LOS ANGELES: BOTTEGA LOUIE

Bob and I have been crazy busy for the last few weeks, and we decided it was time for some fun.  Andrew invited us to Los Angeles to join him and Lauren for lunch on Saturday at one of LA's hot new restaurants, Bottega Louie.

Food? LA? Andrew and Lauren?

YES!

Great murals on the way to Andrew's apartment in Koreatown.

Lots of Korean stuff in Koreatown. 

I love driving around in downtown LA.  It makes me feel so cosmopolitan.  It is actually not that intimidating, especially on a Saturday afternoon.  It is nothing like, say, New York City, especially with Andrew and Lauren doing the navigation.

We ended up at a trendy, European-style restaurant Andrew knew about: Bottega Louie, located on the corner of 7th and Grand, just a block off Wilshire Boulevard:

 The kitchen was wide open to the large dining area, and there were dozens of chefs and waiters frantically buzzing all over the place:

We had an assortment of dishes that we shared around, including clam pizza, lamb porterhouse, grilled octopus, and trenne pasta with rib-eye and black kale.  However, my personal favorite was the order of portobello mushroom fries with herbed aioli sauce for dipping.  The fries tasted a LOT better than they look:

But wait.  I forgot the dessert!  At the end of our meal, the four of us shared a chocolate souffle with a custard creme sauce.  Delish.

 And on the way out, we just had to stop in the Louie Bakery and buy a few of these amazing (and amazingly expensive) pastries:

 

 

 

Are six pictures of dessert overkill?  Nah, I didn't think so either.

After we got home, I looked up this restaurant to see what others had to say about it.  I was surprised to learn that it was the #1 restaurant on Yelp for 2011--not just in LA, but in the entire United States.

Wow.  I feel so avant-garde.

Thanks, Andrew and Lauren!  Where are we going next?