MICHAEL MINA – RESTAURANT REVIEW – PRIX FIXE DINNER
With an atmosphere of contemporary elegance, plus excellent service and trays of succulent small bites coming in spectacularly focused trios, Michael Mina restaurant is certainly worth the special occasion splurge. Tables are distant enough for your group to feel safe and uncrowded. You enter the room–hidden within [...]
Pork Ragu Pappardelle
Incanto – San Francisco CA
Pork Ragu Pappardelle, Incanto restaurant, SF CA
The Dish: Pork Ragu Pappardelle
Any meaty pasta that Chris Cosentino and company at Incanto prepare will likely be among the best pastas you’ll eat in San Francisco. The wide, flat pappardelle noodles are house-made fresh, and the meat sauce is simply awesome. [...]
Pappardelle with Venison Ragu
Awesome Venison Ragu Pappardelle, Big Sur Bakery
The Dish: Pappardelle with Venison Ragu
I certainly enjoy hearty meaty pastas. And I usually enjoy the requisite napping that follows. As meaty pastas go, the pappardelle with venison ragu at Big Sur Bakery is outstanding. Rich and flavorful, the sauce puts a tingling in the [...]
SPAGHETTI & MEATBALLS
The Spot: Sodini’s Bertolucci’s Ristorante, South San Francisco CA
Sodini’s Bertolucci’s is the kind of old-school Italian joint that you would imagine finding in downtown Las Vegas, or in Eastern New Jersey. With its giant signage, black-and-white awning, and exterior murals of Italian landscapes, it’s a holdover from another era, and a surprising [...]
MEATBALLS
THE SPOT: OSTERIA LA BUCA, LOS ANGELES, CA
The décor at Osteria La Buca is charming and warm for an urban conversion, with high ceilings, exposed steel beams and brick walls. The interior blends simple sophistication into an overall feeling of a neighborhood joint and since that part of L.A. doesn’t have many, it’s a [...]
The Spot: Joey & Eddie’s Restaurant
As one of the few restaurants in North Beach that are really good, Joey & Eddie’s won me over the week it opened. The décor is comfortable but low-key, with a large, spacious and open main dining room of deep booths and dark wooden tables and armless, captain’s style [...]
The Dish: Roasted Veal Meatballs
There are meatballs that are forgettable (Chef Boyardee, and his ilk in many mediocre restaurants), and those that inspire drool when remembered. The roasted veal meatballs at Town Hall in San Francisco are the drool-y kind. Creating meatballs with veal instead of the more traditional pork-beef blend was inspired, and [...]