Posts Tagged ‘Nopalito’
Revisiting with Family
t says: g’s mom visited in January, which was a ton of fun. In between all of the cooking we made her do (that’s right: meatballs, lasagna, chicken parm – all the classics) so she could stock our freezer, we also went out a few times. And when we have family in town, we like to deal with “known quantities” – no crazy-new adventures – just the greatest hits!
One of the first places we dragged g’s mom to was Nopalito. Oh. Em. Gee. It’s still just as good as it was years ago. Because I have such terrible grasp of Spanish, I cannot recall the names of any of the dishes – but I think that’s the point – you can do no wrong at Nopalito. Pork, veggies, beef, whatever – the only “loser” is the person who dares to try and be bashful while sharing plates family-style … I know the above pictures is under-whelming – I know that a and v back in Philly are probably thinking: “that doesn’t look that good” – but it is – we promise.
What is the only thing better than Bi-Rite’s creme brulee ice cream? Bi-Rite’s creme brulee ice cream with hot fudge. Once again: the picture sucks, but the food is insane. g’s mom fell for the salted caramel. I think g went for the roasted banana. Damn – I have to work out more if I’m going to eat like this …
One delightful morning, we took g’s mom to Plow in Potrero Hill. We knew we liked it once before, so why not try it again? So yea: the Plow potatoes and pancakes are still crazy-good, as was everything else. So why take a picture? To remind myself that they make their own sausage, and it, like the rest of the breakfast was precisely perfect. The more I think of it, the more I appreciate Plow’s reliability, even if they’re not redefining brunch as we know it.
We did venture out to one new eatery with g’s mom and that was a pizza spot in Sausalito. And while the town wasn’t exactly as she had remembered it, g’s mom was still happy to enjoy the clear skies, the small shops, the thin crust pizza at Sandrino. I felt that the crust was a little too thin to support the weight of the cheese/sauce, but I was happy with the additional shaved parmagiano reggiano they used. All in all, it was “pretty good”, but not as good as what we had but a few days later …
… when we hit up Piccino. After our pretty-darn-good previous meal there, we knew the key was to just order a bunch of courses and share. We started the meal off with some respectable spinach Arancini. It’s hard to go wrong with fried rice balls, though.
This was the star of the show. It was a sausage and red onion pizza. Sounds pretty easy, right? I was actually a little disinterested when g suggested it, but because I got to choose another one of the dishes for the table, I acquiesced to her choice of pizza. Boy am I glad I did!! It had just the right amount of onion-y punch and flavorful ?fennel?-piggy sausage, with a perfect crust. It totally killed the pizza we had in Sausalito.
So what was this black blob? It was perhaps the most unctuous piece of short rib I’ve ever had. I’m so glad we split it three ways because this beautifully braised, well-glazed piece of meat was super-rich. Served with a wine reduction, carrots, and celery root puree, it was the perfect way to crescendo towards the end of a meal (salad, pizza, meat). Wonderful.
rando-pictures!
t says: It’s my fault. It’s not due to a lack of eating. It’s not due to a lack of photo-taking. It’s not even due to a lack of time to type. I’m not sure what’s gobbling up my time (it’s clearly not because Scrubs is now on hulu.com … ok … maybe it is …). Let’s play some catch-up:
While in SF, we went to Nopalito, where g had her most “craveable” meal. I mean, we ate a LOT of good things, but she chose this place when pushed (g confesses: I think it’s dumb when t asks me these questions, like, “what was your best meal?” – they were all fantastic meals – for different reasons – how do you choose? [t breaks in: ok “every-parent-ever”; “no I can’t choose between my children – I love them all the same – just differently] back to g: *rolls her eyes* whatever … anyways, I was telling t that when I look back, I’d definitely “crave” the food at Nopalito – it’s simple but it’s soooo good, and it’s not too fancy of a place, and the prices are reasonable and it’s not too much of a production when you get there – you pick up a menu, you order, and delicious food comes out! done!)! t takes over: so above is a seafood and avocado “soup”/gazpacho thing that was wonderful opposite the ?Brussels sprout quesadilla?. Yes. Brussels sprouts. In Quesadilla. Boom. Mind blown. Brain bits splattered on the wall behind you.
And of courrse, the carnitas, which is like the best tacos I could ever put together. Oh, and the empanada in the foreground? See all those bright colors. As good as it looks, it was 10 times better to taste. Gawd we love this place. g says: and it’s different than when we get “fancier” Tex/Mexican food in Philly. Our dishes weren’t “too heavy” or “too oily”. I mean this was heavier than Don Pepe that cm’s parent’s delivered, but it still was much lighter than here in Philly.
