It's That Time of Year When I Start Thinking About My Birthday

Well, really, I started thinking about it even earlier this year, as I was trying to decide on just where exactly I wanted to be. For the past few years, it's been an easy decision - call up my friend Brad, and make reservations at a vegetarian-friendly, fancy-pants restaurant in Toronto, like Susur, or Perigee.

This year, I realized that I was in an interesting position that I've never been before. Hell, I'm living in a foreign land, which means that traveling to places that I've always wanted to try was all of a sudden a bargazillion times easier to do. Straight off the bat, visions of The French Laundry played through my head, for a while, until I realized that flying from the mid-west to the west coast was probably a task better taken when winter was a mere memory.

I decided that heading back to Chicago, a place I really do love so (and not just because of the head-sized vegetarian burritos, The Green Zebra, or Charlie Trotters) , wrangling Lisa and Matt into being my guess for dinner, and grabbing a table at Moto would be a most excellent course of action.

Yup, Moto. Molecular gastronomy? Don't mind if I do!

A week after making reservations for February 23, Chef Homaro Cantu appeared on Iron Chef America. And won. And made me even more delighted about my choice.

Seriously, now, Feb 23 cannot come soon enough.