Wednesday, 3/20/18

I fetched more pastries from Mr. Holmes. This time another bostock for Jessica and this time for me a twice baked coffee stout croissant with brown sugar cake, coffee crumbs, stout beer cream, chocolate glaze and who knows what all else. It was quite messy and decadent. And then I ate a kouign amman! Shocking.
Lunch in North Beach---more pizza from Tony's Pizza Napoletana, where we have been  a couple of times before. It was so hard to decide what kind of pizza to get since they make all these regional varieties. Grandma? New York style? New Jersey Style? California? And many more. It boggled the mind. They have all these different kinds of ovens to produce different styles. In the end we just went with the classic Neopolitan Margharita and I don't regret it. A flawless example of the genre. I could have eaten two. And that is why we ended up at their slice shop next door eating a slice of classic pepperoni:

Since we were in North Beach, gelato seemed like a fitting finish so we found a good place nearly and had a little (brown sugar rum and dulce de leche for me, straciatella and orange-cardamom for Jessica)

While that seems like enough food for a whole day, we had dinner reservations with Jessica's grandmother at Seven Hills and so had to persevere.

Seven Hills is a lovely Italian restaurant on Hyde Street (I have no idea what neighborhood). We had a lot and it was all good:

Meatballs stuffed with fontina (erased the memory of those bad Tosca meatballs)

American Wagyu Carpaccio with Scallion, capers, arugula pesto, Parmigiano for me (the weakest dish--a tiny bit underseasoned)

Zuppa Stagionale with Green garlic, potato and leek soup, nettle pesto for Betty She LOVED it.

For Jessica Zuckerman's Asparagus Salad with prosciutto, arugula, sauce gribiche, pickled shallot

Jessica had the chateabriand special that came with more asparagus and some polenta, Betty had the pasta special with squid ink spaghetti and Dungeness crab, and I had Mezzaluna with Brown butter, sage, hazelnut, Napa Valley honey. I was afraid it would be too sweet but it was nicely balanced. I honestly could have eaten another order but we saved room for dessert.

Blood orange panna cotta for Jessica (which she said had a lovely flavor but she likes hers a bit firmer), a date cake (kind of like sticky toffee pudding) for Berry, and chocolate budino for me. Just your regular rich chocolate pudding. Overall an excellent meal and a nice time.