Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Top 100 Restaurants in the Bay Area - A16

The SF Chronicle just released Michael Bauer's list of the top 100 restaurants in the Bay Area and yours truly has only been to 25 of them. Gasp! Time to start working my way through the other 75 (and time to find a way to fund those meals!).

On a whim, I found myself at one of the restaurants on the list last night. A16 is my favorite spot to grab a pizza and a glass of wine. I was in the mood for Italian, so the Beau and I stopped by and ate at the bar. Well, "a pizza and a glass of wine" magically turned into "a pizza, burrata, olives and a few glasses of wine," but who can blame us? When a restaurant menu is as appealing as A16's, it's nearly impossible to walk away without trying multiple dishes. And why would anyone want to do so?

The olives came first. I am an absolute olive fanatic and these are some of my favorites; they use great blend of herbs (lots of rosemary and sage), garlic, and citrus. And they're perfectly cured. Culinairily, I don't think anything annoys me more than under-cured, inedible olives!

Next was the burrata. Eating this dish was the equivalent of a texture bomb exploding in my mouth. Think I'm being dramatic? Don't know what a texture bomb is? Try this dish. The creamy, sweet mozzarella nearly melted into the thin, super-crisp crostini while the olive oil drizzled on top coated our mouths in a silky film of almost-indistinguishable citrus.

The Salsiccia pizza was expertly cooked, of course, but the flavors lacked punch. It was topped with fennel sausage, spring onions, mozzarella and green chiles; we added an egg. The egg was a nice touch (egg yolk makes everything better...), but I think the best part of their pizzas (pizze, I suppose!) is actually the red chile oil that they serve as a condiment. It has a wonderfully flavorful heat, rather than being spicy just for the sake of being spicy.

Top the whole meal off with a few glasses of bold red Italian wine and great conversation, and we had a fantastic Tuesday night!

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