Birthday Fun Times c/o Buffalo Billiards, Han Dynasty and Yakitori Boy

My birthday fell on a Tuesday this year, which isn't really ideal for a night of celebration given the propensity for the people I know to have jobs that require them to use their brains effectively on weekday mornings. So I sent out a call to birthday arms for the Saturday preceding the actual day of my birth. It was sort of a two-pronged call. To a slightly  more select group I suggested dinner and to a broader, more dart-loving group I suggested darts before that dinner. This was all a bit more last minute than might have been ideal, but I was still really pleased and grateful for the turn out...nothing worse than inviting folks to your own birthday celebrations and finding yourself totally alone. L. and Fat T. came down from Brooklyn a bit before our first scheduled activity. I made a little cheese plate and L. and I drank champagne while Fatty and A. drank beer. We all threw some darts. Then it was on to Buffalo Billiards, where our numbers soon allowed us to take control over all three boards.

Mr. Ass couldn't make dinner, but we did play a game of darts. It was a funny mix between the true blue darters and some of my less dart savvy friends. The majority of darters are legitimately better than me, and usually when I played them I lost. Meanwhile the friends who aren't throwing darts on a daily or weekly basis were quite impressed by my prowess. My dart ability: a sliding scale of awesome based solely on others' own abilities.

After a good amount of time playing the darts, it was time for our rather late dinner reservation at Han Dynasty's new Old City location, just down the block from its old one. I basically ordered for all of us after hearing certain suggestions or desires from the crowd. So our meal ultimately included dumplings in hot chili oil.

Cucumbers in hot chili oil...these suckers are sooo good .

Dan Dan Noodles. Not everyone ordered a sazerac, but I did and I loved it.

This was the cumin lamb.

This was L. reacting to her imminent turn getting the cumin lamb as A. scoops some on his own plate.

I think this is Fatty and LW with the eggplant.

Yep. Succulent, savory eggplant. Love it.

This was either the kung pao chicken or the garlic chicken,

I think this was the twice fried fish maybe?

String bean magic.

Pepper scallops if I recall correctly. SO GOOD.

The dinner was quite lovely and I was so pleased to share my birthday with such fun and funny folks. After that C. and R. went home while Fatty, L., LW, A. and I decided that we would try to do some karaoke at Yakitori Boy, which we did. I sang a Tom Petty song. We also just sang along with all the other people singing. A.'s gf G. joined us and the night went late.

Sake bombs did happen.

I don't really know what's happening in this photo except that LW and I both look quite taken aback, but from different things.

I'm a homebody for much of my daily, weekly or monthly existence, and the older I get the more okay I am about it...that said, every once and a while it's good to have an evening full of folks and fun, and this was certainly such an evening. A hearty thank you goes out to all who partook in my pre-birthday fun times!