Birthday week!

I love birthdays. I love them so much that I rarely ever confine the celebration to the literal day of birth. This Wednesday is Harbor's birthday, and we've started his b-day celebration week off right!

I surprised him with a trip up to St. Augustine last night, and it was a blast! The original plan was to head to Nalu's for fish tacos, walk around a bit and grab paletas at The Hyppo for dessert. Turns out, Nalu's wasn't open (or maybe they just have shorter winter hours?) so at first I thought we may have to hop over to our staple restaurant Pizzalley's, but THEN I was struck by a genius idea. And off to The Floridian we went!

The Floridian is the cutest little restaurant that serves local, seasonal and sustainable ingredients and seeks to support community farmers, producers, etc. You can tell because the flavors are so intense, and surprisingly, the prices are way inexpensive for the quality and portion size. Plus, they have the most creative menu ever, and it's constantly changing with the seasons to ensure freshness.

I enjoyed a glass of red wine in their bar (past "The County Line" -- literally, the restaurant sits on the country line and since it's too expensive to get a liquor license for both parts of the restaurant, you have to walk to the back bar and enjoy your drink) before we were seated. We had fried green tomato bruschetta for an appetizer, then enjoyed some of the local catch for dinner. Harbor had fish n' grits (polenta cheese cakes, sheepshead, and fancy collard greens in a beet sauce), and I had a cornbread stack (blackened sheepshead, a HUGE piece of yummy, cake-y cornbread and pickled veggies) and a side salad. Portions are huge there, so don't expect to go home hungry at all.

Then we walked just down the road and got paletas at The Hyppo -- a new, very popular gourmet popsicle joint. Paletas are Mexican popsicles, traditionally made with tons of fresh fruit and spices. They are so dang good. Last night I got "honey honeydew" (blended fresh honeydew with real honey) and Harbor got "horchata." (Probably in honor of Vampire Weekend.)

All in all, we had a blast. Had some quality time chatting in the car, scrumptious food, amazing desserts, and lots of cute moments.

He doesn't know what I'm cookin' up the rest of this week in celebration of 25 years of Harbor. So, to be continued... :)

K