Birthday Week

My birthday might not be until Saturday, but we got the party started early.  This year I am turning 30 so it is a big one and I intend to have a fantastic birthday.  I will be spending my actual birthday with Ryan and I am sure we will have a great weekend.  Then on Tuesday my mom and step dad are coming to visit.  From the island we will be heading to mainland Portugal, Spain and then Morocco.

Like I said, we got things started a little early here.  It all started when Ryan came home from work and was craving some egg plant parmesan.  I had been searching for the card for Buzio’s earlier that day and I didn’t know where it was.  If I had been able to find that, I would have remembered that Buzio’s is closed on Mondays. 

Oh well, we headed Praia instead.  We decided to go to Garca again, which we had tried a few weeks ago.   

 

The meal started with bread.  I am sure that surprises no one.

 

Butter and cheese to go with the bread.

 

Then we ordered a bottle of wine.  This turned out to be a great recommendation by the server.  In the background you can almost tell we are looking out over the beach and the ocean.

 

As I was starting to feel the wine, I had a thought.  Oh yes, a thought!  I remembered that I ordered the boca negra and that I was almost certain this fish was served whole.  I ordered it once before somewhere else, and that was the case.  Just as I said something to Ryan like “oh no, I think my fish may have a head and bones”, this came…

 

Ryan so kindly peeled back the scales for me, but with my exposure to fish here, I was much more comfortable that I have ever been with eating a whole fish.  I did turn it around so the head was not in my face.  The fish here is often served whole because they believe this is the way it came from the ocean, so there is no reason to serve it this way.  They feel this is more natural.  Either way, the fish was really good.

Ryan had the steak Garca.  I think he ordered this last time.  The steak was fair, only because of the cut of meat and his preferences.  I love that it is served with rice, fried egg and French fries.

 

We even splurged on dessert.  These are homemade puddings, but they are slightly different from an American pudding.  Ryan ordered this one with a local cookie.

 

I went with the Oreo version.

 

Then, a coffee to end a really nice meal.  This was an awesome start to my birthday week.

 

Then when Tuesday night rolled around, Buzio’s was open, so we decided to try again for the egg plant.

These olives are one of my favorite reasons for going to eat at Buzio’s.

 

They serve garlic bread here as it is an Italian restaurant.

 

Usually, we order the eggplant parm, and even the waitress was about to order that for us, but we noticed the list of specials for the day included a spinach tortellini in a vodka sauce.

 

It sounded so good that we both ordered it.

 

Then it was really time to party.  We really splurged here with the bananas foster.  I showed this once before in another post, but we personally had never ordered this.  It is flambéed tableside.  Now we didn’t get too crazy.  We ordered one to share between us.

 

Lots of brown sugar to start.

 

Then she added the bananas.

 

Oh yum!

 

I tried so hard to get a picture of it while it was flaming, but we were sitting by the window and it was still light out so I had a hard time getting this just right.

 

 

Out came the ice cream.

 

Then it was time for the waitress to prepare the final presentation.

 

OMG, this was so good.

 

Wednesday night and Thursday night were low key.  We hung out and watched some movies.  Tonight we will be going out and then tomorrow is my birthday.  I will probably take a break from posting over the weekend, but come Monday I should be able to get pictures up from my birthday weekend.

QUESTIONS:  What is your favorite birthday memory?  What did you do this year or plan to do this year for your birthday?