Delarosa....the last pizza

While I said there would be lots of pizza on this journey, we now seemed to have reached the final slice as it were. Having pizza seemed like a weekly occurrence for us and if you averaged things out, it probably was. Lots of times we would take in a movie at the Metreon and then just head home and chill…with some pizza. This time around, instead of heading home after whatever it was we saw, I thought we should check out Delarosa on Yerba Buena Lane. It was a nice enough day and they have outdoor seatin’ for eatin’ and when you can do that in SF you take the opportunity. That and the fact it is a pizza spot was more than enough of a sell for the SO.

This locale is one of three and also part of the mini(?) food empire folks that also bring you Super Duper Burger, Uno Dos Tacos, Lolinda, The Bird…just to name a few. A couple of which I really like. It is what they call fast casual dining serving up Roman style pizzas—wood fired thin crust kind of thing. They’d been open here for awhile and I figured they had also had time to figure it all out considering this stretch of side street/sidewalk (no cars aloud) between Market and Mission has pretty steady traffic flow and lots of spill over from conventions and anything else going on nearby. Meaning, it can get busy. This particular weekend day we, hit them up about the right time, mid-afternoon-ish, and were able to sit right down under a covered table outside. Gotta keep the sun off you know.

It helps we are both super hungry (surprise!) and start it off with two! appetizers that sound tasty in our advanced state of food deprivation. Like the burrata bruschetta with honey and hazelnuts? Ok, sure, why not.

**burrata bruschetta with hazelnuts and honey $9**

So basically cheese toast with nuts and honey. It is a well grilled (not toasted) piece of bread dolloped with burrata, sprinkled with olive oil and honey, black pepper and hazelnuts that I’m pretty sure were roasted. I am a sucker for burrata as it is. The smooth salty cheesy creaminess just hits my taste buds spot on. Spread on a little toast makes it the perfect compliment. Adding nuts and honey to it? Eh, I think it took away some from the delicate flavor of the cheese. I get the honey is supposed to add some sweetness to offset the salty and the nuts give this some “texture” but personally, I wasn’t sold on the whole combo together. Burrata already has a small touch of sweetness to it, since you know milk after all, and the bread was already stiff and crunchy, thus “texture.” I’m sure they are just trying to jazz it up and be different, which this is, but I would have been perfectly happy with just burrata bruschetta as is and no more. Technically it wasn’t like it tasted bad or anything, it was just, okay, that was interesting. Not sure I really need to revisit it though.

Next up was something that seemed to be more in line with the idea of the restaurant—meatballs.

Now this seemed more what we thought it would be. Two big meatballs covered in thick tomato sauce with a little kick and some more of the grilled bread to soak it all up. One meatball for each of us, though we could have used a little more bread because the sauce was quite delicious with its spicy notes and seemed ashamed to waste. The meatballs were a nice balance between the meat and the breading, just more meat, optimal if you are gonna call something a meat ball. Tangy notes of garlic, sweet tang of tomatoes and honestly, because of the size of them, this would easily serve itself up as a meal with just a few more slices of bread. I said that right? Italian comfort food for sure.

Of course, this is what we came here for, pizza. We went with one of the pies they serve on weekends/brunch even though we were past the brunching hour. Carbonara pancetta, provolone, mozzarella, cream and two eggs. And yes it is basically a bacon, cheese and egg pizza, whatever. It is a decent size particularly when you compare it to what we got at Delfina. This was like a large. But first, let me address those eggs. Egg on a pizza or anything isn’t really new these days, but it seems they always come with varying degrees of doneness. As you can see from the pic, one is cooked almost yolk through and the other was under cooked, or at least, not cooked where I would have preferred it. The yolk should be runny yes, but there really didn’t need to be all the extra clear viscousness. White and yellow would have been bestAn. Just not clear, that is like fresh out of the shell.

I mentioned above Roman style is thin crust which I really like and was looking forward to. The big trick here is to avoid the whole “soggy tip syndrome” I drone on about. And surprisingly, even with that runny egg in the center, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Still a tad droopy, but it did hold together enough when you picked up a piece. The pancetta was tasty, though I’m gonna knock them for uneven distribution of toppings. Again, you can see in pic there seem to be more on the left than the right side. While I might be able to understand had the place been super busy, but it wasn’t so not sure why the maker felt rushed, because that is what causes such disbursement issues. But, on the better side, they didn’t skimp on the cheese and pushed it quite far out to the edges, so I’ll give them that. And even though there is that one point that is black, the rest of the crust, even on the bottom was cooked just right. Wood fired ovens are hard and if you can get the crust right in them, it is definitely a score.

Adding all the pluses and minuses up, I can look past the eggs and toppings issue and say we both really liked the pizza. Perfectly cooked crust and lots of cheese will solve problems and make most any pizza a winner. All in all, a good (enough) job.

I think the above statement kind of works for Delarosa in general. Even though it has been over a year since we dined there, they are still around because they do enough good things and aren’t overly pricey for downtown SF making them a decent option for both locals and visitors. Something we all know is the ultimate challenge for many a restaurant in this town. And I guess I will remember them as the last new pizza spot me and the SO hit up, which makes it mean a little something, or at least keeps me from not really hate on it too much. You know that is the thing about food, it does get tied up in our emotions and both good and bad and taste sensations can invoke memories which can make one feel happy and sad. And lord knows in the last couple years, both have intertwined more than I really wanted.

As a final note, technically our last pizza was from an old fave, Himalayan Pizza and Momo, who will hold a special place in my belly every time I eat a slice, including today which would have been, and I guess still is, the SO’s birthday.