My friend celebrated her birthday by giving us all an excuse to pig out on pub food and chocolate cake.

I love La Rocca cakes, and the Nut Buster is one of my favourites, but I also had a chance to try their Strawberry Shortcake, which was amazing and inspired me to make my own.

More birthday celebrations at The Old Spaghetti Factory, followed by a late night preview of Star Trek.

Another birthday celebration, this time at my favourite upscale restaurant in Yorkville: Sassafraz.

Lunch in Korea town (North York) at the much-loved Owl of Minerva, followed by bowling to work off all those delicious panchan and entrees.

Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries halfway through the month, so I have no pictures from:
Lettieri Espresso + Bar – their almond biscotti was good, but definitely not made in-house
Panorama Restaurant and Lounge – a disappointing coffee creme brulee
Northern Dumpling Kitchen – review coming soon
Mengrai Gourmet Thai – decent pad thai (not very flavourful, although heaped with toppings), excellent service, and a very interesting green tea creme brulee

Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day, hands down. If I could, I’d make myself a home-made extra special deluxe super duper breakfast platter every morning.
It also happens to be one of the few meals I am fully comfortable with making.

• Scrambled/fried/hard-boiled/omelet eggs? I can do that.
• Bacon/fake bacon/ham/sausages/breakfast paddies? I can do that.
• Toast? Toast with butter? French toast? I can do that.
• Pancakes/waffles/Chinese pancakes¹? I can do that.²
• Fruit? I can do that.
• Coffee/(soy) milk? I can do that.

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to do all that every morning. But every Sunday morning, without fail, I make myself an enormous breakfast platter. Sunday mornings are the best. It’s my last day of the weekend, so I know I have to get some work done. The first thing I do is brew myself a nice hot cup of hazelnut coffee. I drink my coffee without milk/cream/whitener because 1) I am lactose intolerant, and 2) that is the way coffee is supposed to be drunk, so buying high-quality (hazelnut) coffee roast is a must.
Then I’ll have any combination of the above (things that I can make). I usually don’t have bacon/sausages so I must forgo the meat portion of the programming, but I can make tons of things with eggs, so I still get my protein.

This morning was no exception. Check out the fancy colourful super duper awesome breakfast platter of the day:

This platter features scrambled egg whites, fresh strawberries, toast drizzled with maple syrup, and yogurt sprinkled with some fiber cereal flakes.

It is also exactly 200 calories.

Huzzah!

Nutritional Information:
Calories: 200
Carbs: 31
Fat: 1
Protein: 18

1. Chinese green onion pancakes are deliciously light and fried; made of flour – multi-layered almost like a pastry, but still thin, with salt and green onions
2. By “I can do that,” I mean, I can buy that.