so this is what 35 feels like: like any other day, except with all the love and virtual cake that facebook has to offer. due to unforeseen circumstances, i actually ate three zumbo cakes yesterday (which, never fear, you will hear about one of these days), so i had to consciously steer today away from the real-life cakefest it otherwise might have been. it was going quite well too, until my aunt and grandmother showed up at around 10.30 in the morning with a whole ricotta cheesecake.

my good parents had left me birthday cards when they were here in october, and i opened them to find one — from my mother — covered in an enticing cluster of gem biscuits (one of my favourite biscuits ever, and ones that i don’t actually eat enough of, because i don’t actually eat a lot of biscuits), and the other — from my father — adorned with a velvet cocktail dress and its sparkly accoutrements, as well as the phrase “paint the town red on your birthday!”. which is interesting, because now i know that my mum thinks i am five (or perhaps she cleverly surmised that i need a warm, comforting childhood memory to cling to), and my pap thinks i am a vamp. huh.

inside this somewhat unsettling card, he had concealed a crazy and unexpected amount of cashmoney, so what i did was take everybody out to lunch.

i pointed my aunt in the direction of zilver, where i’d tried — unsuccessfully — to get in once before, at lunchtime, on a weekend, when the queue was out the door and almost down the escalators. just past 11 on a tuesday morning? no problem. the usual suspects were lined up: ha cheong, wu kok, char siu sou, char siu bao, a plate of bright green vegetables with its accompanying dish of oyster sauce, a cluster of steamed scallop dumplings, and egg tarts to finish. i love that, where most dimsum places give you three piece of whatever to a serve, zilver give you four. i love the light, flaky pastry in the baked treats — clearly they are packed with shortening. sadly though, the egg tarts — quivering circles of gold in their meltaway pastry shells — numbered only three, but my aunt and grandma were happy to share.

we made it home in time for cups of tea and slices of cake, and then all too soon it was time to eat again.

last night the boy had asked where i wanted to be taken to dinner. the act of which raised all sorts of issues in my head, and not just limited to: red lantern? flying fish? tetsuya? — well, we live in hope — (glebe point diner? bodega? ottoman cuisine?…) ultimately, i knew it had to be in the neighbourhood and affordable, and so i ventured that we could try again for rosso pomodoro, which, being a half-hour walk away, really pushed the boundaries of being “in the neighbourhood”. the first time we attempted to eat here, maybe a year ago, we fronted up to the door, and the doors, though open, had clouds of construction dust billowing out of them; they were renovating that week. last month we tried to get a table for the kid’s birthday family get-together, but it was booked out. tonight, with a 6 o’clock phone call, we managed to secure a table for 7.

i was excited!

and justly so. the tomato sauce is fresh and pure, the bresaola and rocket perfect foils. the pizza bases are crunchy, then chewy. they are thin where they need to be, and puffed-up slightly where it counts. the best part is, there is just enough cheese, and no more.

[ recently, we called up another local pizza place for delivery, and made a point of asking for half as much cheese as they’d normally put on. the guy on the phone was confused. “oh, so you want 50% more cheese?” he asked. “no, no,” we said, “less cheese. less.” it took a while to make things clear. ]

but, so, rosso pomodoro. we had wonderful pizze, and we were well looked after. the charming and friendly waiter explained all the specials, flirted with the kid, brought her fancy italian strawberry juice at the start, and at the end, chose a pink plastic paddle to go with her strawberry gelato.

me? i had a fat slab of old skool tiramisu, so boozy it sagged to one side, sitting in a thin brown puddle of itself. it was great.