Birthday Report

I promised a pictorial review for everyone who was not invited (that would be everyone) to accompany us on my birthday dining extravaganza. Bill went the extra mile to make it a very special birthday for me. I got gift cards to World Market and Target and an evening out at the Petroleum Club. He even called Chef Robert (pronounced "Ro-bare") ahead of time to arrange a sugar-free dessert. In Bakersfield, The Petroleum Club is considered a high class joint. We know it's high class because it's expensive, everything is ala carte, and the highly skilled waiters are quite snooty.


We started with a complimentary "amuse bouche," which is French for "amuse the mouth." It is a small bite before the meal begins and is meant to convey greetings from the chef de cuisine. (It's good I watch Top Chef or I would have just sat there slack-jawed saying, "Huh?" when the waiter announced that the chef wanted to present us with an amuse bouche.) It was a raw mussel on the shell with fresh herbs, capers, and a bunch of other stuff. I DO enjoy my seafood (mostly battered and deep-fried), but I decided to pass on the mussel. Bill shamed me into trying it. It was okay. Not as chewy as I feared, but kind of slippery.

Feeling very sophisticated after my triumph over the mussel (having managed to eat it without gagging) I was ready for my Caesar salad. Again, I was in for a surprise. It was A LOT of romaine lettuce with Caesar dressing, wrapped up in kind of a cookie/cracker thing. Quite tasty. Bill had French onion soup.

On to the entrees. Bill had yellow fin tuna on a bed of kale and fingerling potatoes. I had salmon with a citrus salsa in a cherry reduction. (I can really fling those cooking terms around after four seasons of Top Chef.)

Finally, the moment I had been waiting for all evening--dessert. I couldn't wait to see what Chef Ro-bare had come up with. Well...you know on Top Chef when they have to do a dessert and everyone starts whining that they aren't "pastry chefs?" Apparently, Chef Ro-bare is not a pastry chef. The dessert was lovely, but how hard is it to slap some fresh berries down into a bowl and stick a candle on it? It DID have a sugar-free chocolate birthday greeting, which was nice, but I was craving something a little more substantial. Fortunately, Alberston's does a LOVELY sugar-free cherry pie. Topped with low-fat, no-sugar Dreyer's Slow-Churned vanilla bean ice cream and you've got yourself a pretty terrific birthday dessert.

Thank you for all the lovely birthday greetings, songs and remembrances. It's good to be loved.