Happy 10 Years Ya Filthy Animal!

 

 

Mid-January is the month we first started dating 10 years ago (we don't know the exact date, it just happened). TEN YEARS already! Married for 3 Months! Cheers to more (years, that is)!

 January 25th we decided to spend the day in LA just to do a little something to celebrate. 

A couple of our friends have recommended Bottega Louise for macarons and just by looking at the pictures I was determined to get some from there. My friend Brittany was kind enough to bring me back some the last time she went to Los Angeles and they were to die for! 

We also thought it would be fun to eat there because through people's Yelp pictures, it looked quiet, empty and the food looked surely appetizing. However, when we got there, it was a FUCKING nightmare. It was so packed that we had no place to stand. I felt like I was constantly in someone's way or someone wanted me to move. It was so loud that we couldn't get anyone's attention. There were swarms of people with their cameras and big ass lenses just taking pictures of the macarons and not standing in line to buy any. Macaron Paparazzi, I tell ya! There were no lines, no hostesses, no nothing. Just a big psycho blob of people. All the restaurant servers and cashiers at the bakeries seem all flustered, rushing here and there, making no eye contact at all with anyone and remaining in their own little world. What a mess! How could anyone eat here at this hour? It stressed us out so much that we just walked right out. We were starving and we couldn't handle that craziness any longer. Unfortunately, we were in downtown LA, an area I'm not very familiar with and we didn't want to drive anymore (traffic was more atrocious than normal and later found out that the Grammy's were that night). So, we just walked around until I Yelped the closest Thai restaurant called Soi.7 (yeah, there's a period in their name), which was fortunately 5 doors down from Bottega Louise. We were like, "Thank God!" because we were starving!

 

It was a lovely Thai restaurant. High ceilings, lovely decor and in the back they had a boba bar called The Labobatory! Love that name! Tons of teenage Asian kids were hanging out drinking boba, taking selfies and watching music videos on the flat screen TVs. Seemed like a cool hangout!

I had the Tom Yum Kai soup and chicken pad thai and he had the Tom Kah Kai soup with chicken pad thai as well. IT WAS YUMMY! Especially the soup. I think it's even better than Singha Thai's! (I feel really bad for saying that because I love Singha, but it's kinda true). 

After we ate...

 

When we had our fill, we decided to take a deep breath and undertake Bottega Louise again because we REALLY wanted some macarons. So, this time, it wasn't that busy (maybe our timing was horrible) and I just went to the cash register right away and figured out where the line formed. Got in line, and waited for one of the cashiers to make eye contact with me. Once I had their attention I had Andrew go to the other side and pick out all the macarons. We got a dozen. Every single one of them were amazing. The salted caramel, rose water and the earl grey (it had edible gold dust on it) ones stuck out to me the most though. Success!!!

Andrew couldn't wait to eat them so he started eating them in the alley on the way back to the parking garage.

 

 

Next place we went to was Stumptown for some coffee. Andrew wanted to go there after I found that place during my visit with Maricar in Los Angeles back in December. He said he liked it better than Intelligentsia.

We did some more shopping and driving around...

Later, we met up with his friend and his girlfriend at Intelligentsia. They were very sweet and got us desserts to have with our coffees from a bakery down the street. We told them about our first time experience at Bottega Louise and they were like, "Yeah, that's how it is." I also told them where we ended up eating and it was pretty cool because he claimed it to be one of his favorite Thai Restaurants in Los Angeles. During their record talk, we both had a latte and a pour over each and by the time we headed home, it felt like we were both on crack. My eyes were wide open and I wanted to speed all the way home. I haven't been that cracked out on coffee in a LONG time. I didn't go to sleep til 4 in the morning.

And that's about it! We had a pretty chill day and we were glad to be home.