Una Pizza Napoletana, SOMA

First, a confession: I used to be that annoying person who didn't believe you could get good pizza outside of New York.  This was before the new wave of artisan pizza places hit San Francisco, and before I discovered Marcellos, which I love and is, in my opinion, just as good as any slice you'd get in NY.   I have now learned the error of my ways and eat what is probably too much pizza for my own good, if such a thing is possible.

Last night we hit up one of the newer pizza places, Una Pizza Napoletana. But before we talk about the food, here is some back story in case you haven't been spending your time following the comings and goings of pizza makers around town: the first Una Pizza was in New Jersey.  Anthony Mangieri (the chef/owner) then moved the operation to the East Village where it was incredibly popular and written about extensively. He then decided he wanted to move to California, closed up shop in NY and headed to San Francisco.  

The space itself is a decent size, but much of it is taken up by the oven (which is really the focal point of the room - how cool is that blue tiling?) and the small prep station where Mangieri makes the pizza.  Customers are kept out of this area by a metal railing, but that doesn't stop them from standing in front of the railing and watching (and/or taking pictures).  I would love to know how many pictures of Mangieri must get taken each day.

The menu here is simple: 5 different types of pizza. Some wine, some beer and some non-alcoholic beverages. You want a salad, or maybe some olives, or perhaps a slice of bread? You won't find it here.

The pizzas are all 12 inches. There were 4 of us (plus a baby) and we decided we'd just get all 5 types and take home whatever was left over.   I'm sure you already know how this story is going to end. Here, take a look at the pizzas if you are unsure:

The four of us (and a baby!) had no problem finishing off all five of these pizzas.  They brought them out from the simplest (marinara and margherita) to the most complicated (if you can call arugula, cherry tomatoes and smoked mozzarella complicated).  All of the pizzas were really good, and I especially liked the margherita.  

 

In terms of how Una Pizza compares to all the other pizza places in San Francisco: I think it is right on par with Delfina Pizzeria, which was always my gold standard. Both have that chewy crust which really makes it for me. The major difference between the two though is price: ALL of the pizzas at Una Pizza cost $20. When you compare that against Delfina, where the pizzas range from $10 - $17, ($12.50 for the margherita)  it seems kind of outrageous. Plus Delfina will throw in some bread sticks for free, and you have the option of ordering things besides pizza (mmm, like their meatballs).

I don't mean to discourage you. Personally, I can't even look at this picture and not just want to eat more of that pizza. I guess my advice would be: If you've got $20 in your pocket and can afford to spend that on one pizza, this is a great place to do it.

Una Pizza Napoletana

210 11th St
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 861-3444

Zero Zero, SOMA

Last weekend, as part of my plan to try a bunch of the Best New Places of 2010, we headed over to Zero Zero. It wasn't on the Bauer list (though he did give them a great review), but a couple of local food writers had named it as their "Top Restaurant Stand By" for 2010, so we thought we should try it.   

Unlike Bar Agricole, they don't tell you that you are meant to share the dishes, but we decided we wanted to do that anyway. The first two dishes we ordered (roasted meatballs and an arugula and beet salad with avocado and orange) were both excellent and we thought the meatballs were just as good as the ones we've had at Pizzeria Delfina.  Unfortunately the photos of those two didn't turn out, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Next up we ordered potato gnocchi with ham, artichoke and fava leaf pesto.  Yum.

We also ordered a couple of pizzas.  Apparently we hadn't really eaten anything that day and we were all starving.   The pizza on the left is the Fillmore (Hen of the Woods mushrooms, leeks, mozzarella, parmesan, pecorino, fontina, garlic and thyme).  The pizza on the right is the Margherita Extra (the Buffalo mozzarella makes it "extra" - you can also order it with regular mozzarella).  I preferred the Margherita of the two.  They were both good - but I still think Delfina and Flour + Water do a better pizza.

At this point, we were pretty much stuffed but I forced everyone to order dessert. I really, really wanted dessert because I kept reading about their soft serve ice cream sundaes. The waiter brings you a sheet of paper and you get to fill out what you want.  We chose vanilla ice cream with hot fudge, cocoa nibs, toffee, olive oil and salt.  Oh, and you can tell them you only want the half order, which is what we did.  I don't think I need to tell you that this was a perfect ending to this meal. I mean, just look at it, how could you not love that? 

