Birthday

We recently celebrated Hideaki's birthday, and Shuma gave him the best present he's able to give: a whole day of very good behaviour.

For the actual birthday there was an ice cream cake, which looks awful here because we forgot to take a picture before eating it.

But it was delicious and was addressed in way Hideaki has never been cake-addressed before. I was afraid he'd think it was cheesy but he loved it. Shuma was his usual fussy self- the good behaviour was on another day (we like to stretch our birthdays out).

A few days later we had lunch at Girandole at Park Hyatt, which is kind of a fancy place so we were prepared to bolt at the first sign of fussiness, but it never happened. I wish we were always so lucky.

I started with salmon rillette and mixed greens with passion fruit sauce. It was really lively and fresh but would have been better with a few more of those crispy bread things to scoop up the salmon with.

My main course was pan fried kurodai (black sea bream) with Herbs with chive sauce, which was perfectly cooked and very tasty.

Hideaki had sirloin with Lyonnaise potatoes and Bourguignon sauce, also nicely cooked and delicious.

Dessert was next door at Peak Lounge, where Shuma started to get a bit wiggly but still well under control.

This was the same place we had high tea at last year near the end of my pregnancy, and Hideaki was tickled that we now had before and after pictures.

I had a blueberry tart and iced latte, Hideaki had a mochaccino and tiramisu, and Shuma had a few of our berries.

We stopped by the neighboring Shinjuku Chuo Park to reward Shuma with a little playtime. My sister-in-law tells me their grandmother used to live nearby and that they used to come here all the time as children. When I told Hideaki that he used to play here he was like "We were homeless?" That's exactly the kind of image this park has, but it turns out to have a really nice playground, complete with a splash pool.

We weren't dressed for the pool, but we did find one thing of interest:

That's right, a baby swing! Finally!

It's actually more of a toddler swing and he is way too small for it and probably was in danger of flying out of it, plus we had to wait our turn and then finish quickly because a whole bunch of other people wanted to use it. Maybe they should think about putting in a few more?

But we can't complain, finally finding a baby swing was a great end to a great day.

Comments

[David]

Excellent! I hope you enjoyed that blueberry tart. I had planned to have one myself today. Would those be Nerima blueberries, by chance?

[kat]

happy belated birthday hideaki!

[Perfect Radiance]

String Something? Something Bean? It's been about 8 or so years since I've last seen one, so I'm sorry I can't help you further. ... Then again, that's if we're on the same page.

[Lili]

Shuma est de plus en plus mignon! En effet quel beau cadeau pour son Papa d'être si sage au restaurant!
Tout ça est bien appétissant!
Trés bon anniversaire à Hideaki... même un peu en retard!

[LonelyBob]

The cake still looks delicious with a slice (or two) out of it if I do say so myself. Plus we get to see what the inside looks like also, looks yummy!

[j-ster]

Oh! You beat me to it! I just saw my nephew in that exact same swing, and came over to post a link to it, and here is Shuma already in it! Glad you found it, and here is the link anyway!

http://www.keitaigoddess.com/index.php/site/entries/swinging_boy#comments

[web design London]

I had planned to have one myself today. Would those be Nerima blueberries, by chance..