About last night

Last night I had a date. The kind of date that you talk about with your girlfriends and describe every detail, and smile to yourself just thinking about it. And it’s been awhile since I had one of those dates. (Don’t worry, the date was with my husband.)

First, let me say that we eat out a lot,  try new places and frequent our local favorites all the time. Actually, we eat out so much that we weekly agree to put a temporary kibosh on our outings and instead save for our future. Luckily, by the time Friday rolls around, we conveniently fuhgeddaboudit, and eagerly head to our sushi spot or burger joint.

On Wednesday, Mauricio was going to be in LA and he invited me to meet him in the city for dinner. I must’ve really needed a night out, because the concept of driving in rush hour traffic made me giddy with excitement.

Here is the thing, when you marry a city girl and move her to a small beach town, you have to make sure she swaps her foot flops out for strappy heels on the reg, or said city girl will not be so easy going and chill. [ You can find out what I wore on our special date here.]

We were going to meet at a hotel lobby and head over to the restaurant. Something about not driving to the place together and instead meeting there made this feel like a proper date. I was actually kind of nervous to see my own husband, as my eyes searched for him in the crowd.

We walked a few city blocks to the Bottega Louie restaurant, and it was like my own version of heaven—purple and gold details everywhere. I died.

The entire place is like a mix between an LA warehouse and a French palace. It’s light and airy with beautiful marble finishes. Half of the space is a pastry shop, with macarons for days, bistro tables and a marble bar.

The other half is open kitchen and dining. I’m a firm believer that you eat with your eyes first, and my eyes were in love. We waited for our table at the bar, and then were seated next to the pizza station, which made our menu decisions even easier.

We had the pan sautéed trenne pasta with braised prime rib eye, tuscan black kale & shaved Parmigiano Reggiano, and the pepperoni pizza. I know what you’re thinking, “she drove to LA for pepperoni?” Our waitress recommended it and she was spot on, it was seriously the most flavorful and delicious pepperoni I’ve ever had. I swear Italy should be proud.

And then, we got eggplant fries. I have no photos of these fries because we inhaled them immediately. I vowed to experiment and figure out how the heck they made eggplant fries happen, because they were everything. EVERYTHING.

We had no room for dessert, but I made sure we still took some macarons home, and I shamelessly ate them for breakfast the next day.

I forgot how special a night out could be, if you let yourself be excited about all the possibilities. Maybe we’ll skip our regular spots for a while, and wait to have another rendezvous somewhere new.

besos,

Alina