‘Twas an excellent birthday yesterday. In the morning, AEJ and I walked to the local coffee place for bagels. Not quite a NY bagel, but perfectly tasty — and they do this crazy thing where they spread the cream cheese while holding the bagel with tongs. Their hands never actually touch the bagel. Just tongs. You ever try to spread cream cheese on a bagel using only tongs and a butter knife? Looks unnecessarily awkward. Anyway — good place, good bagel.

We also hung my painting — the one that AEJ painted for me for my birthday last year.

After that, we headed to the “hot new mall” here in LA, The Grove. It’s one of the latest in the new trend of shopping complexes where everything is outside and it feels like a community/Disneyworld. There was even a trolley that shuttled people from one end of the complex to the other. We only spent an hour there because I had a hair appointment, but we’ll be back — and next time, I’ll take a few photos.

At 5:30, I had my first hair appointment with a new stylist. I wish I could have brought Glen, my hair guy from NY, here to LA, but sadly, he has a life there or something, and was unwilling to tag along just to cut my hair here. So, I found a new place called Sugar. The owner, Tommy, cut my hair. Nice guy, and he did a good job, but the experience wasn’t as fun as it was back at Dop Dop. The price, though, was less than half as much, so that helped to soften the blow.

Shortly after the haircut, we headed to our fancy-schmancy birthday dinner at Matsuhisa. Matsuhisa is the only sushi restaurant ranked in the Zagat guide’s Top 10 overall restaurants in LA, and I expected it to be… I don’t know… stuffier? It’s not that I wanted a stuffy meal. I just expected a little more formality. Instead, what we found (after leaving our car with the valet who was either bummed to be parking a car worth far less than $125,000 — or possibly considered it refreshing) was a restaurant with an almost neighborhood feel. Extremely warm and inviting. Small, with tables close together. The sushi chefs welcomed everybody as they came in. There were the initial stares from the other clientele as they tried to determine if we were celebrities as we sat down, but once they figured out that we weren’t (although AEJ looked like one — she’s a looker, that one), it was nothing but friendly, professional, prompt service and amazing food.

First up was Yellow Tail Jalapeno, and it was just what the name says — pieces of yellow tail sashimi, tasting as if they’d been prepared like ceviche, with thin slices of jalapeno on top. Wow. Delicious, with just the perfect amount of zing.

Next up, a traditional sushi plate — salmon, tuna, yellow tail, sea eel (a bit saltier than normal fresh water eel, it seemed to me), and a spicy tuna roll. The eel was amazing — the best I’ve ever had. AEJ loved the yellow tail, so I gave both pieces to her, as she doesn’t like rolls or salmon. The roll was good, but I prefer my rolls inside-out so that the first thing I bite isn’t seaweed.

Then there was this: New Style Sashimi. White fish with sesame seeds, olive oil, and scallions. Mmmm…

We had a few pieces of tempura — snow peas and scallops. I was so excited to try them that we ate half of it before I remembered to take a picture. Really, tempura isn’t terribly photogenic anyway.

This may have been the most fun course: Sashimi Chips with Spicy Miso Sauce. Two pieces of yellow tail and two pieces of tuna, miso sauce on top, all atop… well, a Japanese potato chip! Fun and delicious.

Then the dessert. They brought out the smallest utensils I’ve ever seen…

I opted for the Banana Spring Roll. I loves me some good banana, and this was an amazing, sweet banana, topped with chocolate, then rolled in a pastry and fried, served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I could live off of this. The sugar crashes would be intense, but worth it. When our server brought it out, she came with the other servers, and everybody sang “Happy Birthday.” It was like Chi-Chi’s, only nicer.

It wasn’t until I was almost done with the dessert that I realized they had written “Happy Birthday” in chocolate sauce along the edge of my serving plate.

Our server also took our picture with the restaurant’s Polaroid camera. Nice touch. They asked me my name — “John,” I swear I said — and minutes later, they returned with this card. The front of the card read “A Special Moment.”

We had a perfect evening. Top-notch service and food, and a very pleasant atmosphere.

Oh — and Keenan Ivory Wayans was at the next table. He’s tall.

Well, we may not make it to the fair tomorrow, but we have two things confirmed…

First, a haircut at this place (voted Best Hair Salon in Blogging.LA — and it’s here in Silverlake!), and for dinner…

My favorite: sushi.

But not just any sushi.

Nobu Matsuhisa sushi. Somehow, AEJ managed to get us an 8pm reservation on a Saturday night at the best sushi restaurant in LA. I’ve never been to his NY restaurant, Nobu, but wow, I’m excited to try his original LA location, Matsuhisa. Here’s the menu. What would you have?

There are huge brush fires burning here in Southern California, mostly north and west of us. The winds had been blowing from the east, so the smoke wasn’t coming in this direction. (What was happening, though, was the heat from the desert was blowing in this direction, bringing the temperature to the 90s yesterday. No humidity, so 90 degrees wasn’t as repressive as it is back on the east coast, but it’s still unpleasant.) Last night, the winds changed, and it suddenly smelled like somebody was burning wood in our living room. It took us a few minutes to realize it wasn’t a cookout, but was the fire in the Burbank area, now blowing smoke into Silverlake.

Speaking of the ‘hood, Silverlake, there’s a new TV show called “Sex, Love & Secrets” on UPN, and it’s set right here in Silverlake. Here’s the full review in the LA Times, and it’s a hilarious primer on this neighborhood, but here are a few choice excerpts…

” ‘Sex, Love & Secrets’ wants to be a guilty pleasure for the Trader Joe’s-burrito-for-dinner American Apparel crowd. OK, but I wanted less Silver Lake as Fox soap and more Circus of Books. I wanted to smell the BO of the Beck wannabe, I wanted to covet thy gay neighbor’s house. Sadly, this show makes a mess of its neighborhood-centric premise. Because the camera tells you so in quick establishing montage, the supposed nerve center on “Sex, Love & Secrets” (you want it to be sex and lies, I know) is Sunset Junction and surrounding Silver Lake hangs. The characters are ensconced in TV-style referred-to careers — the celebrity journalist (German), the publicist (Richards) — and lifestyles that need a follow-up question. The ob-gyn resident, for instance, can afford the Silver Lake traditional? Maybe the voice-over lady can talk less about the group dynamic of the human species and clarify point of purchase. None of these people, strangely, has a dog. Isn’t Silver Lake the twentysomething dog owner capital of the world? Perhaps that’s for next season’s drama-like-this-one, set in Venice, called “Abbot Kinney.”

To be honest, we didn’t even watch the show, but we’re going to check it out next week. It sounds awful. We’re looking forward to it.

Speaking again of the ‘hood, we had a bit of a celebrity sighting last night. We were having dinner at a small neighborhood Mexican place called Alegria, and who walks in but Jason Robert Brown, Tony-winning composer of “Parade” and “The Last Five Years.” I fully agree with Newman’s admiration of this guy’s music, and it was a fun sighting, especially since it was so close to our new home. I wanted to say something, but didn’t want to be “that guy” who bugs celebrities while they eat dinner. Granted, Brown, like most composers, is a celebrity to a smaller percentage of the population than, say, Dr. Phil, so he might have considered it flattering, but still, he was eating, so we left him alone.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and we’re thinking of spending the day at the Los Angeles County Fair. That’s right, LA has a fair. This brilliant TV commercial nails the absurdity. If we go, I promise to take lots of pictures. I’m a little bummed that we missed our chance to go last night, though, because that’s when they held the demolition derby. I loves me a good demolition derby. I wonder if they use LA-centric cars, like BMW’s and Prius’s. That would rule.