Friday night dinner at NOPA
If you are craving delicious food and can't decide among the many wonderful restaurants in San Francisco, let me make a suggestion: NOPA. It's casual upscale, open late, and always satisfies.
Last night, the BF and I wanted to get some food and we thought of NOPA. The burger! It's basically a siren's song that I constantly hear and have to resist. That night, however, the burger would be mine.
After driving around for 15 minutes (parking is generally terrible in this neighborhood--take transit or walk if you can), we finally parked and made our way inside around 9 PM. First, we stopped at the bar. If we were lucky, we could find a place to sit at the bar and just eat there. Alas, the bar was full. So, we got a drink to console ourselves: Rum Sidecar for me and a Manhattan for BF. After about fifteen minutes, I decided to put my name on the list for a table. Amazingly, both Jeff and Yasu (one of the owners and a manager) were up front and noticed me putting my name in. Yasu said they had a table and took me upstairs while the BF settled our tab and handed me drink #2--a White Manhattan for me (yum!) and a Pisco Sour for him (also quite good).
Once seated, we dove into the menu. I wanted everything. But, we settled for the grilled asparagus, calamari, flatbread, burger with blue cheese (medium rare of course), and a couple glasses of wine. We also ordered a side of cauliflower, but it (thankfully) never came. We had eaten plenty by the time we remembered ordering it: we even skipped dessert.
I don't say this lightly, but everything was delicious. The asparagus (my first of the season) was grilled to perfection: it's the perfect treatment for this veggie. The calamari was tender, the croutons crunchy and the sauce or jus was off the chain. As always, the flatbread lived up to its reputation. It had sausage and broccolini on it. Finally, the burger came medium rare on a house-made bun with blue cheese, aioli and pickled onions. I could eat one every day.
NOPA, you are easily my favorite restaurant. Thank you for the good times and good food. Now, what's for dinner tonight?
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