after dinner sneeze

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.