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Today is Georg's birthday! We're having a little party for him on Wed. night, but tonight we celebrated with a nice dinner out. We went to Lantern, the pan-Asian place on Franklin St. in Chapel Hill. Oh man was it good! First we shared a "hamachi tartare" appetizer, which was little chunks of raw yellowfin tuna in a silky sauce, with a little dash of wasabi and caviar. A nice balance of flavors, nothing overpowering.

Then for the main meal I had tea smoked chicken, which was wonderful. There was a distinct flavor of anise from the smoking, and I don't normally like anise, but this was blended just right with the other spices and turned out very nice. The chicken came with green beans in XO sauce, which I was interested in trying because Iron Chef Chen uses it all the time. But it was actually a bit too spicy for my taste.

Georg's entree was a special called "Six Hour Coconut Pork" or something. It was outstanding. Really tender slow cooked pork in a coconut sauce. To be honest, at the time I was wishing I had ordered it too, instead of the chicken. But now, a couple of hours after the meal, he feels overfull and I feel just right. So I think the chicken was the right call.

For dessert he had almond panna cotta with bing cherry sauce. I had a taste and it was nice and light. I had an ice cream sundae which turned out to be monstrous huge. It was hazelnut ice cream with whipped cream and chocolate sauce, on top of some weird (but good) crunchy meringuey thing. I couldn't finish it by myself, but it was really really good! The only thing wrong was that on top were a few pieces of peanut brittle, which I didn't see in the pile of whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Sticky crunchy things that are hard to chew (like peanut brittle) are very bad for my jaw, which is still sensitive from having had TMJ surgery a few years ago. Luckily I only ate one piece of the peanut brittle and then was able to pick out the rest.

For the party on Wed. I'm going to bake a cake, which I confess I'm a bit nervous about. I haven't baked in years (that whole "avoiding sugar and white flour" thing kind of took the fun out of it). But I found a recipe in Bon Appetit that sounds good, and uses blueberries which we happen to have a whole big package of.