Category Archives: Italian

Victor’s Pizza and Alembic Bar

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We met up with a friend tonight for dinner. He used to live in SF so picked the places we went tonight.

First stop, Victor’s Pizza. Apparently our friend Arjun says that almost everything they had was delicious. We had eyed their calzones as we were waiting for our table so we got Calzone “B” with pepperoni, salami, and mushrooms. The breading is nice and chewy and the ingredients seemed very fresh. This was a mini size and is plenty for 2 people. Ron and I had leftovers because I also wanted to try their pasta.

I chose the carbonara. The bacon was good and there was a lot of it! It was a bit oily though and very filling. We ate about 2/3 of the dish so we have enough for one more meal.

After dinner we tried to go to a wine bar down the street but it was packed full. There was a 30 minute wait to get inside. Instead we drove over to the Haight to Alembic Bar. One of Arjun’s friends recommended it. Apparently it had been written up recently in the New York Times.

It was really crowded there too and we had to wait about 15 minutes to get inside. They have a rule “one person out, one person in”. We were lucky to get a table to sit and chat. We had a few drinks, including one not on the menu. A mint julep. The poor bartender had to make three of these for our table and to make the ice, she pound a block of ice in a canvas bag with a mallet. She was beating the bag with a vengeance. The drink was worth it though, ICE cold!

Very refreshing and a good way to end the night.

Victor’s Pizza
1411 Polk Street (between California & Pine)

Alembic Bar
1725 Haight Street (between Cole & Shrader)

Restaurant Cassis

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http://www.restaurantcassis.com/

I had dinner with Shirley and Patrick tonight at Restaurant Cassis, a restaurant only about 3 blocks away from where I work. We thought we’d try this place since they have a three-course prix fixe menu for $25 so sounded like a good deal. They offer the prix fixe menu Sun thru Thurs 5:30-7pm (closed Mon).

Parking is pretty easy around the area, mostly street parking unless you want to park farther away at any of the lots around the area (which are expensive!).

The staff was very attentive upon my arrival. The restaurant seemed quite spacious and there were maybe four other sets of diners. It was weird though, when they were going to seat us, they wanted to stick us between two couples at this table near the window when there was a perfectly nice round table for three in the middle of the room. We chose the round table.

They brought us an amuse-bouche (free food is always a plus) of toast with salmon cream cheese.

You can see their prix fixe menu updated online. The appetizers did not sound all that appetizing unless you wanted to pay a few extra dollars for an “upgrade”. We did not so Shirley and Pat chose the soup of the day: mushroom soup and I had the gazpacho.

I’m not sure the last time I had gazpacho but I didn’t really enjoy the texture, it was a little “grainy” for me, like it wasn’t blended enough or something. I drank every last bit though since I still liked the flavor.

For the entree, I had the mussels served with fries. This dish is very deceiving in that Patrick thought he’d still be hungry after only fries and mussels so he ordered a large side of spinach. As he was eating though, he already started to be full since he ate all the fries and kept on soaking up the soup with bread. Yummy stuff.

For dessert, I had the frozen grand marnier souffle with orange zest. Very creamy and I loved the whipped cream. The orange zest was a bit weird for me though, too strong.

Shirley had the berry crisp which didn’t have enough berries, just a lot of cream and deep fried pastry. Patrick had the floating dessert which tasted like those marshmallow Peeps!

Overall, it was a dinner worth the $25 but we all agree, if we go there again, we’d likely order from the regular menu instead. It was good to catch up with Patrick and Shirley and I hope we can do it again soon.

Restaurant Cassis
2101 Sutter Street