Octavio's 38th/39th?? Birthday Dinner Party

Who can truly know anyone's stats anymore in the age of Youthful Wish Fulfillment? So we'll go along with Octavio Fenech's claim of 38 years as of last week's birthday for the sake of social decorum and polite acquiescence. As always Cafe Drake feted the Birthday Boy with a meal and party, beginning with exotic snacks of patra, South Indian rolled cassava leaves stuffed with chickpea flour, onions, apples, pears and various spices, rolled into a tight cylinder then fried in mustard oil spiked with dried chiles and icey Cava. Whew! The heavy noshes went down easily with bubbly as a starter, soon followed with Red Lentil Soup with Cumin Seeds and Lemon, crowned by homemade sourdough curried croutons.

David Sellers and Christine Hart kept palettes moist with more bubbly and crisp white wine as we tucked into a main course of Wild Flounder Fillets (carved from the fresh fish in the very PM of the dinner at our local fishmonger) broiled in an Apricot Curry Sauce, and draped atop obscenely rich coconut rice, all pals with a fresh, uncooked pineapple relish of fruit, green chiles, cilantro and red onions. Dessert was a simple butterscotch pudding emboldened with garam masala and chocolate shortbread cookies.

As befitting a birthday celebration, libations continued to flow unchecked with Greek muscat wine, more crisp white, Framboise cordials and even further bottles of bubbly. As we told Octavio and Christine upon a late departure, leaving Cafe Drake sober on a birthday is forbidden, so cheers to the celebrant and a communal lust for the Good Life of Excess. Oh, and so you don't judge us too harshly in our ritualistic inebriation (and not that we care), Marcona almonds (Thanks, Nat!) and shaved Easter chocolate rounded out a most luxurious feast.