We all really loved our dinner here. Even if the pizza wasn't our favorite, the meal as a whole was excellent. PLUS we found a parking space right out front, so extra points for that. AND the prices are really reasonable - there were four of us, and it wound up being around $20 per person, with tip.  This is definitely on my list of places to return to - I can see this being a top standby place for me for 2011.

Zero Zero

826 Folsom Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
(415) 348-8800

Sunday Night Dinner: Delfina Pizza

Birthday Pizza Party.

Food Crawl Part 3: Oakland and Berkeley

For the third installment of food crawl, we headed over to the East Bay. Heather planned this round which was great because she knows all the good places to hit in Oakland and Berkeley. We were supposed to start at Bakesale Betty's, but they ran out of chicken sandwiches before we got there (at 2:15 - they close at 3).  Big huge bummer. Especially because we must have only just missed it because we saw  plenty of people unwrapping or just starting their incredible looking sandwiches.

So instead, we walked down the road and started at Burma Superstar.  I had never attempted to try Burma Superstar because I've been intimidated by the lines. If you feel the same way, I highly suggest you check out the Oakland location at about 2PM because it was empty. We ordered the  tea leaf salad and rainbow salad and you should too. 

This is the tea leaf salad, and the leaves really do come from Burma (or so says the menu).  I loved the presentation of the salads at the table - they arrive with all the components segregated to a section of the dish and then the waiter (very quickly) goes through all ingredients and then tosses it table side. Besides the tea leaves there are tomatoes, lettuce, peanuts, fried garlic and a whole bunch of other stuff. It tastes like nothing else I've had before and I loved those fried garlic pieces. 

I wanted to try the rainbow salad when I saw that it had 22 different ingredients.  How can you pass up a salad that has 22 ingredients? I wish I could remember what was in it besides noodles (4 different types) more fried garlic, tofu, papaya, pepper, fried onion and 11 other ingredients I now can't remember. I actually liked this salad better than the tea leaf salad. All the different textures and flavors came together to make a really distinct and fun dish. I believe the menu called it "a party in your mouth".

Our next stop was over in Berkeley at Vik's Chaat Corner. This place is part grocery store, part restaurant. The restaurant is no frills: order at the counter, sit at tables that are reminiscent of a high school cafeteria, and eat your food with... biodegradable sporks.

At Vik's we ordered a couple of mango lassis and a veggie kathi and then tried to figure out how to eat the kathi with the sporks.

The four of us quickly devoured both the drinks and the food. The kathi (which is only served on the weekend) was really nicely spiced and flavorful and the lassi would have been perfect to drink with it if I hadn't finished it before the food arrived.  I also liked that nearly everything that was left when we finished eating - plate, cups and sporks - were compostable and the restaurant has a big green bin to allow you to do just that.

Next up on the agenda was the Imperial Tea Court, also in Berkeley.  They have a huge variety of different teas and also a decent selection of food. We decided to try a white tea and an herbal tea as well as some veggie dumplings.

Imperial Tea Court allows you to experience different types of tea service, and we chose the Gaiwan tea presentation.  Both teas were really mild and subtle and though it wasn't my most favorite tea I've ever had, I really enjoyed the presentation of it as well as just hanging out and talking with my friends over tea.

Next up on our list was ice cream. We drove over to Ici in Berkeley and waited in line and debated which flavors to get. We were only going to get two, but we couldn't decide between them all and in the end picked three: toasted almond, chocolate caramel and orange rosemary toffee.

Ici is another shop I would love just for the design, but the ice cream really holds up. My favorite of the three flavors was the orange rosemary toffee - three flavors you wouldn't think to put together but tasted amazing. Everyone else picked the toasted almond chocolate almond as their favorite, but really everything we tried - including the flavors that we sampled before ordering - were great. I have to say, I much prefer Ici to Humphrey Slocomb, and I think it's pretty comparable to Bi-Rite Creamery.

After ice cream, we decided to take a little digestion break and headed over to the Berkeley Rose Garden which is now in full bloom.

We wandered around here for awhile, building up our appetites for our final stop, Boot and Shoe.  Boot and Shoe is a pizza place and the sequel to Pizzaiolo (the name is held over from the former tenants of the location).  We hung out for awhile in the bar, drinking sparkling rose, while we waited for a table.

