nose to tail.

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Last week in LA, my mother and I had a spectacular dinner at Animal, the much-hyped restaurant known for its over the top preparations of offal and all sorts of non-traditional meat parts (I think it was Frank Bruni who referred to fans of the restaurant as carniwhores).  The meal did not disappoint. 

From the top:

1. Grilled sparagus salad with pancetta dressing, fried soft-boiled egg, and parmesan.  This started out the meal, and was the lightest thing we would have all night. 

2. Left: veal brains with vadouvan, applesauce (yes, applesauce!), and baby carrots.  I’d never had veal brains before.  Oh man oh man, so good.  The vadouvan was incredibly fragrant.  On the right: sweetbreads with bacon, ramp dressing, and parsley.  I never turn down a chance to eat sweetbreads, and while I’ve had better iterations, these were still *really* good.  Even better, though, was the bacon — almost paper-thin, at once crispy and melt in your mouth.

3.  The dish of the night: Julienned pig ear with chili, lime and a fried egg.  This was kind of like the ultimate breakfast-for-dinner dish — the ears were shaved thin, then sauteed, so they had this great crunch to them, and paired with the egg, sort of like a hash brown.  The egg yoke covered everything with an extra layer of richness. 

4. Buffalo-style pig tails with celery and ranch dressing.  Oh yeah. 

How good was that pig ear dish?  So good we ordered a second helping instead of dessert.  No, really.

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And because I clearly have no sense of boundaries or restraint, I went at it again this week, here in New York, at The Brooklyn Star with my pal Donny.  To wit:

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Yup. Bacon + jalapeno cornbread, followed by sweetbreads + hominy and fried pig tails with hush puppies. What? Don’t judge me! (The Brooklyn Star meal, was great, by the way. I probably shouldn’t mention that instead of dessert this time around, Donny and I headed to Best Pizza for a slice and a half order of garlic knots.)

Feel the need to detox from all that fried meatiness?  Here are some photos of the restaurants’ interiors, the calm before the meat storm. 

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See? It’s like that insanity never happened. Pig ear? What pig ear? Carry on.

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