San Francisco food update from Lynne (Gialina pizza review)

Our friend Lynne has sent us another wonderful San Francisco food and restaurant review which is definitely worth a read :) Without further ado, here's lynne ...

hello! i was just checking in on your blog and reading all your talk about food and restaurants made me really miss you guys. i thought you would want to know about the new pizza restaurant in glen park and various other eating adventures back here in sf.

gialina opened recently, right across the street from the new canyon market in glen park (was this open before you left? the bi-rite folks have a stake in it, i think they do the produce/groceries, and the other partners do the deli/butcher shop. it's basically like a j.v. bi-rite). i went early on a friday night (5:30ish) with my friends graham and katrina and their toddler Elias (he's almost 2). gialina's nice inside, a long and narrow space made lighter with windows and light-colored walls and wood. the menu is all pizza with one special non-pizza item per day. everything sounded very delicious, but in the new-standard bay area pizza way, as in, now one expects to see wild nettles on a pizza menu and so they don't really stand out anymore. after some negotiation (graham doesn't like vegetables), we ordered the meatball pizza, a wild nettle-prosciutto pizza, and an asparagus-potato-truffled pecorino pizza. we tried to sell graham on the dandelion greens-italian sausage-fontina pizza, but he wouldn't go for it. the meatball pizza was very good, especially if you like spaghetti and meatballs. the crust is thin and crispy in the right places but with a nice chewy quality (not as good as pizzette or delfineria, but so much better than A16). sadly, the saltiness of the prosciutto totally overwhelmed the taste of the wild nettles and i considered it a waste of wild nettles, especially after we all know how good they can be a la pizzaiolo. what's the point of using wild nettles if you can't taste them? i thought the asparagus-potato-truffled pecorino was the best one, with the rich truffley flavor nicely offsetting the asparagus and pecorino, and the potatoes adding a little creamy counterpoint. service was a little over attentive in that anxious-new-restaurant way (i got the strong sense that the waiter was one of the owners, and i don't think anxiety about the success of a business needs to be so apparent to customers). they also seemed a little cheap, as in we asked for bread for elias, and they said they only made enough to go with the special of the day and they couldn't spare it. a pizza restaurant that can't spare a little bread for a baby? in a neighborhood filled with families?

if gialina was in cole valley, or if i lived in glen park, i would be very excited and would probably eat there a few times a week, but since it is in glen park and i live in cole valley, it's not really the kind of place i would go back to. on the bay area pizza scale, i give it a 6.5.

other pizzas of note: i had a great roasted cauliflower-fontina pizza at pauline's a few weeks ago. pauline's remains a very solid pizza institution. really you can't go wrong there.

in bi-rite creamery news: i'm only one punch away from a free ice cream on my bi-rite creamery punch card. i've also ventured out from the salted caramel (it's still my favorite). they have this amazing malted vanilla ice cream with vahlrona-chocolate covered crispies in it, and the mint chip is fantastic, especially when sandwiched between two dark chocolate cookies in one of their ice cream sandwiches. cookies and cream is appropriately creamy; roasted banana is good but very sweet, it's best cut with another flavor. hmmm. i had sworn off the creamery for a few days (i'm going to nyc tomorrow) but now i'm thinking i might need one last scoop before i go.

there's a new restaurant downtown on mission btwn 1st and 2nd by the town hall folks: the salt house, a kind of san francisco version of the gastropub. i ate there with thomas rogers recently. they have a great salty version of poutine, the montreal dish of french fries, cheese, and gravy. in their version, it's thick, wedge-cut fries, gruyere, and short rib gravy. very tasty indeed.

and finally, you will be happy to hear that i ventured out from yummy yummy and ate at dragonfly the other day. everything was good, but i did miss the pork bunh with imperial rolls.