The bar is tucked away in the back of the restaurant and after awhile we decided to stop waiting for our table and commandeered the back corner of the bar and started ordering food.

This is the farro salad minus the burrata but plus the ricotta. I only had a small bite of this one - at this point our group had grown to six - but I liked what I tried.

We also ordered a couple of pizzas: potato, pancetta, fontina and rosemary and a margherita pizza topped with arugula.

I loved the potato/pancetta combination but wasn't overwhelmed by the margherita.  The atmosphere was fun and I liked the weird paintings on the wall and I would totally go back to hang out there. 

This food crawl was the super-sized version of our previous food crawls and a really good time. Thanks Heather, for picking out such great spots. Now, when can we go back to Bakesale Betty?


(for restaurant addresses and phone numbers, click below)  

Pizzetta 211, Outer Richmond

I first heard about Pizzetta 211 from this article in Sunset Magazine about the best pizza places in the Bay Area.  A couple of weeks ago I happened to be driving by and noticed it, and thought it looked so sweet - just a little storefront with a few tables and a tree with twinkly lights. So when it came time to pick a spot for a girls' lunch today, and one of the girls lives in the Richmond, this seemed like a good choice. 

We got there around 1PM, and there was no one waiting ahead of us. This was lucky for us, because with only seven tables total - inside and out - we could have had a long, long wait. 

We started off with some Limonatas, which is the best drink ever on a hot day, plus I love the little bottles they come in. The menu changes weekly, and I think this week must be goat cheese week, which is fine by me because I love goat cheese.  Usually when a menu changes regularly, there aren't any specials - but they always have an addition of a daily appetizer and dessert on the menu.  We had the special salad of beet, beet greens and crostini with goat cheese.

I really enjoyed this dish - it was really light and simple but incredibly flavorful, with little bits of chili  to give it some kick. This is one to remember, because it would be so simple to make at home.

We then moved on to the main course: calzone and pizza. The calzone was filled with  ricotta, tomato sauce and.... goat cheese! I really loved the calzone. The dough was chewy and had a great texture, and the sauce and the cheeses all worked really nicely together. 

The pizza was topped with  lamb sausage, roasted pepper, garlic confit and ricotta salata.  Oh, and that's not basil you see on top - that's mint.  It's really surprising when you take your first bite,  expecting to taste basil and to find that it is something else entirely, but I thought it worked really well.  The lamb meatballs were really juicy and flavorful and I liked how potent the garlic confit was. The crust on the pizzas here are much thinner than a lot of the other artisinal pizza shops in San Francisco.  I enjoyed it, but the others in my group prefer the lighter, fluffier dough at Pizzeria Delfina. 

We ended the meal with a piece of flourless chocolate cake and fresh cream, and really, what better way to end a meal than with a piece of chocolate cake? 

With all of the amazing pizza places in San Francisco, and so many in my neighborhood, I don't know that I would go all the way across town to come back here.  But next time I'm in the Outer Richmond I'll know just where to go. 

Pizzetta 211

211 23rd Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94121-2008
(415) 379-9880

Flour + Water, Mission

We had another early bird dinner, this time at Flour + Water. I'm not really sure how to get around having an early bird dinner there, because both times we have been there we've booked a table online and the only reservations have been three months out and at 5:30.  That's fine with me though because then it gives us plenty of time to get to BINGO. 

I'm not sure that the menu was designed to be shared as small plates, but it easily lends itself to that. There were four of us which meant we got to try lots of different things.  

That's the wood oven roasted heirloom beans with chili and parmesan and also the lemon thyme tagliatelle with braised chicken, citrus and pistachio. We all thought that the tagliatelle tasted kind of like really good chicken noodle soup pasta. I realize that the chef would probably not like to hear that, but we really meant it in a good way. Both of these dishes were great, and I especially liked the crunchy bits on the beans.

We ordered two pizzas - the top photo below is the mushroom pizza (way fancier name but I can't remember) with arugula added on, and the photo below that is a prosciutto pizza with more arugula and some chili. We like arugula.

Both pizzas were really good - though I don't think they are my favorite of all the artisan pizzas in the area (Pizzeria Delfina would be high on my list for favorites).

