by Sherry)

Another year passes since my last birthday. What have I learned in this additional year of wisdom?

A lot, but that’s not what this post is supposed to be about so I’ll just keep all those sage secrets to myself.

Alright, here are two:

1. When you’re too lazy to wash your hair, straight ironing it instantly makes it look, not only clean, but also like you got a professional blow out. Ha!
2. Fried calamari is one of the simplest and yet most impressive dishes to make for guests.

The most grueling thing about my birthday this year has been the fact that I just got sick two days ago and will probably still be sick on Monday, February 25, my birthday. Oh yeah, and the big decision of what restaurant to celebrate my birthday at! This year things are a little different. This blog has placed a unique sense of pressure on my decision. It matters so much…at least in my head it does. Do I go romantic and sumptuous? Do I go classic and elegant? Do I go fun and brand new? Where and what do I go?

For dinner with my family I decided to go with Porcão, the Brazilian style churrascaria, on Park Avenue. You know, the kind that has the green and red chip to signal to the meat men to either bring more meat or to stop coming over and watch out for the projectile vomiting. Fun, right? Plus, I love any restaurant concept that involves game tokens. My friend Aline, a lovely Brazilian, gave the restaurant two thumbs up. Can’t get a better endorsement than that. The busy, whirling carnival-like atmosphere of a churrascaria is exactly what I wanted for my family, a place my sister and I could speak at our normal volumes without being thrown out. Oh yeah, and we also just really love meat.

I still had to tackle where to have my dinner with Matt. The problem was there are a million restaurants I really want to go to, but none that I’m DYING to go to. Finally I thought, hey, I don’t have to go to a brand new restaurant, but maybe a new experience would work. So I made a reservation for an omakase meal with Gari himself at his new outpost, Sushi of Gari 46. I’ve lived near the original Sushi of Gari my entire life, but didn’t discovered it until a long time after it opened (~3 years ago; a long time when you consider it’s a stone’s throw away). It’s supposedly a religious experience to curl up vulnerably in Gari’s impeccably skilled hands and say, anything goes. If his regular sushi is any indication, I was ready to be whisked away on a cold of buttery tuna. But then I caught a cold and I’d rather not insult a genius by slathering every delicate piece of sushi he hands me with eight gallons of soy sauce just so I’ll taste something through my mucus-y haze. Ah well, another day, another Gari…

So then I thought, alright, I’m too sick to taste the subtle flavors of Japanese cuisine, but I can still taste. Then it dawned on me. There was a restaurant I’ve been very anxious to try (not dying, but close enough): Perilla, with its endearingly gruff part-owner, the shy Top Chef himself, Harold Dieterle, and those spicy duck meatballs we’ve all read so much about. I hope the meal is as enjoyable as I’ve heard it can be and I won’t have to tell him to please pack his knives and give us our money back. Reservation canceled due to illness. Damn it.