30th Birthday in NYC

I spent the last weekend of my 20s living it up like a rock star in NYC with some of my favorite people. I stayed at the W Hotel, we had reservations lined up all weekend for bars and restaurants, and we just generally had a great time in a world-class city.

Here is the line up from the weekend:

Friday night

Drinks at The Monday Room Wine Bar, first round of drinks of the weekend at this wine bar specializing in flights, with over 60 wines available in tasting or full glass size. Brett, Michelle, Jeff and I shared flights of white wine here before heading out for dinner. I went with a Gruner Vetliner (Austrian), a Asirtiko (Greek wine from Santorini), and a Muscadet Sevre et Maine.

Dinner at Aroma Kitchen & Wine Bar, a modern Italian restaurant where we had a section of the private dining room downstairs. To quote Brett, "this place is legit". The wine list, I mean *book*, was full of Italian wines none of us had heard before, and the staff were able to recommend some excellent choices, in particular a Sottimano Mate (Barbaresco) made from the brachetto grape. It had dried fruit intensity, but was very light bodied.

Fida, me, Maneesh and Jeff

Michelle, me, Brett and Aldi

Making a wish!

My Birthday Cheese (I had ordered a cheese plate for dessert, not thinking that they would put a candle on it!)

After dinner, we went to Pegu Club in Soho, a chill lounge with excellent cocktails where we scored a corner booth for our group and met up with my high school friend, Mike. We were all in bed by 2am, an early evening by New York standards.

Saturday

Brunch at Fig & Olive Kitchen and Tasting Bar, which was in convenient walking distance from my hotel and relatively close to Central Park where some of us wandered around for the afternoon. Eleeza was able to join us for this meal, as she was already in town for a friend's wedding.


We kicked off Saturday night festivities with champagne (thanks to Dylan for a special bottle of 1999 Bollinger that he gave me for my birthday last year) on a 40th story rooftop in the middle of Manhattan.

Dinner at Barbounia, a Mediterranean restaurant with great ambiance and another fantastic wine list. The sommelier here was excellent, and we tried a few classics such as Prosecco, Bonny Doon's Le Cigare Volant, a Rhone Valley white blend (predominantly Marsanne, Roussanne and Viognier grapes), and a Pouilly Fume. New joiners to this evening's festivities were my friend Erik and his girlfriend Sarah. We didn't get a good group shot but here is one picture of Brea, her husband Nathan and I.

We had post-dinner drinks at Flatiron Lounge, another cocktail lounge with great drinks.

On Sunday we had a group brunch at Craftbar and then we wandered around the Natural History Museum before enjoying pizza at Co. in Chelsea.

I will say it again, we had a fantastic weekend and thank you to everyone for making the effort to join me, particularly to Jeff, Brett and Michelle who flew out from San Francisco, and of course Brea and Nathan, who not only joined me in New York, but have been hosting me in Boston for a week with delicious homemade meals and an ice cream birthday cake on Monday night.