San Francisco A to Zed
Where Brit Chick, her Monsieur F & other international mates, gorge themselves in and around San Francisco, one letter of the alphabet at a time.
SFist had to overcome it's own self-acknowledged, inverted form of snobbery to make a reservation at widely applauded Marina District restaurant A16. We accidentally left our passport to Chestnut Street - the fake tan bottle, straight blonde wig, and ability to screech "oh my god" in a high-pitched - whine - up - to - seven - times - per - minute - without - pausing - for - breath, at home. Turns out it didn't matter as A16 attracts food-loving locals from all over the City. Aside from Monsieur F, SFist bought along an expert on Italian home cooking, ItalCalGal as well as another Brit Chick, ex 80s Rock Star Ms Belle Star, to see if all the fuss we've read about the Campania-style cooking at A16 is warranted.
Inside the entrance to A16, in the area next to the Bar where they accept walk ins (or should that be push ins?) is packed and noisy. We waited there, unable to do much apart from shout at each other, for about 10 minutes, until our table was ready. We can understand why Julie Andrew's favourite things include brown paper packages tied up in strings. Our own favourite place setting in town may well now be a table clothed in crisp brown paper, with similarly colored napkins and a brown paper menu.
[Ed. Note: When we asked new SFist Sam Breach to drop by once in a while, we knew she was a star -- lucky for us, Chronicle readers now know her and Derrick, too! Please welcome another foodie to what's becoming a pleasantly crowded table.]
Monsieur F had his own agenda for the night whilst les madames decided to share and try just about everything else on the menu. As we drooled over the edible options, le Monsieur was left to choose a wine. He elicited guidance from a very helpful wait person (female, bien sur) who recommended the 2000 Le Caniette Montepulciano Nero di Vite at $60 a bottle. Named "Black of Life" after a colour Micaelangelo achieved from burning vine shoots, this wine is a deep, bright, red in colour coming from black reflections. (Don't ask us - it says something like that on the label.) Made from Montepulciano and Sangiovese grapes, the nose is quite peculiar, with a scent of Marmite or burning rubber. The first taste was very dry, suckering all the moisture from the collective SFist mouth. But once the wine had caught its breath back and opened up, it was declared to be a delicious, deep, red-fruit-tasting and easily quaffable vino.
To start, we absolutely had to try the burrata a young, fresh, mozzarella cheese, simply dribbled in olive oil, $10. The table went quiet when it arrived. Presented in minimalist style, the burrata at A16 resembled two perfectly poached eggs. You could have heard a pin drop as the four of us each took a mouthful of the soft, but stringy, milky heavenliness. As we each silently mused on our dreamy mouthfuls it felt like we had been transcended above the earth, where we found ourselves floating on squooshy little fluffy white clouds.
The polenta special, with dandelion greens, pinenuts, pecorino and currants bought us harshly back down to earth with a bang. Those dandelions taste really bitter. ItalCalGal assured us that instead of weeding their back yards, Italians grow dandelions on purpose to use as food. She exclaimed the dish to be authentic, but we are not certain that eating dandelion leaves is such a good idea, despite what Martha says, when there are other more tasty things on the menu.
The Bresaola, $11, cured on A16's premises is a much more attractive proposition. These wafer-thin, translucent, ruby-red slivers of meat were possibly the best version of cured beef we've ever tasted, even better than the mcoy we've tried in Italy itself. CalItalGal declared that her Italian mother would have loved this rendition. High praise indeed, and deserved.
We quite liked the housemade pork sausage with roasted scallions and almonds, $11, too. Although Ms Belle Star declared it to be a little too much on the salty side for her taste, we otherwise thought the sausage was well flavoured and tasty, with overtones of fennel and with the nuts providing a welcome crunchy contrast to the other softer elements.
On to the main course. A16 is famous for it's thin-crusted, Neopolitan-style Pizzas. Monsieur F had no trouble deciding on his usual - a Margherita, $10, with an additional topping of San Daniel proscuitto for $3.50. We decided to try the special pizza of the day, with fresh ricotta cheese and arugula, plus another extra of the prosciutto.
Monsieur F declared his pizza to be "mushy mushy". (We blame the juice from his tomatoes.)He complained there was no salt in the crust. We tried his pizza and although we had to admit that the tomato sauce wasn't nearly as good as the tasty one you'll find at Pizzetta 211 , we disagreed with him about the crust, which we found to be light and oily tasting with a perfect crispy to chewy ratio. Absolutely A1 (x 6) times, superb in our book.
Our own ricotta pizza was delightful. The crust was irresistible and the cheese tasted fresh and young. A quarter each was enough, though, but not enough to stop us from digging in to our other orders.
From the pasta section we took a small-sized order, $9, of Laghane with porcini, dried fava and pecorino. CalItalGal was most impressed with this dish which she declared to be a totally authentic Italian with its thick gritty sauce similar to pasta fagiole.
Grilled housemade lamb sausage and braised lamb ragu, $19, received some rave reviews for it's rare, meaty, juicy, melt-in-your-mouth but not hugely flavourful sausage whilst its mate on the plate, the poor lamb ragu, was derided. Fatty tasting and perched on a thick, soggy piece of bread, we couldn't help but ask the question, why on earth did the lamb sausage marry the ragu?
For dessert we shared the Semi Freddo, a log of icecream with chocolate nibbles and very bitter orange rind pieces. We wished for much more chocolate nibble action and less orange rind, whilst Ms Belle Star hankered after the opposite. Either way, we weren't distracted from polishing it off, completely.
The bill, per head, including a generous tip, came to $52. For a beautifully presented, well executed, and really decent tasting dinner we thought this place was worthy of its good reviews. It was particularly interesting to feast on food that hails just from one small area of Italy. Our first impression is that we'll definitely be back soon for a second.
Dinner Sunday - Thursday 5:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Friday & Saturday 5:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.
Lunch Wednesday - Friday 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Reservations: (415) 771-2216
2355 Chestnut Street, San Francisco
(Between Scott and Divisadero)
SFist Sam, contributing.