*Please note, this photo is not from Artisanal...

Ah, birthday dinner. Matt and I made reservations at Artisanal, a French bistro in midtown. The place is famous for their cheese; it's so fancy, they have a cheese cave and a full-time fromagier (like a sommelier, except for cheese) just to make sure it's up to snuff. (Trust me, it is.)

We started with these little cheese puffs made with gruyere and butter and, I suspect, the breath of angels. My God those things were good. They were also free. See, somebody told the maitre d' that it was her (I mean "somebody's") birthday and so she (again, "somebody") got to sit in the VIP section while being showered with complementary cheese puffs. Oh yeah, that's how I roll.

We followed with a frisee salad, which I'd never had before. (For those not in the know, that's a salad made with frisee lettuce, homemade croutons, and crumbled bacon, then topped with a soft-boiled egg.) How can something so nasty-sounding taste so good? I'm not sure, but I suspect that magic is involved.

If you're going to come to Artisanal, you've got to do fondue. While I was tempted by the fondue du jour (it was called the "Hundred Cheese Fondue". C'mon! A hundred kinds of cheese!) but I stuck with their house blend. Screw forks and knives! From now on, I'm eating everything with one of those long pointy fork things! And everything will be dipped in cheese! (Seriously, what's not good dipped in cheese? Nothing, that's what.)

If you think I stopped there, you don't know me at all.

Dessert was cheesecake for Matt (let's hear it for lactose!) and a profiterole sundae for me. (Profiteroles are little puff pastries, similar to eclairs. They sliced them open and filled them with homemade pistachio ice cream, then topped it with whipped cream. The best part? It was accompanied by a little silver terrine filled with melted dark chocolate to pour on top.) In the immortal words of Pepe LePew: "Le wow."

It wasn't cheap (you only turn 35 once, right? Unless you're me, in which case you'll probably turn 35 at least three more times) but if you're in the city, I highly recommend.

Let me contrast this with my birthday lunch.

I met a great friend of mine downtown to celebrate. We decided on a restaurant called Fatty Crab (a very trendy "foodie" place) down in the (very trendy, once transvestite-heavy) meatpacking district. Basically, it was chock full of the kinds of things that get my attention. (Trendy? Check. Hard to get into? Check. Studly young chef? Check and check again.) My friend and I consider ourselves reasonably adventurous eaters, so even though I'd never had Malaysian food, I wasn't terribly concerned. After all, I love Pad Thai. How different could it be?

We all know where this going, right?

Their house specialty is a watermelon salad. It's described as "watermelon pickle and crispy pork". Granted, watermelon and pork aren't two things I automatically link, but a McDonald's breakfast sausage biscuit smeared with grape jelly sounds pretty nastacular too and lemme tell you, it's a taste treat. So we ordered it.

"Crispy pork" my ass. Try giant squares of pillowy pig fat. That's right: GIANT SQUARES OF PIG FAT. And yes, it tasted exactly the way you think it did.

Next we tried another one of their specialties - green mango with chili, sugar, and salt. To me, this sounded promising. I love a sweet/salty combo (a McDonald's sausage/jelly biscuit, anyone?) and mango is my favorite fruit. But see here's the thing - unripe mango doesn't actually taste like anything. It was like eating a carrot dipped in spice mix, minus the delicious carrot flavor. We did have some success with a bowl of fried noodles and wonton soup, but it came in this rinky-dink little bowl (that the two of us shared). Still, after the other bullshit we'd consumed, it was practically manna.

Lest you think I'm taking artistic license, here's part of a recent review of the place, posted on Chowhound:

The "tea sandwiches" were pork belly (read: pure fat), cilantro, and mayo on white bread. They were, to be blunt, disgusting. The watermelon and pork salad was equally wretched. It contained the cheapest possible cut of pork, the ones that Chinese retuarants throw out and then Fatty Crab picks through the trash to find, which had a tiny bit of meat packed between large layers of fat and gristle. But the piece de resistance remained: the traditional fish soup. Apparently the traditional fish in Malaysia is sardines from a can. I actually choked on the soup, which tasted like vomit mixed with Mylanta.

Which leads me to Knowledge Nugget #7:
I am a slave to all things trendy. (Especially if it's covered in melted cheese.)