A Weekend of Birthday Decadence

Feb 16

Feb 16 A Weekend of Birthday Decadence

A birthday in Paris was a dream come true last year, but I scaled things back this time since Mike and I are officially in House Buying Mode. So I opted to indulge in some local luxury. We also both agreed to fall off the healthy eating wagon for the weekend. I started by cashing in my free Starbucks Birthday Reward for a cookie dough cake pop. They make excellent appetizers.

Then, we began the celebrations Thursday evening at Rosebud Diner. I selected a Lunch Car #773 featuring gin, lemon, and lavender syrup. Mike had a classy dry martini with a twist.

Dinner was Korean BBQ sliders and smoked chicken breast. Then, a bourbon milkshake double shot suddenly appeared, courtesy of our waitress. She also found a birthday candle behind the bar and I made a wish because that never gets old.

The next day, officially birthday, we slept in. We had a breakfast feast from Three Little Figs and Mike crafted me a birthday espresso shot with the candle from Rosebud. Properly caffeinated, we made our way into the city for some serious pampering.

My watch wished me Happy Birthday. I didn't know it could do that.

We popped in shops throughout the city and I strolled around a few perfume counters for good measure. My Scent of the Day was a spritz of Maison Francis Kurkdjian's Baccarat Rouge.

Then we waltzed over to the Boston Public Library for a proper afternoon tea in their Courtyard Restaurant. You're seated at a little table draped in pristine white linens and handed a book. When you open it to the bookmarked page, you find the tea service menu neatly tucked in. It's a subtle but lovely effect. I chose the Jade Oolong and Mike had the aromatic Winter's Tonic tea.

Then came the traditional tiered tray.

Starting at the bottom, there was roasted portobello mushroom and goat cheese crostini, lemon shrimp salad on brioche, herbed chicken salad pastry cups, somked salmon and caper on pumpernickel, traditional cucumber, and prosciutto with fig and ricotta.

Then the middle tray offered lemon meringue tartlets, chocolate sinclairs, fruited spice cakes, Earl grey shortbread cookies, and macarons (pictured at the top of this post). And crowning the top were four petite scones (plain and currant), served with blood orange preserves, lemon curd, and Devonshire cream.

Between the two of us we managed to polish off most of it. The few petit fours we could not stuff in, were stuffed into my bag for later.

After a sumptuous meal, we meandered over to the historic Omni Parker House, where our reservations for the weekend were waiting. More to come on that in the next post.