If you have dinner at Flour + Water, then you must also have dessert. And if you are going to have dessert, then you have to have the chocolate budino, which is incredible. A little pot of amazing chocolate, topped with sea salt and espresso-caramel cream. We also tried the blood orange & polenta upside down cake with clove cream. It tastes much better than it sounds - though not as good as the chocolate budino. Maybe we should have added arugula.

Delarosa, Marina

I think there should be a term for a meal between lunch and dinner - the evening version of brunch - because lately we've been into eating dinner way too early for people our age.  We stopped into Delarosa at around 4:30 and pretty much had the place to ourselves, which was a-ok by us. 

Delarosa is owned by the same people that own Beretta, though that is not something you'd know by the look of the place. It's kind of like if Beretta had an identity crisis and went from being the gothy kid with the raven tattoo to the preppy cheerleader. 

All of the seating is communal, which I'm not sure how I would feel about if we were there when it was crowded. At 4:30 though - no problem.  

That's the salty dog above - vodka, elderflower, grapefruit juice, salt - which was very refreshing. I love drinks with fresh citrus. The salad was incredibly simple but amazingly tasty - just arugula, fennel and shaved parmesan. 

We also ordered the margherita pizza with burrata and added on some prosciutto.  It really worked well together - the sweetness of the sauce + the saltiness of the prosciutto + the creaminess of the burrata. I thought that the crust wasn't quite as good as at some of the other artisan pizza places. Kev disagreed. We ate the whole pizza.

Beretta, Mission

I love having brunch at Beretta. I also love having dinner at Beretta, but for dinner there is usually a long wait to get in (though you can call ahead and put your name on the list, which is very convenient if you live just a few blocks away.)

Saturday was an amazingly bright, beautiful day. We walked over to Beretta, past the giant congregation of hipsters waiting to be seated at Boogaloos, and immediately got a table. When we walked in the bartender was juicing tons of oranges and grapefruit and bottling them up - for breakfast juice but I'd also guess for cocktails later on. Their cocktails are amazing. Too bad it was 10 AM, a little too early for me.

Anyway, who needs a cocktail when you can have a Bloody Mary, minus the alcohol and minus ice, which is the only way I like it, even though I get embarrassed every time I order it. Beretta also serves Ritual Coffee, brought to your table in the french press pot. It is very strange, but I always like Ritual Coffee better at Beretta than I do at the Ritual cafe.  This time I remembered to write down the name of the beans - Moreno Honduras.

We ordered the pizza carbonara, which I absolutely love.  I have to admit, when I first saw it on the menu - pizza with pancetta, eggs and mozzarella - I wasn't sold. Luckily the friends I was there with were more adventurous and ordered it, and now this is always what I order there. Kev and I shared the pizza and had extra slices to take home.  We both left full - of food and drinks - and spent only $25 for the two of us. Then we walked home - and there was still a line at Boogaloos.  I don't understand.

Sunday Night Dinner: Pizzas

Every Sunday, we have a standing dinner reservation over at the Smiths'. We started this about six months ago when their baby was born, and we've kept this going over the last few months. This week's dinner was homemade pizza.  

I have to admit I don't have very much to say about the pizza making process because I was either taking photos or hanging out with a super cute 6 month old.  I think what happened was :

Dough was made, tomatoes were crushed

 ingredients were gathered up (in a very stylish way)

  and then finally the pizzas got prepped (click for better view):.

We had (left to right):

1. tomato/basil/mozzarella/parmesan

2. tomato/basil/spinach/mushroom/mozzarella/parmesan/prosciutto

3. tomato/cheddar/pear/basil

#3 would have been with gorgonzola, but I really don't like gorgonzola so they humored me and switched it to cheddar.

Here are the end results (click for better view):

I think #2 was my favorite. The saltiness of the prosciutto always makes for a great pizza, especially when there is also parmesan. #3 was also a hit - I wasn't sure how I'd feel about pear and cheddar on a pizza, but it was surprisingly good.  Interesting fact:  The first pizza we used some leftover dough from a previous pizza making night. It had been frozen and then defrosted, and I actually liked dough best. It had much more flavor than the fresh dough and a better texture as well.

Next week we are the ones cooking - I need to come up with a good follow up to this meal (especially since the last Sunday night dinner I cooked over there was such a bust!)