Oh yes … Griddle Fresh for brunch … first page of the menu blew my mind – I had no need to read anything else on the pages that followed.
green tea latte – exactly as you imagine it would taste. It did look like a milkshake, however, which was a funny incongruence with what it tasted like (it’s a warm drink).
This mess-of-a-dish was fabulous. I should incorporate more parm-reg in all of my morning breakfasts. The savory-salty note really helped me consume more sweet-juicy strawberries and syrup-laden French toast. Dangerous …
k had some issues with her pancakes. she asked if they were going to be “too cheesy”. The guy said “no – not at all – they’re pancakes”. I think the miscommunication centered around exactly how cooked through the marscapone/ricotta pancakes were going to be. It’s ok – they were delicious.
If your corned beef hash experiences are like mine, they are courtesy of a Hormel canned product … but not in California … where they use real corned beef slices and real potato chunks to make their hash. I swear cm must have had a whole cow’s worth of beef in this thing (don’t be fooled by the photo – it was a lot of hash – I’m pretty sure he had some leftover).
g went fruit + egg. No frills. Just fruit and an egg. Snoozeville, right? I agree. Well … just so long as she’s happy …
Dinner at Redd was “ok”. I mean, the food was good, and in line with what we’d expect to pay for fine dining in Napa. However, they didn’t quite nail the dishes as they did the first time we went. We missed the “spark”.
I have no idea where I ate this. I distinctly remembered “wanting to be healthy” … so I got a “salad”. Of course, it had these little pork cubes on the side – so as a “salad” and it was fabulous. I should routinely take some shreds of pork and fry them together into a chicken-nugget-like objects more often.
my name is t, and I have a problem. No, the problem is not alcoholism, the problem is that I only have 12 spaces in my wine-bottle-carrier for the airplane. Fortunately, I’m also a master probem-solver (we had to drink a bottle or two right then-and-there …).
kp has bigger problems than me. He lacks the 55-bottle wine fridge I have. So he had to perform a “draft” of which of his bottles were going to be stored in perfect conditions … and which ones were going to be in “near-perfect” 65-degrees of his SF apartment … cuz, you know, temperatures don’t really get much colder than that in SF … *looks out the window at the 27-degree weather outside right now in Philly*
We hit up brenda’s “Meat and Three”, which is probably kp’s most frequented restaurant/take-out. This is their watermelon sweet tea. Yes it’s outrageously good. Can’t believe I’ve gone this long without Snapple bottling this stuff. Sooooo good.
Imagine banana chocolate chip pancakes you might have had at Honey’s. And make them better. Like WAY better. Much fluffier, with a richer more buttermilky taste. I’m thankful my pants couldn’t expand anymore, otherwise I would eaten myself into insulin resistance.
Meanwhile … back in Philly … a and I hit up Zavino for lunch. Here they started off with a bang – a delicious “ricotta of the day” that was light and sproingy (“sproingy”? is that a word? is it onomatopoiea? sure, why not?) Not as decadent as Barbuzzo, but at least they give you ample bread …
Also had top-notch meatballs – I was afraid the sauce was going to be too sweet, but these were solid.
And now: bacon pizza … BACON PIZZA. Slam dunk, right? WRONG. a and I can’t figure out what went wrong. It had bacon and onion and arugula. But it just couldn’t get itself together. It also had some pickle on it, which made it weird – it made it come off like “all-the-toppings-you’d-want-on-a-burger-but-no-burger”. Weird. We won’t be ordered that again. We missed the ‘Stache pizza. Teaches us for committing to “trying something new”.
As I’ve been eating out a lot, my waistline is growing. It was hard to notice because I spend so much time in pants with drawstrings … but it was noticed! As a result, I had to miss out on a bakesale. How good could the “Ultimate Bake Shop Triple Choc Cake” be? I don’t know.
g and I hit up Pizzeria Vetri the other day as well. The salad was an interesting concoction of cauliflower, kale, raisins, etc. I felt like it was the best thing we ate!
This cinnamon-roll-looking thing was actually dough, rolled up with a layer of prosciutto and topped with nuts. It’s funny because all of the visual cues and proprioceptive cues (like the feeling of the fork as I was cutting it) and textural cues were that of a cinnabon … but it tasted like meat and nuts. So bizarre. It didn’t stop me from finishing it.
g loved the pizza. Personally, I felt like it was a little sweet, but she loved the fennel-on-fennel-sausage combo. She housed it.
But for me – I saved room for one of the most delicious affogatos ever. Affogato made with soft-serve? Yes please!
Ok, so now my iPhoto is all caught up. Hooray! Now I feel far less guilty about not updating the blog. Ahhhhh. I’ll be sure to try and keep up with the holiday eating season. It’s tough, but I’m up for the challenge.
after dinner sneeze 