As far as birthdays go, I'm a very simple, no fuss kind of girl. Loud parties marked with an abundance of booze, free food and wasted bodies gyrating to dance music are not really my kind of thing, as these usually lure people you really don't want to spend your birthday with. I think the last time our family hosted a huge birthday party was when I turned 7 and my brother turned 1 (yes, we do have the same birth date, which can be kind of annoying when you're a kid who doesn't want to share the attention and the budget for gifts, mind you). From that time on, our family celebrated birthdays with simple meals and a lot of cheesy togetherness.
For my mom's birthday this year though, my dad wasn't with us for work reasons. Being the eldest and all, I took the initiative to fund my mom's birthday brunch. My family is kind of hard to feed because of our varying preferences, but the one thing that we all actually agree on is good dessert, so off to Banapple we went (this was last November 21, but I procrastinated blogging about it for a month!).
Insalata Rustico
We started the meal with some healthy greens. We chose Insalata Rustico, which was basically just fresh mixed greens with black olives, diced tomatoes, grated parmesan cheese and slivers of toasted almonds. The greens were very fresh and crisp, and the helpings of olives, cheese and almonds were quite generous. The dressing was cream based, garlicky good but far too sour for my liking.
Insalata Rustico
We started the meal with some healthy greens. We chose Insalata Rustico, which was basically just fresh mixed greens with black olives, diced tomatoes, grated parmesan cheese and slivers of toasted almonds. The greens were very fresh and crisp, and the helpings of olives, cheese and almonds were quite generous. The dressing was cream based, garlicky good but far too sour for my liking.
