This year for my birthday, Jeff made reservations several weeks in advance on my actual birthday at Little Betty Steak Bar, which is a new steak and Italian fusion restaurant open in the Lane Park area of Birmingham. They use local farm fresh ingredients. It is named after the owners dog and originally started in Georgia. It is right across from The Birmingham Botanical Gardens and The Birmingham Zoo. When we arrived the host asked who was celebrating a birthday. We guess he had added that on the reservation and had forgotten. We are generally low-key and don’t call attention for things like that. They take us to our table with 2 different menus. We knew that one was a drink menu and assumed the other was food. We thought it was different that they only gave 1 food menu per table. So we each grab one and turns out they are both drink menus. When our waitress came to our table she had the food menus, ah ha. She also knew we were there for a birthday.

She quickly went over the menu with us. She was talking so fast when she left I asked Jeff did he catch all of that. LOL! We both asked for water, she then proceeded to as if we wanted sparkling, flat or tap? That’s the first time I’ve ever been asked what kind of “water” I wanted. We started with the meatballs and focaccia bread. She had talked up the burrata cheese when she was going over the menu, she said that it was really good added to the meatballs. It was cheese, so of course we had to try it. The burrata cheese is made in Italy and served in the restaurant the following week. I thought it was good, Jeff, the cheese connoisseur he is, wasn’t a big fan of it. Shocking I know!

So since it was a “steak bar” I had to go with steak. I had the New York strip with a shared side of Gouda fries. Here is where it starts to get interesting, Jeff ordered the Cacio E Pepe Gnudi. He and his Italian friend from work had already looked at the menu and she recommended this dish. As the waitress goes to walk away she tells him how many “dumplings” comes with his dish. After she leaves he’s confused because he thought he was getting pasta noodles. I jokingly told him that he had no idea what he just ordered. When the food arrives he has a plate of “dumplings” in a white sauce. My steak was cooked perfectly at medium, but was a little tougher than I thought it would be, but was seasoned well and really good. The Gouda fries were delicious. Jeff was eating his “dumplings” and as he is finishing he finally decided what it reminded him of, biscuits and gravy! LOL! We looked up gnudi and it is a type of gnocchi, he loves gnocchi but these had a denser more biscuit like texture.

So here is where it gets LEGENDARY! Our waitress comes by to see if we want dessert and to let us know that I get a free dessert for my birthday. She goes to clear the table and knocks Jeff’s half full water glass over directly at him. It splashes on his sport coat and into his lap. Another guy quickly comes to our table with a towel and a small amount of club soda. He heard it but didn’t know what we were drinking. We assured him it was just water. The waitress felt horrible she brings several bar towels for him to clean himself up with. She offers a second dessert. I had the chocolate olive oil cake with pistachio ice cream and Jeff went with a scoop of bourbon and salted caramel with fig ice cream. They were both good. My cake had a swirl of olive oil in the dish and had a dollop of whipped cream on the top, but it wasn’t regular sweet whipped cream and also had a drizzle of olive oil. The fig pieces in Jeff’s Ice cream were a little chewy. Just takes away from it when you have to “chew” ice cream.

This was a LEGENDARY dinner!