about damn time I blogged about this! It’s been over a week since the birthday, and the whole turning-21-and-legal shebang has already gone cold & stale… but it feels like I just can’t ever sleep in peace if I don’t blog about it… after all, it’s THE 21ST BIRTHDAY for god’s sake!
Mom & I @ birthday dinner ♥
My first day as a 21-year-old started in the late morning: I picked my brother Daryl up after school, and we went for lunch at Kimchi Haru! At first we agreed on Mexican food at Frontera, but then I remembered about my week-long craving for Korean food, and I was just dyinggg for some kimchi, so I pulled my autocratic birthday-girl card and dragged my brother over to Kimchi Haru, for the sake of feeding my kimchi obsession.
This is the brother showing his ultimate possessiveness over his bulgogi bibimbap:
I had pork bulgogi (wanted the usual kimchi jigae so badly but eurgh, I’ve had that in the last 5 times I was there, so I wanted something different for once):
with my favourite banchan!
After that, we went to check out the Hush Puppies clearance sale (we were on the way to the carpark when we saw the sale, and we totally sidetracked). I bought myself a new Hush Puppies handbag… for just RM60! WHAT A STEAL, don’t you think? The stingy/thrifty-Nino in me is very, very satisfied.
Having satisfied my shopping fix, we finally got home – with the kimchi jigae we bought home for Mom’s late lunch (weirdly enough Mom said she was craving for exactly just that; in her own words: “I was just thinking the whole time you and Daryl were out, ‘How nice would it be if you ta pau for me kimchi jigae’… AND LOOK!” - Guess mom’s craving was relayed to us humble servants via Lvl.99 telepathy LOL). I did some chores around the house before I got ready for the birthday dinner with the family! We were gonna leave the house at 6:30pm and I was already in the shower by 5:20pm – that gave me plenty of time to do my makeup. Just a simple makeup: BB cream, pressed powder, eyebrow liner and some fancy-schmancy black liquid eyeliner (which, considering I had just upgraded from pencil to liquid, took a considerable amount of time on trial-and-error and lots of cursing).
So, right – the birthday dinner. We went to Tony Roma’s at The Gardens! Since I was officially a legal adult, I ordered myself a cocktail – a Strawberry Mango Swirl Romarita. I’ve no idea what the hell a romarita is, I actually Google’d it and found nothing enlightening. But all I know is, IT WAS DELICIOUSSSSSSSSS. The strawberry/mango/alcohol mix (we were debating if it was vodka or gin) was just heavenly when sipped with the sugar that coated the rim of the glass. And my brother was having such fun squeezing the lime and the orange slices, lol.
and where’s the fun if I don’t camwhore with my first 21st-birthday cocktail?
and yes, my sister and her boyfriend just had to photobomb my shining moment:
also, it’s not a birthday dinner without pics of the birthday girl and the family! So here’s me with the bane of my existence brothers… MAH HOMIES! :Dv
here’s me and the most amazing woman who brought me into this world! ♥
and then there’s me with the sister and her boyfriend (yay at our goofy smiles and the sister’s BF’s lame nerdy pose!):
and a portrait of the ladies of the family:
and of course, with the parents. ♥
As for the dinner, I had a New York Strip, medium rare. It was so bloody and so juicy and sooooo good; I felt like such a carnivore as I ripped into the meat and blood oozed onto the plate. My brother had the Filet Medallion – he ordered medium but it came out borderline-rare! The steak had to be sent back to the kitchen, not once, but TWICE before it was cooked exactly like how my brother wanted it. In the first round of waiting, the head waiter gave my brother a bowl of beef soup, FREE, and then after the second round of waiting, when the steak finally came out right and my brother was already chowing down, the head waiter came over to him, patted him on the back, and said, “Boy, your steak is on me. It’s what I can do for making you wait so long.”
I was like, DDDDDDDD: HEY I’M THE BIRTHDAY GIRL Y U NO GIVE ME FREE STEAK?!?!
I swear, it had something to do with my brother pulling that adorable, pitiful puppy expression he’s so good at, and he always gets away with. And, my dad was more ecstatic about the fact that he saved RM60 on premium steak.
Speaking of my brother… as always, he’s got the most awesome lulzy expressions whenever a camera’s pointed at him!
such a shame that I’m forbidden from uploading all these awesome lulzy-face pics on Facebook! THEY’RE JUST PRICELESS. According to him, he has a reputation to uphold, and I’m only allowed to post these up here on my blog because no one he knows, knows the existence of this blog. Uh-huh.
Anyways, the dinner ended with a special chocolate brownie (topped off with the most scrumptious vanilla ice-cream and chocolate syrup) – on the house for the birthday occasion. At first I thought it was unnecessary to sing me a birthday song, more for the fact that someone else happened to be celebrating THEIR birthday, too, and DAMNNNN the way that bunch of people sang ‘Happy Birthday’ would’ve put me to shame. But the waiters insisted they sing it anyways, so I had no say in it. *le sobz*. There were a couple of waiters who asked my name, and after I told them, they were like, “Ohmigod! ‘Natasha’ is suuuuch a beautiful name! It’s a Russian name, right? So beautiful!” I swear, they were gushing in the most uncharacteristic manner that I literally cringed. That just creeped the hell outta me.
So that was it! After dinner, we walked around Mid Valley for a bit – bought gelato and a box of Japanese mochi as snacks – and then we went home. And, of course, I spent the last remaining hour of the 13th of January responding to each and every birthday wish I got on Facebook and Twitter. They were all just made of love. ♥
Overall I had an awesome birthday – probably one of the best I’ve had over the recent years! I won’t deny that it was pretty low-key and boring. I mean, I guess people usually celebrate their 21st birthday by throwing the hottest party, or by going out clubbing and drinking the night away with their friends… right? Well sorry but I’m just not that kind of person. I’m the kind of person to spend the special occasion with the people I love; I’m the kind to say that nothing beats celebrating my birthday with my family. ♥
