Cafe Drake's Birthday Extravaganza

It all began at Cafe Drake with a toast of Champagne Cocktails and toasted pecans and almonds and much good cheer! Soon we piled into cars and headed for Bushwick's Roberta's restaurant, where we sipped on an endless variety of red and white wine and sampled lardo with pickled red onions, pork jowl terrine with toast points, a cheese plate of local artisinal unpasteurized goat and sheep delicacies, wilted red oak lettuce with lardons of bacon, an assortment of sliced heirloom tomatoes and Hen of the Woods mushrooms sauteed in olive oil.

Numerous hand-crafted and wood oven-fired pizzas followed, including two favorites of roasted tomato and mozzarella and fresh basil and the cunningly named Young Carlo - a fiesta of White Pesto, Ricotta Fiore and pickled tomatoes.

Further drinks back at Cafe Drake included cognac, Calvados, unfiltered vodka, espresso, Coca-Cola cake courtesy of Natalie Sellers and much, much more.