Give Me Some Food

Lately, my happiness in life seems to be all about expectations.

Let me give you an example:

In my marriage, I happen to be the benevolent dictator of our Netflix cue. I look at reviews and trailers and do my best to pick out the films we want to watch and the movies we want to skip. Yet, the other night, to my horror, Felix really wanted me to watch Click with him. I groaned, I protested, I whined- but in reality, I knew that Felix had just sat through Brokeback Mountain and The History of Violence with me- I owed him. So we sat down to watch Click and I thought this would probably be the worst movie I saw all year. And guess what? Because of my expectations, it wasn't half bad. Predictable and corny? Well, yes. But at times it was endearing and I even laughed. Yet, I think I would have been sorely disappointed had I been looking forward to this movie for weeks.

This theory on expectations relates to a great meal Felix and I had a few weeks ago. It all started with me waiting in our Prius, outside of Felix's office. I waited. I waited. And every 15 minutes I would call the little Italian joint that we were supposed to dine at, and beg them to extend our reservation for another 15 minutes. After three of these calls, they told me they would be closing and I canceled the reservation.  Felix finally came down - he had been stuck on a call at the last minute.

"I tell you what," he said, "let's go around the corner to Aqua!"

Yay! Aqua! I haven't been there in ten years.

We parked and waltzed into Aqua.

"Table for two, please."

"I'm sorry, we just seated our last party for the night."

I'm sure that the maitre d' saw my face fall, and I turned toward Felix, who looked like he might yell. Uh-oh. We need to escape quickly- but where? The maitre d' tried to recover the situation.

"You know, there is a great Italian restaurant that just opened a few doors down. I would be happy to escort you there."

Felix looked skeptical and quite peeved, but I just wanted to sit down and eat. I didn't care if the maitre d' was taking us to a place where all they served was gruel and our waiter had three heads.

And we were escorted right down the street to a restaurant called Perbacco.

"This place actually looks alright." Felix's spirits were lifting. When you first enter Perbacco, all you see is bar seating, but as we walked back, a whole dining room opened up to our right.

We were seated and a treat immediately came out from the kitchen:

Crunchy bread sticks and a cool, zesty pesto (We had munched down most of the bread sticks before this picture was taken).

The rest of the dinner was relaxing and tasty. The service was helpful with our questions on the menu and efficient with our food. I'm looking on their website right now, and I've noticed that they've already changed the menu because I can't find my appetizer, which I loved:

This is the hamachi with fennel and blood orange juice.  Not only did I love the citrus and the fennel with this fish, but I thought the portion (as with all the dishes here) was very generous. Felix got the beet salad:

I liked the spicy arugula with it to cut the sweetness of the beets. For my main course I ordered the Pansotti stuffed with Braised Chard and Borage and a walnut butter sauce:

What a lovely comfort food. Little overstuffed pillows of joy. What a great way to eat chard. Felix had the Pappardelle with Braised Short Rib Ragu and Roasted Chantrelle Mushrooms:

Now that is a hearty fall dish. It was rich and earthy. And even though we were full by the end of two coures, we were so impressed that we really wanted to try one of their desserts:

That is the Meyer Lemon Semifreddo with Huckleberry compote. The lemon semifreddo was wonderfully light and had a nice tartness to it. This was complemeted by the pure sweetness of the neighboring huckleberries.

Usually at the end of the meal, Felix and I can never find our waiter to bring the bill. But just as we thought to ask, our waiter was there with the bill. Yay for anticipating everything the customer wants!

So, did we like Perbacco because it was a great meal, or because our expectations for that dinner were already so low that anything pleasant would have seemed awesome? I guess I'm not sure at this point, but I would definitely go for another visit to find out :)

Perbacco
230 California St.
San Francisco
415-955-0663