Restaurant-Dining Critiques

1314 McKinstry St. (adjacent to the Westin Verasa)
Napa
Tel.(707) 257-5157
Website: www.verasanapa.com/westin_verasa
Opening Hours: Dinner 5:30-9:30 p.m. daily
Full bar
Reservations and credit cards accepted
Credit Cards: All major
Fixed-price menus $49-$88
Prices: Expensive

Ken Frank has moved his Rutherford restaurant La Toque to the Westin Verasa, Napa, according to Janet Fletcher of the San Francisco Chronicle.
At one time he was called L.A.’s “Wonder Boy” chef and he told a friend of mine  a well-worn international diner from London, Robert Tainsh, who arrived at Frank’s restaurant for the first time, “you will eat better in my restaurant than in London or Paris.” To which my friend contemplated, “we shall see”?

A16 is located in the
Marina District of San Francisco at
2355 Chestnut Street
between Scott and Divisadero
Tel. (415) 771-2216
Operating Hours:Lunch: Wednesday - Friday: 11:30am - 2:30pm; Dinner: Sunday - Thursday: 5:00pm - 10:00pm, Friday & Saturday: 5:00pm - 11:00pm
Restaurant accepts Walk-Ins
Website: http://www.A16sf.com
Credit Cards: AMEX, MasterCard, Visa
Prices: Moderate

The restaurant is aptly named after the highway A16 that winds through Campania the region that is home to Napoli, Positano, Pompei, the islands of Capri and Ischia that lie off the coast among many other lovely towns.

This restaurant is currently one of my haunts when I am in San Francisco; I really enjoy it!.
They have a wood-fired oven serving Neapolitan Pizza, which I will not delve into since there are so many varieties. Please check with the A16 website link above for the full menu and wine list.

Some of the interesting dishes served (some may be seasonal) are:
Beet and potato salad with radicchio, green olives and toasted almonds, Roasted young favas with green garlic, mint, chiles and lemon, Tripe napoletana with onions, tomato, white wine and breadcrumbs, La Quercia Berkshire prosciutto, La Quercia acorn edition tasting: coppa, lonza and lardo, Prosciutto San Daniele aged months,Smoked trotter terrina (house-cured), Ciccioli (house-cured),Pig ear terrina (house-cured), Lonza (house-cured), Bresaola (house-cured).

The wine bar serves around 40 wines by the glass or 375ml carafe and are mostly Italian with a few special boutique California wines, some made from Italian varietals.
I include only a few wines by the glass from Campania, although they have so many more, again check with the above website for the complete list:

White Wines: Glass or Carafe (375ml)
Campania Whites
Villa Raiano, Fiano di Avellino 2006,Terredora di Paolo, Greco di Tufo 2006, Alois,’Caulino’, Falanghina 2005, Marisa Cuomo, ‘Ravello’, Costa d’Amalfi 2006 (Falanghina/Biancolella)

The parking can be quite difficult so I would highly suggest going by taxi rather than spending time looking for street parking (very difficult) or big money to park in the lot

I have been patiently anticipating the opening of a French Brasserie on the former site of Prego at 2000 Union Street in Cow Hollow by Bacchus Management (Spruce, etcetera). It was to be called Vache Brasserie, although according to the San Francisco Chronicle and Eater San Francisco it seems certain that there will be more delays and a possible name change might be in store.

Photo: Larry Mindel, Owner & Christopher Fernandez, Chef
San Francisco Chronicle photo by Chris Stewart
777 Bridgeway (at Bay), Sausalito
Tel. (415) 332-7771
http://www.poggiotrattoria.com
Breakfast 6:30-10:30 a.m. daily
lunch and dinner 11:30 a.m. - 10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday
11:30 a.m. - 11 p.m. Friday-Saturday
Credit Cards: All Major
Valet parking
Prices: Moderate

I enjoyed an excellent repast, in a location idyllic for a restaurant—the Casa Madrona Hotel with windows that face onto the street and the bay beyond, and on the hillside above they tend an organic garden in a terraced plot overlooking the little town of Sausalito.
I was not surprised to find out that Poggio was the inspiration of Larry Mindel as it had all the earmarks to be one of his concepts, as I have followed his career from Ciao to Prego and on through the Il Fornaio years. In 1980, I was one of the three founding partners of the original Cruvinet Wine Preserving System and responded to an inquiry from his company, Spectrum Group; I met Mr. Mindel in his restaurant Prego in Palo Alto where I spent a few hours trying to convince him to buy a Cruvinet. He was very discerning, examining every aspect of the sales and technical data with more discussions continuing over the following weeks, before he finally bought one to test it in one of his restaurants. His company bought many more over the five years I was involved in Cruvinet.
As for the menu at Poggio (place in the hills) try any of the meat dishes cooked in the wood-burning oven, all pasta creations are also meticulously prepared and a marinated beet salad, with arugula and ricotta was as refreshing as it was well put-together.
We tried many different tasting glasses of different wines both large and small from their assortment. It was a good way to try different wines paired with each dish, similar to the Cruvinet without the machine. The wine list offers a good selection of Italian wines with many choices of well-known and some lesser-known wines in various regions of Italy and prices are realistic.