We really enjoyed our sweet milk fritter! (above.) It was like a cream puff encased in sugar. Mmmwah! But we're getting a little ahead of ourselves.
So hey, did you see they opened up a new restaurant in the old Anna's Cookies bakery on 18th Street and Guerrero? It's called Farina and it's Italian. Though not cheap ($15-22 entrees), it doesn't look like it's really trying to compete in the Delfina/Maverick/Range divisions of the Trendy Mission Restaurant Wars, and they've done a beautiful job on the architecture outside (the undulating window is cool), so we figured, why not?
So there's the building -- we couldn't get a good picture of the curvy window, but go check it out in person, it's really very nice. The restaurant is across from the Women's Building on 18th Street.
Here's the inside. When we got there, they regretfully told us that they still don't have their liquor license -- but of course, it took us until after we went with the tap water option to realize that you don't need a liquor license to serve wine and beer. 'Sallright, it's always good to emulate Gavin Newsom in sobriety.
The waitstaff was exceedingly friendly -- we never got past like two sips of water before someone came by to fill the glass up again, and they were very generous with the complimentary bread options (olive, onion, and regular).
We weren't super hungry, so we skipped the appetizers and first course pastas and went straight for the second course protein. Check out our fish entree! (We are embarrassed to tell you that we've forgotten the name of the fish we ordered -- it's the kind of place where they cook fish whose names you don't know.)
We could probably have used a starch to go with it, but it was decent. The bitter greens were fine. Our dining companion had a grilled tuna with a caprese salad side, a provocative pairing, but a little dry in execution. But then again, how wrong can you go with tuna, tomatoes, and mozzarella? We were proud to be members of the clean plate club after finishing up.
The dessert, though, was excellent! Highly recommending the sweet milk fritters. The cream with the orange and grapefruit chunks was perfect.
Farina's a very nice neighborhood bistro -- the place was hopping by the time we left. It's not Delfina, but it's not Valencia Pizza and Pasta either -- it's right smack dab in the middle. We might have been a little more super-excited about Farina if everything had been priced about $3-5 lower, but that's probably true in general for us in life.
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We live in the neighborhood, and apparently there's been a lot of nastiness between the owners and the neighbors--something that's never happened with stalwarts like Delfina, Bi-Rite or Dolores Park Cafe. See Yelp for Details
It's a beautiful-looking restaurant, though.
I'm looking forward to trying Farina. The atmosphere looks v. appealing.
Wow. I just read the Yelp comments, and if they're at all accurate it sounds like the owner is a a real, um, personality.
If you run a neighborhood restaurant and want it to succeed, it's probably not a good idea to repeatedly piss off your neighbors. It's definitely not a good idea to have one of them arrested on bogus vandalism charges, and then declare "war" on the neighborhood.
I posted this on Yelp to inform people about this incident:
I wouldn't eat at Farina if it was the last place on Earth and Armageddon had just hit. I have lived around the block for the past 20 years and have a community garden plot on the side street where Farina moved in. Two weeks ago the manager of Farina lied to the police and had one of my friends from my garden wrongly arrested and accused of allegedly throwing paint on 3 of his workers' parked cars (illegally, I might add) outside the restaurant. My friend walked by and saw the paint and must have been pointing it out (to his niece visiting from out of town), and the manager called the police, lied and said that 3 people who work at the restaurant saw him throw paint on the cars, and that they had it on film. An hour later, the cops knocked on my friend's door and arrested him. My friend is a lawyer, a respectable member of the community, a home owner, and a long time Mission resident. He was outspoken in a hearing several months ago opposing Farina's plans to expand to rooftop seating since his kitchen is in ear shot of the roof, and our neighboring community garden is a quiet place to retreat amidst the urban jungle. So when he walked by, I guess he was recognized and scapegoated for his opinion and spent 14 hours in jail and is out $5000 bail. They told another neighbor "this is war." This is not just a nice restaurant moving into the neighborhood. Welcome to the neighborhood, Farina? I think not.