Tag Archives: birthday presents

I didn’t know “amusé bouche” meant “loud mouth.”

14 May

Alan’s birthday is coming up, so we decided to celebrate it properly while we were in London. As a foodie (and Food Network addict), he gets a semi-chubb for Chef Gordon Ramsay, so it was on his bucket list to eat at one of Ramsay’s restaurants. Thus, Alan made a reservation for us to have lunch at Claridge’s, and I picked up the tab. That’s how birthdays work.

We both did the five-course tasting menu, paired with wine flights for 55 pounds each. I’ll leave the nuanced food descriptions to Alan since he took copious notes (more on that shortly), and instead just share a couple quick observations.

But first, in case you don’t know who Gordon Ramsay is, this flowchart of his show (Hell’s Kitchen) created by Cracked.com should help serve as a primer:

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You would see, the perfect gift would be from me…

24 Sep

Since I moved into my new place three months ago, I’ve had only one complaint: my upstairs neighbors charge around like water buffaloes at all hours of the night, squeaking the floorboards above my bed to such an extent that I’ve developed insomnia.

I’ll skip the back-story (mainly because it’s boring), but a few weeks ago we invited said-neighbors down for a glass of wine with the hopes of having a friendly discussion about their floor.

Somehow, one glass of wine turned into several bottles, and my couch turned into a confessional for my neighbors (two gay men who are partners in their early 40s). They started opening sentences with, “You don’t know this about me, but…”

By far, the best admission of the night was when Jude revealed that he had not only dated women in his not-so-distant past, but also then went on to profess his skill at (and enjoyment of) certain decidedly STRAIGHT sexual activities.

They were also into astrology, so we learned that Michael is a Pisces and Jude is a Cancer. Now if only Jude had proclaimed himself to be a paleontologist. I think I could’ve surprised him with the perfect birthday present:

Somehow, I think that if Jude started sporting that shirt, I might only have to tolerate ONE set of footsteps above me each night. On second thought, it’s not a BAD plan, even if he’s not into dinosaurs.

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