Here’s the menu and place setting… you can see they serve a small bowl of fried spiced chickpeas which are very crunchy and tasty.

We started with an appetizer of the Totopos con Chile (tortilla chips, salsa de arbol, cotija cheese, onions, cilantro, crema and lime). The chips are coated in the salsa (which is extremely spicy) – it’s the closest equivalent to nachos meets chilaquiles.  I enjoyed the totopos very much, and couldn’t stop eating them despite being so spicy my eyes were watering and my face was red and hot and my mouth was on fire.

Here are the carnitas! I ordered this dish because it got amazing reviews and I wanted to see what all the hype was about.  As you can see it’s quite a large piece of meat, served with coleslaw and hot sauce.  This is the menu description: Braised pork, orange, bay leaf, milk, cinnamon, beer Cabbage salad, pickled jalapeño and salsa de tomatillo.  The dish is also served with a few hot tortillas.

Here’s a closeup!

The meat is tender and juicy with some charred bits that are super tasty.  I ended up making mini tacos with the meat, tortillas and slaw (“cabbage salad”)… I had to order a second order of tortillas and ate a total of about 5. Yummers!

When the check came they brought little mexican cookies – kind of nutty with powdered sugar on top.

That’s it!  Have you been to Nopalito? What did you think?

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If you haven’t been before, it’s located in the Dogpatch neighborhood of SF, down south of the ballpark. It’s not really a place many people go to unless they work or live down there, but I’m telling you, if you want great pizza, go to Piccino.

I started off with a nice, cold and refreshing iced tea. It was really good – house made and had some kind of floral essence that I could not identify.

We arrived at 2:30, right before their lunch cutoff time of 3pm, that’s why it was empty. Piccino closes daily at 3pm for lunch and re-opens at 5pm for dinner.

The first time I ever ate at Piccino I ordered a bianca pizza with english peas, I’ll never forget it. It was a daily special so they don’t have it on the regular menu, but the regular bianca pizza (parmesan, pecorino, mozzarella, shaved garlic, chili oil) is the same thing minus the peas.

Here’s the pizza! It’s large enough to share with someone (plus a salad or other side), or you can just eat it yourself. I really wanted to order my own pizza, but ended up sharing this one instead.

What sets Piccino pizza apart from other bay area pizzas is the dough and crust. The crust at Piccino is absolutely perfect. It is thin, firm, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside and it has a wonderful sweet flavor that is reminiscent of authentic east coast pizza. Piccino pizza does NOT flop. You can hold a slice in your hand and it will stand straight out. Real hard to come by in the Bay Area.

Here is the burrata salad (early girl tomatoes, burrata, crispy polenta, watercress, red wine vinegar) that comes on top of a crispy polenta cake and tomatoes. It was AMAZING!  The polenta cake was crispy on the outside, soft on the inside and it was super savory and salty – absolutely perfect.

I really love Piccino. There’s nothing I don’t like about it, in fact I’ve never had anything I didn’t like from this restaurant. The food is spectacular, the pizza is as perfect as it can get, the restaurant is clean and modern, and the service is great.

They also have tables outside that you can sit at and bring your dog too if you want (I’ve brought Harley there before).

In a nutshell, if you’re from the mindset that Delfina has the best pizza you’ve ever had, go to Piccino and you’ll change your mind real fast.

Piccino
1001 Minnesota St
San Francisco, CA 94107
website

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The place is long and narrow inside with a long community table down the center of the restaurant, a some tables against the wall on either side. I didn’t take a photo because it was getting pretty crowded and they turned the lights down shortly after we sat down.

We ordered a couple of appetizers – the pork shoulder appetizer and what our server called the “phyllo dough”.  We didn’t know what that meant but when it came to the table we discovered they were fried spring rolls. In any case, they were delicious… perfectly crispy and not too greasy. Yummers.

Here is the pork shoulder appetizer. It came with a very tangy and spicy sauce…

The chicken pad thai! Sorry the photo is sloppy. When it was brought to the table, the food runner said it was “tofu pad thai” so it was given to my vegetarian friend, who picked at it and ate the top off (including my extra egg), until she realized there was chicken in it. Then she gave it to me (above).

Overall, I was very impressed with Lers Ros. It was affordable and super tasty… it suddenly got crowded after we sat down and by the time we were ready to leave, the line was out the door! We got there at 6:20ish and narrowly missed the dinner rush!

Lers Ros Thai
730 Larkin St
San Francisco, CA 94109

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