I started mine off by sleeping until 7:30 a.m., then several hours of social media. By 10:30 I jumped in the shower to get ready for lunch at Barbacco. I had a $50 dining certificate from Open Table that was burning a hole in my pocket. I’d considered saving it to use in either Honolulu or Miami, but it couldn’t be used at any of the restaurants in those cities that I was interested in. So Barbacco it was.
This was not my first time eating at Barbacco. It’s a few blocks from my office, so I’ve been known to dash over there for lunch before. Their food is good overall with nice service. The price point is much better than their sister restaurant, Perbacco, which is a few doors down. I started with a small bowl of bean minestre with greens/soffrito parmigiano reggiano. It had nice flavor and was to my liking. When asking the waitress if the lasagna or the farrotto was better, she preferred the lasagna. My main course was to be the polpette. The waitress then suggested that I order a side, as she said the slice of lasagna wasn’t that large and the polpette only consisted of three. Thus, I ordered roasted cauliflower as well. Surprisingly, after the minestre, they brought everything else out at once. I tasted a bit of each of them, then ordered a glass of Sangiovese, too. The roasted cauliflower was fine; could have used more flavor. The lasagna was composed of spinach pasta with ragu Bolognese AND béchamel sauce. It lacked the homey rustic flavor that most lasagnas have. Besides, my ex-husband made the best béchamel sauce ever, so this didn’t even come close. However, by all other accounts, it was fine. The polpette were Sicialian-style with pine nuts and raisins served with braised chard in a supposedly spicy tomato sugo. The polpette were flavorful and moist, but were slightly sweet, as opposed to spicy. As for the Sangiovese, it had obviously been chilled. Since it didn’t get to room temperature during my meal, its taste was ruined for me. Aside from the minestra, I wasn’t able to finish anything. Thus, they wrapped it all up and I dropped it off in my office to have for lunch(es) later this week.
Since the weather was actually beautiful for San Francisco, particularly at this time of year, I decided to walk over to North Beach. I passed through Chinatown and ran across some lion dancers, which reminded me that Chinese New Year (the Year of the Monkey) is still being celebrated. The two lion dancers and their escorts were going in and out of various businesses dancing, followed by a string of firecrackers.
You already know that my favorite Italian restaurant is Ideale. Three or four months ago, the owner of Ideale opened Piccolo Forno in North Beach. Since I’d never made it in there yet, that was my mission for today. The front of the restaurant was already relatively full. I spied Giuseppe, who is managing the place, and went to say “hello.” His brother, Fausto, also happened to be there. I spoke with both of them a little bit and asked about their menu. Giuseppe offered me a suppli/arancini, since he knows that I like them, but they’re so hard to find in North Beach. Although I was still full from Barbacco, I managed to consume the suppli. They”ll see me again in the future for a proper lunch.
Now that I’m home, a nap is on my agenda because a) I’m old and b) I must conserve energy for going to the gym later!