Restaurants are popping up in the Mission like zits on the face of a teenager. And it is our duty, as self-proclaimed food dermatologist, to go and examine them. Today is the overall check-up, where we take a wide look at the scene, the PCP visit if you will, before we return in subsequent posts with the magnifying glass of the specialist on two new and hip Mission spots which are buzzed about a-plenty.

Today's places, below the jump, are Pizzeria Delfina, The Window, Baku de Thai, Big Lantern and Crazy Sushi, all of them between Duboce and 18th and Mission and Dolores.

A place which has plenty of buzz going is Pizzeria Delfina. We feel there is no need for a thorough look, though, as it is an offspring of the Delfina restaurant, a place so critically acclaimed that it does not need us to join the chorus one more time. Pizzeria Delfina is conjoined at the hip with the main restaurant, as they share a wall. It used to be a store called Quality Junk, a name we like better than the bland 'Pizzeria Delfina.'

We got ourselves a pizza salsiccia ($12.25), a Neapolitan style pie with homemade fennel sausage, pepper and onion and a sauce that tasted of especially summery tomatoes. The sausage by itself would make any cook proud. The ingredients are laid out on the pie with a light hand, but that is the "authentic" Italian way. Whatever authenticity means here, it was good, the pizza dough was crusty and bready on the outside ring, while chewier in the middle. We ate it along with a Tartine bread pudding on the sunny Dolores Park lawn, during the SF Symphony concert a couple weeks ago, and it was close to a perfect meal.

If you decide to dine in the pizzeria, there are a few sidewalk tables, a few tables inside, and desserts and antipasti to complement your pie. The decor is not striking or anything, the focus is squarely on the food.

We stopped by at The Window. The Window is, stricto sensu, not new. It was in its Valencia and Duboce location before, but they had a fire, moved a few years to another location uptown, and moved back a couple weeks ago. Because of the extensive remodel, it does feel brand new. A massive stone fountain sits in the entrance. We felt like in a hip art gallery, with modern and colorful paintings hanging on the dark brown walls.

Food-wise, it features pan-Asian cooking. We were nicely surprised by the Vietnamese crepe ($7.95), a rice flour crepe stuffed with bean sprouts, chicken bits and shrimp sliced lengthwise. We were told to break a piece of the crepe, which texture was closer to a taco shell than a French crepe, wrap it in lettuce leaves and dip in a sweet-and-sour fish sauce. We had fun doing so, and the mix of tastes and textures of the fresh ingredients made it quite pleasurable.

Some lamb chops (a daily special, $10.95), marinated and grilled, kept us happy. A rice plate of honey sesame chicken on the other hand could be turned upside down, the sticky coating of the chicken would keep it glued to the plate. Overall, with most dishes priced in the $7-9 range, we did not expect everything to be perfect, and we were pleasantly surprised.

We made the rookie mistake of visiting Baku de Thai the week they opened. Service of course was a mess, with waitresses who seemed more comfortable modeling their black Bebe clothing than bussing the tables. We cannot blame them, we would do the same if we were wearing tight fitting pants, and clueless service is part of the hiccups of opening a restaurant. Training is on the fly. We know they have been assigned clearer roles since then.

Baku, like the Window, has a sophisticated design, with, instead of a fountain, a huge granite sculpture of a head. A flat screen plays videos of traditional Thai hand painting on ceramic, which is oddly captivating. Baku attempts a Thai-French fusion, but hedges its bet with a traditional Thai menu. From the traditional list, we had a fried catfish in spicy tamarine soup ($14.95, the most expensive dish on the menu), some wild boar sauteed with tomatillos, and from the fusion side, bread pudding and ginger crème brulée.

The food was uneven, some very good, like the boar, some less so. Again, we will not pass judgement, we went there too early. The kitchen, like the service, needed to settle. We welcome comments of recent visitors to Baku (heck, we welcome all comments). But we have to mention that they took steps to improve, and most notably, have instituted a dinner special menu with four courses for $12.95. It is an early bird dinner, served till 7:30pm, but it has to be one of the best deal for a budget dinner. It includes the crème brulée, which was one of the highs of our dinner.

Big Lantern is another restaurant that made a strong investment in its decor. Is it us, or the decor standards have been going steeply up lately? This is the Mission we are talking about, after all, not Interior Design magazine. We spurned the fancy digs and took advantage of the 10% take-out discount.

We had sword flower pork ($9.95), because we had no idea what a sword flower was. And googling for it, it looks like a favorite of aquariophiles to keep company to their fish. The sword flower had a jicama texture, like a slightly crunchy root, and a faint flavor. Otherwise, we mostly ordered from the dim-sum menu: siu mai, taro vegetarian puff, shrimp dumpling, stuffed eggplant,tofu vegetarian roll, stuffed crab claw (all between $2.50 and $3.95). All were good renditions. The egg custard tart ($2.50 for 3) was particularly good, with a hint of coconut in the custard, and served warm two us both times we ordered it.

We are not aware of any other dim sum place in the Mission, so Big Lantern is a definitely welcome addition.

We conclude our round-up with Crazy Sushi. Blame us for talking about a sushi place without having actually tried the nigiri, but we don't want to turn this space into some wall-to-wall sushi coverage, and we have been to Koo, Hamano, Yo's Sushi Club, Sushi Zone. We did try the lunch box, which included a crisp cabbage salad with a dressing that was sweet but not too sweet; a spicy tuna roll; some tempura'd vegetable, with a nice light batter; some ton katsu (deep fried pork rolled in panko crumbs) that needed more plump sauce; rice; miso soup and fruit. Honestly, at $6.50, it is a steal.

As if it is not cheap enough, Crazy Sushi has happy hour specials, with $1.99 rolls to choose from California, philly, tempura shrimp, vegetable tempura, and avocado cucumber sesame roll. And they deliver. What's not to like?

Pizzeria Delfina
3611 18th St at Guerrero
(415) 437-6800

Crazy Sushi
3232 16th St @ Guerrero
(415)553-6062