Kyoto's and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Had a wonderful evening out last night. Lauria and Joe watched Ifipaan, and we went out to Kyoto's for dinner.

We had excellent food and service. Jenny and Eric at Kyoto maintain the highest standards and have crafted the restaurant into something truly unique and wonderful. Our waitress, Megan was fantastic. My daughter, Lauria, had talked Eric into making Okonomiyaki for her the night before, it had Unagi and Avocado on top, and multiple sauces on the side, and when we asked, they make it for us too! Spicy Crab roll, Fried Oyster handroll, Miso, Raw Albacore Roll, lots of other goodies too. But the dessert, ah the dessert. Ice cream with maple, berries and fruit, and chocolate covered bacon. That's right, CHOCOLATE COVERED BACON!

From there it was on to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band show at HSU. What a great show. I know I seem to say that about each show we have been to this year, but it is just simply true! They played a 14 minute set of one of my favorite tunes, "St. James Infirmary". They also played their classic "When the Saints Go Marching In" finale complete with a Bourbon Street-style parade around the theatre and up onto stage where we got to watch for quite a while. Here is a iPhone photo and a video clip with a little taste of what our view was like from on-stage.

The geekiest birthday party EVAR!

What a fantastic birthday dinner and party!  Lauria cooked three different kinds of quiche for my birthday, from full-fat traditional quiche to a crustless non-fat healthy version, with a low-fat alternative quiche in the middle.  Unfortunately, I did not get pictures before we consumed them!  I tried each one, and they were all great.  We did kick around the idea of chopped jalapeños in the non-fat version next time.

The cake was great, a chocolate Ramone's Vellutini overdose.  It was so perfect to just use my @GregGehr on the cake too!  (1st and 2nd pic)

We were drinking a very pleasant California white wine, out of @Lauria's  new pre-chilled Fire and Light wine goblets, very nice (third pic).  

My presents were like mana from geek heaven.  I got the first two seasons of The Big Bang Theory, a bottle of some of the finest Nagori Sake, a R Crumb Blues calendar, tickets for an evening of Zappa plays Zappa with my daughter, and a coupon for an evening of babysitting that is worth it's weight in gold several times over. (4th pic)

We realized that every person at the party had an active twitter account.  However, we had no time to actually tweet during the party, we were too busy with Mario Kart and Katamari Forever on the big screen.  Still, I liked Joe's t-shirt, it was so appropriate (5th pic).

Thanks to @Lauria and @JoeEphemeral for the wonderful evening, and to @vurayav and @ifipaan for helping me have a great birthday!

Yet another night out...

Susan and I went out for the second of our six Center Arts shows, that are our anniversary present to each other. This time we saw Chick Corea, Stanley Clark and Lenny White. Three progressive jazz greats, that I have loved since high school in the 70s.

We had dinner at Cafe Tomo's first.

After dinner we went to Arcata Scoop and got some ice cream. As I ate my fudge ripple, I watched as the owner made the Lime Sorbet for the next day.

Then from there to the show in the Van Duser at HSU. We sat in the second row of the balcony for the first set, and moved to two empty seats in the front row of the balcony for the second set.

It was an excellent dinner, wonderful ice cream for dessert, and a great show. We should do this way more often. Of course if it was not for Ifipaan's sister, Lauria and her significant other, Joe, helping with watching Ifipaan, we probably could not do this at all.  Thanks Lauria and Joe!