All You Need Is Love!

Love or hate it, Valentine’s Day can be a really fun excuse to eat lots of dark chocolate and drink lots of champagne...which makes it alright in my book. Yesterday my guy took me up to Santa Barbara for a day of exploration. He had researched some of the best places to get vegan food, so we started the day at a place called Backyard Bowls. They specialize in, you guessed it, breakfast bowls. I got the Island Bowl which consisted of an acai, banana, mango, pineapple juice + coconut juice base, with a strawberry, blueberry, granola and coconut shavings topping (I opted out of the honey). Oh man. It was beyond amazing. The base was super refreshing and fit perfect with the “island” style of the toppings. Definitely something I want to try to recreate at home sometime.

Alchemy Cooler

After that we grabbed some coffee and headed to the beach where we hung out for awhile enjoying the beautiful, albeit breezy, Santa Barbara coast. I guess he had been paying attention to the one, or two..million.. times I’ve mentioned that we don’t go to see art exhibits enough, because after the beach we headed to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. They had a selected history of Southern California art from 1951 through 1969 (60’s art..my fav). They had some pretty great pieces, although Andy Warhol’s ‘guns’ that was printed on my purse was probably my favorite thing in the museum. 

We headed over to a vegan restaurant called Adama after the museum, only to find out they were closed for a special Valentine’s event. Oops. We were pretty bummed until we found the little gem of a cafe next door. Inside a place called the Alchemy Arts Center, they have a cute, mostly raw food, cafe. We decided to get some of the special raw Valentine’s Day sweets they were making and a couple of “Extracts” (fresh juiced fruits and veggies) and hit the road back to LA.

Italian Special at Native Foods

After the drive we were ready for some real food so we decided to do Valentine’s dinner at the vegan restaurant Native Foods in Culver City. I got the special which included a caesar salad, vegetable lasagna, and garlic bread. The salad and lasagna were delicious, but I could have done without their garlic bread. I’m a little picky when it comes to Italian cuisine because the food is never as good as what I remember of my Italian grandma’s kitchen. Gary had the Oklahoma 'Bacon Cheese' Burger with a side of fries. It was love at first sight for him and his burger. Very romantic.

We drove home and ended the night drinking champagne, eating dark chocolate and watching Return of the Jedi..what could be more romantic? ;)