Restaurants

Grilled bread for the table and a crisp rose wine!

Pasta Pomodoro in one sentence: Sure, it’s part of a chain of Italian restaurants, but in the consistent, reliable sort of way, with a tasty menu, good sized portions and healthy options.

Who you’ll see there: Singles who don’t feel like cooking after work, couples who don’t feel like cooking after work, families who don’t feel like cooking after soccer practice and work…you get the idea. The cafe in Laurel Village is a well-known “child-friendly” spot, so it’s a big spot for the local nannies at lunch.

Make sure to try: The butternut squash ravioli, the chicken marsala, the broccoli sauteed with garlic and chile flakes, and the “mista” mixed green side salad, which has a wonderful mix of fresh vegetables and a light but tasty dressing. Also, the wine list is surprisingly extensive.

It’s okay to skip: The bruschetta. They bring you grilled bread and a garlickly dipping sauce for the table.

Best dessert: Simple but delicious affogato: espresso poured over vanilla gelato.

Seriously, isn't that a nice looking salad?

Service: It’s perfectly fine. They get your meal on the table without dropping it in your lap. There’s not a lot of variety on the menu for them to explain, but they’re nice kids, you know? Leave a nice tip, they try hard.

Average meal price: Pretty affordable and recession-friendly. The most expensive thing on the menu is the $16 steak. The Laurel Village cafe offers week night specials, half-price bottles of wine, and the servings are always big enough to bring home for left-overs.

Pasta Pomodoro Logistics:

• You can usually walk right in and get a seat
• Credit cards, yes
• It’s kid-friendly, which means there’s a good chance there will be a screaming child one or two tables over. There aren’t any fancy table cloths to absorb the sound. It can get loud. Be ready to roll with it, or get your order to go.
• Heated patio

Parking:

Officially street parking, but everyone parks in the Laurel Village parking lot.

Location:

Laurel Village
3611 California Street
San Francisco, CA 94118
415-831-0900

Photos: Cat Lincoln

Fried olives at Sociale

Sociale in one sentence: Neighborhood Italian trattoria tucked away down an alley off Sacramento Street, featuring a four course menu of local, sustainable and delectable dishes.

Who you’ll see there: Dressed up, slightly older, well-heeled (sorta rich) “Heights” crowd.

Make sure to try: the fried olives stuffed with fontina, the pasta Amatriciana with Guanciale, and the braised pork shank with maple glaze.

It’s okay to skip: it’s all delicious, so I have to go with “anything except dessert”

Best dessert: chocolate oblivion cake with olive oil, sea salt, amaretti cookie crumbles or the incredible house-made doughnuts with espresso shake — the doughnuts come out warm with the sugar melting off them.

Service: Unobtrusive but professional and attentive. You will never have a chance to pour your own wine.

Average meal price: On the medium/pricey side, with appetizers in the $8-12 range, pastas $15-18, and meat dishes $22-28. Desserts under $10, but the wine list will tempt you to overspend.

Chocolate oblivion cake

Sociale Logistics:

• You absolutely need reservations on the weekend, and most week nights
• Beer and wine only
• You will be tempted by the charming patio with twinkling lights, but even heat lamps have a hard time competing with cold San Francisco fog
• There are no high-chairs in evidence at Sociale. If you’re spending this much, it’s worth it to get a babysitter, too.

Parking:

Give yourself a few minutes to look, but street parking is surprisingly doable.

Location:

Laurel Heights
3665 Sacramento Street between Locust and Spruce Streets
San Francisco, CA
415.921.3200

Hours:

Lunch: Tues-Sat 11:30-2:30 PM

Dinner: Mon-Sat 5:30-10:00 PM

Photos: Cat Lincoln

Pasta Moto "Quick Taste of Italy" new in SF

San Francisco Metreon Shopping Center, in the San Francisco Center has a large lower floor filled with mini versions of larger restaurants as well as your basic food stalls.   Think International Terminal at SFO more than Harrod’s Department Store’s famous Food Halls.

Westfield – Metreon is a state of the art technology and entertainment marketplace covering over 350,000 square feet on four levels. It is the new home of the old Emporium-Capwell’s for you old school shoppers and citizens like me. Remember that crazy Ferris Wheel on the roof of the store at Christmas? How was that legal?

