REVIEW - NOPA

No wonder they use the acronym NOPA, rather than North Panhandle, which is its location and one of the least attractively-named neighborhoods in San Francisco.

Known for its late-night dining and the virtual impossibility of parking in order to enjoy those late nights, we duly circled for 30 minutes before finding a space, and settled down for a 9.15pm start.

I plucked the receipt from the kitchen counter this morning to refresh my memory about what everyone had eaten, and was mystified by the Echeveria Red Ruffle, Kalanchoe Pumila, and Aeonium Sunburst, and then I realized I was looking at the receipt from Flora Grubb. Lawrence and I had gone shopping for "succulents". That's not a euphemism for cruising the SF nightlife .... we were on a quest to find plants that wouldn't perish on our ultra-exposed deck, and the aforementioned succulents (which are basically cacti without sharp bits), apparently need little water and flower bright red, yellow and orange in summer, we hope.

Back at NOPA, we were a long way from the main action, sat upstairs at the very, very back. 

Simi started with the warm goat's cheese, pickled beets and crostini (which she enthusiastically munched through the main course and right to the end), Lawrence had the fennel sausage flat-bread with potatoes, leeks and gruyere ("not enough sausage, too much cheese"), while Amo and I both had the oven-baked egg, smoked tomato, grilled bread (sounds so much better than "toast") and pecorino. I had ambitiously ordered an extra appetizer, the grilled calamari, roasted cauliflower, olives, capers and aioli, which was truly horrible. I had one mouthful, then a second to check that my taste-buds hadn't fooled me, and sure enough, it was practically inedible. Just to be sure, Simi sampled some and concurred.

Entrees were pretty decent, too. Simi had the grilled country pork chop, roasted farro, wickson apples and upland cress (half of which was bagged and taken home for a snack), Amo had the pan-seared black cod, hummus, roasted beets, mandarins and water-melon radish (no complaints), and Lawrence the rotisserie chicken, brussels sprouts and "you can keep your bloody" orange-glazed yams. I had the house-made tagliatelle, chanterelles, bacon, lemon and celery root cream (which was good, but not as good as Farina's handkerchief basil pasta from the night before).

There was plenty of variety on each plate, let alone on the whole menu, and the fact they didn't charge me for the calamari and cauliflower cock-up meant I'll probably try the place again.