Give Me Some Food

Yesterday I was visiting a few friends in Cole Valley and they wanted to go out to dinner that night:

"Ok, Kristen- where should we go to dinner tonight?"

"Oh! I just went to this fabulous place in Noe Valley. You should totally go there."

"Great! What's it called?"

My face went blank. I can write the name, La Ciccia, but I still really don't know how to pronounce it. See, it's Italian and I don't know if it's La See-see-ya or La See-Chi-ya or La Chi-chi-ya. Those Italians and their c's. You would think that when I called for a reservation on Friday I would have learned, but the hostess said the name so fast, and I could barely hear her with all the background noise, that I felt lucky to even communicate my desparate need for a reservation.

Anyway, my friends did not take my recommendation, so we're no longer friends.

Just kidding. They actually had just come back from Italy, so I forgave them for not craving authentic Italian food. But I was craving it on Friday night, and I bet you are craving it right now. Yes you are. Ok, maybe you are and don't know it yet.

La Ciccia is in an area of Noe Valley that feels a lot like a suburb. When we got out of our car there were no normal city sounds (cars, music from a club, people shooting each other, etc.)- it was almost eerily quiet. But La Ciccia was still going strong at 9:30pm. You could tell the staff was really friendly from our first interaction: even though we were early, they apologized that we could not sit down instantly and ushered us to the bar to wait.  They then gave us menus to peruse. This was great. It's so efficient! We were seated at our table not 5 minutes later and I asked Felix if we could split everything so that we could try more dishes.

"But, what if I'm hungry?"

My husband has an innate fear of not having enough food.

"Felix, are we ever hungry when we leave a restaurant?"

Felix gave me a look that stated "I suppose you're right...but, what if I'm hungry?"

"Okay honey, how about this, if we don't have enough food, you never have to share with me again."

Felix looked satisfied.

We started off with a wonderfully simple appetizer:

Mozzarella with Roasted Peppers and Zucchini.  I loved this twist because I usually only have mozzarella with tomatoes; this dish seemed a little more sophisticated and the peppers were sweet and perfectly dressed for the cheese.

Then we split the Fresh Spaghetti with Cauliflower, Capers and Bottarga:

This dish was good but probably my least favorite of the night. The spaghetti tasted house made and was perfectly done, but there was an unexpected taste of fish in the pasta. Wait a minute! That wasn't on the ingredient list! But actually it was: Bottarga. I guess I thought Bottarga was going to be a cured meat- and in a way it was- it was a hardened block of fish roe that is grated over the pasta. Once I accepted the fact that the fish flavor should be there, the pasta tasted a lot better. It was my fault for being ignorant of the ingredients.

Then we split the Seared Lamb Chops:

This was our second choice because the kitchen was out of the sea bass, and I'm glad they were out of it because these lamb choices were fabulous. They were served with a kind of pesto on top and ratatouille on the side.

And of course the whole reason for splitting everything was so we could have room for dessert:

Marinated Strawberries over Vanilla Gelato. The strawberries had a sweet and sour quality (was there vinegar in the marinade?) that complemented the sweet and sour characteristic of the gelato. Yum.

Felix mentioned at the end of dinner that this was the best service we had in a while. It's true. The chef came out twice to personally check on our table and find out how we liked the different preparations of the pasta and the lamb chops. The two waitresses were tentative but not annoying, and they seemed genuinely happy that we were enjoying our meal. How wonderful- usually I feel when the wait staff asks me how I'm doing, it's obligatory. In La Ciccia, I really felt that it mattered  if we were enjoying our meal and that made me happy.  By the end, we were the only customers there, but nobody rushed us...I felt like we were treated how the staff would want to be treated if they went out to dinner.

La Ciccia
291 30th St. (at Church)
San Francisco
415-5508114