While shopping at Bloomingdale’s and checking out the Rosetta Stone kiosk in the mall, I got really hungry all of a sudden. Maybe from thinking of my trip to Spain and all the fresh seafood I was going to consume!  Deep down inside though, my craving was for simple comfort food rather than a balanced sensible meal.  Good thing I was at a mall because the lower level produced the perfect choice, Pasta Moto! Read More »

Feel Glamorous Lunch @ Armani Cafe

Do you have a group of friends that you like to meet up with for a little retail therapy?  I am part of this great group of girlfriends who like to meet regularly downtown.  Besides hitting the stores, we also use this time together to try out cafes and restaurants.

This time after we combed the sale racks at Banana Republic, Loehmann’s and H&M we decided to hit the Armani Cafe, just inside the Armani store on Grant Avenue in San Francisco.

We may live for sales but we also need to feel glamorous.  What better way to gaze at the gorgeous Giorgio Armani clothes without feeling the guilt of not buying them, then to grab a bite at his cafe.  We could have gone for the European feel and sat outside on the sidewalk but decided to up the style quotient and get a table overlooking the beautiful displays inside.

A few of us at the table were disappointed that it wasn’t 3:00 pm yet because the cafe has a happy hour with drink specials that include a $6 Cosmo or Martini.  I was excited to see my favorite summer food, a caprese salad (heirloom tomato, basil and fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese!) on the menu for $9 as well as fried calamari for $10. Read More »

Risotto Rustica at Nonni's

Read More »

Chicken Parm, Pizza and a glass of red - the perfect combo at Giorgio's!

Giorgio’s Pizzeria in one sentence: East coast-style pizzeria where everyone is “from the neighborhood” and the jukebox plays classic rock.

Who you’ll see there: The high school drill team after practice, hipsters on dates, parents with crying toddlers, older couples … seriously the whole neighborhood.

Make sure to try: Perfect classic cheese pizza, the chicken parm with a side of spaghetti, the antipasto salad.

It’s okay to skip: Any flavor of calzone – for a place that does thin crust pizza so well, the calzone is a disappointing dough bomb.

Best dessert: Another slice of pizza

Service: Nice local girls in matching t-shirts who you can trust to tell you the truth about portion sizes, refill your Coke without asking, and will leave you in peace to eat your meal.

Average meal price: $22.10 for a large Giorgio’s Special (salami, pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms) pizza, $14.25 for a chicken parm that can feed you for two-three meals.

Best time of day/meal to visit: It’s always busy, sometimes your best bet is to call and order take out.

Giorgio’s Pizzeria Logistics:

• No reservations
• No delivery
• Credit cards accepted
• Street parking

Location:
151 Clement St.
3rd Ave. and Clement Street
Phone: 415-668-1266
Richmond District

Hours:
Monday – Thursday: 11:00 am 10:00 pm
Friday – Saturday: 11:00 am 11:00 pm
Sunday – 11:00 am 9:00 pm

What kind of restaurant does a harried writer/Mom type like when craving a great meal in New York City?  According to Allison Winn Scotch, NYC resident, mother of two, and New York Times Bestselling Author of Time of My Life (now available in paperback), it’s a nice, quiet meal at a place like Cesca, a fantastic Italian joint on West 75th and Amsterdam. 
 
“The Upper West Side’s dining has really blossomed over the past few years,” she says.  “And Cesca is just one of those places where every dish you order is good.” 
 
When Scotch and her husband can get the babysitter to stay a few extra hours, they often meet up with friends at this charming and “fairly hip” eatery.  “The ambiance is really nice:  loud, but not too loud.  You don’t have to worry about talking over the noise but also don’t have to worry about laughing too hard after a glass or two of wine.”  

Read More »

Much of the time, choosing a restaurant is a simple mathematical formula for me: I had Mexican Saturday, a hamburger on Sunday, and so it’s time for Italian on Monday. My destination this evening is Johnson Street and Hollywood’s Broadwalk — add the two and you find yourself checking out the menu posted at Florio’s of Little Italy. (Apparently it’s the former Angelo’s Corner now under new ownership, but tourists rarely catch on to nuances like this.)

Delicious gnocchi on the beach

To be honest, I never actually read that menu. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to my glasses yet when Cassidy, a red-headed waiter looking as un-Italian as you can, aggressively invited me to have a seat and he’d provide top-notch service. Well, the rule about formula dinners is not to waste too much energy on the decision, so I sat down in the plastic chair at an outdoor table where I could see the ocean and the families passing by on the Broadwalk.

