Okay, so nobody ever accused us of being especially observant, but we only recently recognized that "Naia", at 451 Castro Street, was a gelateria. See, the sign only says the name, and there's no logo of an ice cream cone or anything . . . we'd always assumed it was some sort of minimalist modern art gallery.

Yeah, we're dumb. But on Sunday, we saw a few people outside eating frozen treats, and the lightbulb went off. We went in, and made pigs of ourselves. The only way it could have been better? Maybe if the holiday weekend weather had cooperated a little more. We're traditionalists in that we prefer our ice cream/gelato on hot days.

The first thing that hit us was the presentation: dozens of flavors of gelato, sorbretto, and soy gelato, vividly displayed in a glass case; the understated decor of the shop really lets the flavors pop. A visual treat (obviously, our camera phone didn't quite do it justice).

In any case, there are lots of sorbetto and soy options. The company currently makes more than 100 flavors throughout the year. From what we've heard, flavors have been known to change in middle of the day. Happily, the super-friendly staff encouraged us to sample away.

"Whole grains," one of the flavors we tried, wasn't to our taste. It was gritty and tasted like a bowl high-fiber cereal that's been soaked in milk for a few hours. Of course, we were probably out of our mind to try something called "Whole Grains" in the first place when the subject is frozen dessert. But everything else we tried was really good.

Details on flavors we dug and more after the jump