San Francisco

Brooke and I took our first day trip to San Francisco with just the two of us.

On the way, I wanted to stop at vista point in San Mateo. Well, we missed the exit, but apparently there is a second vista point on the other side of the freeway one exit down! I’m not sure what we missed, I guess we will have to go again. We had a nice little pepperoni sandwich I prepared, but it was super windy!

This time, we went to the Presidio, and walked about 2 miles to the golden gate bridge.

This was a pretty nice San Francisco experience for a few reasons. I think due to the season, there were fewer people, and thus we could actually find parking. Also, it was really windy.

After our hike, we went to Del Popolo, which was recommended to me by one of my co-workers (from Italy, mind you).

We somehow managed to park directly in front of the restaurant, just on the other side of the street! It also was after 6 pm, so we didn’t even have to pay for parking! I went in to put our name down, and they said maybe an hour. I was actually expecting 2 for a Saturday night. We walked around maybe 10 minutes before they texted us that they were ready! We didn’t even have enough time to find a restroom, which for some reason is harder than you might expect in SF (really though, there is a serious shortage of restrooms in the city). I thought the food there was pretty good, but I was expecting something exceptional. The service was exceptionally fast. Like we ordered, took turns using the restroom, and then waited less than 5 minutes and the pizza was at our table. The first pizza we got was a little burned. Now, it was Neapolitan style, so there should be some blackening on the crust, but the blackening on the first piece resulted in just a little too much burnt taste coming through the pizza. I didn’t love our topping choice either, salami picante. I’m not an Italian expert, so I don’t really know what to expect.

Anyways, we got the second pizza which was a margherita, which had a perfect crust - soft, and a little crisp on the outside. We got this pizza a few minutes after the first. The server told us they remade it as the first one wasn’t perfect. Which, I think is a polite way of saying, they burnt the heck out of it! The bites of basil, mozzarella, sauce and crust were delicious! But, there was only like 3 leafs of basil on the pizza, and thus only like 3 of those great bites! The sauce on both pizzas was a little acidic, and I thought it could use just a little pinch of sugar. I think that has to do with my American palate though. The bill was about $50 after the tip for two pizzas, which about perfectly filled up my wife and I (I got about a slice and a half of her pizza). So I don’t think it's a recommendation from me. The service was excellent, but we also had the most awkward seat, a bar seat facing a wall kind of in the corner.

Anyways, in short, maybe traditional isn’t always best. I’m glad for the experience, but pizza with more cheese, slightly less acidic sauce, and a better distribution of toppings just seems more appealing to me.