True to his word, Cassidy acted more like I was dining in a candlelit corner and paying prices twice as high. (Shhh, don’t tell my husband, but you could also call the banter between us flirting. <grin>) I knew I would have left overs but I ordered the bowl of pasta fagioli along with a serving of gnocchi because I was on a business trip and you tend to get more careless about dollars under these circumstances. Besides, I had plenty to entertain between watching kids play in Charnow Park and ride their rented bicycles up and down the sidewalk. And always, there’s that ocean in motion to add ambiance.

The Broadwalk view

So I truly wasn’t expecting great food, just something edible. Which is probably how that first spoonful of pasta fagioli blew my socks off. I thought nothing could top Olive Garden when it comes to my favorite soup, but Florio’s sure schooled me in what a stupid assumption that was. And the gnocchi — homemade, covered in cream sauce and spiced with pine nuts and basil. It was the far more flavorful (and fancy) than I was expecting from a shorts and tank top kind of place.

If this is what simple math gets you, I really should have knuckled down to conquer algebra.

Florio’s of Little Italy

200 Garfield St.

Hollywood, FL

954-925-0004

Photography: Julie Sturgeon

Gino's Blackened Chicken Fettucine

Better than any spaghetti western is this great Italian restaurant on the border of Salinas.  Gino’s Fine Italian Food has been cooking up delicious Italian food more than twenty years now on the fringe of town.

The location is just on the edge of town on your way to or from and MontereyCarmel.  We love coming here for big family events because they have great service and huge tables, perfect for groups.

We were here this time for a graduation event and once again they didn’t disappoint.  We had blackened chicken fettucine and their house special 16 ounce rib eye steak, both were amazing.  Dinners come with soup or salad, and if you like anchovies, their cesar is killer.  Otherwise, you can have a wedge of Salinas Iceberg lettuce that will start your meal off right too.

My mother had the chicken picatta with mashed potato while my father had the shrimp with penne.  We all shared their bruschetta with its fresh diced tomato and basil on toasted bread. And they made sure it had exactly eight pieces, since my family will fight over delicious food.

Cozy Interiors @ Gino's

For a group of eight they were fast with their service and did not make a mistake with our meal.

Gino's Chicken Picatta

Gino’s is a great lunch or dinner spot for families traveling on Highway 1 as they have a lot of dishes that kids love – like their famous calamari strips – and they have a large parking lot. We also enjoy sitting outdoors when we come for lunch.  For this end of town where you only have mostly fast food chains, you won’t be disappointed stopping by the next time you are in the area.

Gino’s Fine Italian Food Restaurant
1410 S. Main St.
Salinas, California 93908
Tel: 831.422.1814
www.ginospasta.com

LUNCH: Mon-Fri, 11 am – 3 pm
DINNER: Mon-Thurs, 5 pm – 9 pm; Fri, 5 pm – 10pm; Sat, 4 – 10pm

Capannina in San Francisco

Capannina is a wonderful Italian restaurant with the freshest seafood, in the heart of the Cow Hollow neighborhood in San Francisco.  They have a fixed price menu everyday for $25 from 5:00-6:00 with rotating selections.  Fixed price menus are a great way to try a new restaurant in an economical way and something you rarely find in this city.

Capannina is great for large groups celebrating special occasions, like graduations or birthdays.  The chef turns out amazing dishes that are perfect for sharing.  We had a group of four and shared our pasta course and the desserts.

We had friends visiting from out of town recently.  They wanted to have Italian food but assumed we would have to trek over to North Beach for restaurants.  Instead we went half the distance and had one of the best dinners.

As I mentioned we love pasta but like to save room so we can try other menu items, especially at restaurants we are trying for the first time.  We started with their Calamari Ripieni Con Granchio, fresh Monterey Calamari stuffed with Crab and Potato.  They came out with one order, with four pieces which was perfect for us to each taste.  We also shared the Pappardelle con Funghi e Sugo di Cinghiale, Pappardelle with Mushrooms and Wild Boar Ragu.  Loved the meaty taste along with the perfectly cooked noodles.

Perfect Portions: Wild Boar & Calamari

My main course was the Misto Griglia di Pesce, Mixed Seafood Grill with Lemon Caper Sauce and Spinach, which I loved.  The seafood was so light and fresh, I was very impressed.  We all ended our meal with a killer Creme Brulee with Blueberry & Lemon.  We are definitely going to return soon, I know we have more celebrations to toast. Salute!

Creme Brulee

1809 Union St
San Francisco, CA 94123
(415) 409-8001
www.capanninasf.com

Mon., Wed-Thu. 4:30 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.
Fri-Sun. 4:30 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.