Valentine's Day, Part Deux

I had an amazing Valentine's Day last week. Rami surprised me at my office with lunch - gourmet sushi from one of our favorite places! When I came home from work, he was waiting with a huge bouquet of my favorite flowers, a box of chocolate truffles, a beautiful card, and even a few stuffed animals. He also surprised me with this beautiful necklace I've been drooling over for months!

After we finished exchanging gifts and "I love you"'s, we got in the car to head to dinner - I had made reservations weeks in advance for our favorite restaurant, Animal. But Los Angeles traffic had different plans for us - we sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic on my street in the same spot for more than a half hour before finally acknowledging to each other that we weren't going to make it :( We called and canceled our reservation, went home and re-parked the car, and walked to a little Italian place down the street. It was delicious, but not quite the special dinner we had hoped for.

Sitting in traffic staring at the clock, I MAY have had a tiny tantrum. R calmed me down by promising me we could go to Animal and have a "V-Day re-do" the following week. So last night, we finally got to have our Valentine's Day meal at Animal!

From time to time people ask me what my favorite place to eat in LA is, and I always tell them to go here. I figured I'd share some pictures from last night so you all can feel like you were right at the table with us! The food is so inventive, so interesting, so full of flavor and interesting combinations - but vegetarians be warned... this is NOT the place for you. Animal's chefs are famous for their love of any and every kind of meat!

shrimp & rabbit spring roll, eggplant, sprouts, green curry


sweetbreads with creamed spinach, lemon, capers, and hedgehog mushrooms
(our favorite dish of the night - we ordered a second plate!)


polenta, six-hour bolognese, parmesan (apologies for the dark photo)


ram's favorite! barbeque pork belly sandwiches with coleslaw


pink earrings, leopard print blouse, baby pork belly slider. how happy am i?!


the grand finale - poutine with oxtail gravy and cheddar.
like the best chili cheese fries you've ever put in your mouth!

It was a delicious meal and a fantastic night with my Valentine, even if it came a little late :) If you live in LA or are thinking of planning a trip here - I can't recommend it enough!

(PS. All the photos above were taken with my iPhone, and I posted some of them on Instagram! Are we following each other yet? I'm @queenjord!)