My 25th birthday, plus a review of brunch at Imagine in Zurich and a bacon risotto

I tend to keep my birthdays relatively low-key, and this year was no different. Last year, I had a lovely family dinner of Fondue Chinoise at home, and this year I had a little duck-filled dinner party (read more about that here) in London, with a day out in Zurich on my actual birthday.

We started off with a brunch buffet at Imagine, which is located inside the Hauptbahnhof (main station). It is a relatively small restaurant, and shares a bathroom with the Nordsee fish restaurant next to it. The buffet was nicely laid out, with the most notable section being that of freshly made omelettes… mmh.

I always like to visit the buffet multiple times and take small portions, and so I made my brunch more of a 4-course meal than a simple breakfast. Cereal and fresh fruit, covered in yogurt? Yup. Beautiful, buttery Swiss bread? Check. Buffalo mozzarella, vitello tonnato, smoked salmon, crispy bacon, roast beef salad? Winner. And then, to top it all off, a fresh omelette filled with ham, cheese, mushroom and fresh herbs, salted and peppered to perfection. And did I mention they had an apple/carrot/orange/ginger juice?

The desserts were slightly disappointing, but other than that, this was a lovely brunch, made even nicer by the fact that it was with my family, whom I hadn’t seen in a while. We then spent the afternoon wandering around the city, visiting various shops and taking in the Christmas lights, which are faaar less tacky than in London!

In the evening, I made a quick bacon and mushroom risotto (using this recipe, minus the spinach) and my sister put together a very tasty starter of buffalo mozzarella, wrapped in Parma ham and drizzled with balsamic cream. We then watched a film and headed to bed!

All in all, a very quiet day, but I couldn’t have asked for a better one. Who needs crazy excitement when you can have food with your family?