Heard a lot about this place and my friend who tired it highly recommended it. Located at the very hip part of Fairfax district, this sign-less restaurant has a youthful scenester vibe. The owners are known as “two food dudes” who have a show on the Food network which I haven’t seen (is it good?) and they also released a cookbook. The restaurant is called “Animal” because the concept is meat-centric dishes for meat lovers. As soon as I walked in I saw huge plates with meat on many tables.
The menu sounds very interesting. In fact the small plates/appetizers sound more interesting to me than the heavy meat entrees so Jon and I decided to do it tapas-style instead.
burrata, beet & green olive caponata $10. This is kind of like a dish that was created for me. 3 of my favorite things (beets, burrata and olives) together and the result is fantastic. I tried to make this at home but it just didn’t turns out half as good.
Shishito peppers with raisin, feta cheese and bacon pieces. Good! The raisins and bacon pieces definitely enhance the shisito peppers a lot. Some shishito peppers were very spicy while some aren’t, you don’t know what you’ll get.
House smoked pork belly, lentil, butterbean salad. Very good! The pork belly was lean and fully flavored with barbaque sauce. It’s a very rich dish so I’m glad for its “small plate proportion.”
Raw Amberjack with Nectarine, cucumber and pomegranate. A refreshing dish to counterbalanced the other heavy meat dishes. The fish was fresh.
poutine, oxtail gravy, vermont cheddar. We ended with this heavy dish to stuff ourselves full. Poutine is the classic Canadian comfort food, perfect for a cold winter night with beer.
Animal Restaurant is easily one of my favorite new restaurants in LA. Their menu change slightly everyday. Some dishes seem to be on the menu everyday, such as the pork belly. There’s foie gras on the menu too which sounds great. Freda will blogged about it in another entry.
Animal
435 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 782-9225
Tags: American, hip, small plate
Great review and really nice pictures. I’m going on the 19th (with a friend I have to book really really far in advance) and will do my part to spread the word by posting reviews/pictures of the deliciousness on our blog http://www.twobroadsblog.blogspot.com.
Cheers!
Viv
The pork belly is totally main dish size in Japan….I envy American portion! Oh you managed to put together a balanced meal which is not-so-animal. ^^;;
[…] week after Joan went to Animal Restaurant, I gave it a visit too. On the website it saids their menu changes daily, though it seems like my […]
Wow, I can’t believe they have poutine. I had so much of it in Montreal. I’m definitely going to check out this restaurant.
Me too! Love Animal. I want to go back with a bunch of friends and order all the starters.
[…] reviews on the food at Animal, so I won’t go into detail about something that can easily be found elsewhere, but I will say that it was one of the nicest dining experiences I’ve had, […]