I went to North Beach for the second time ever with my ESF(Eating San Francisco) class. Marco and I drove there thinking parking would be easy on a Wednesday night, we were WRONG. After about 20 minutes we ended up at a parking garage on the border of Chinatown and North Beach. We met up at the City Lights Bookstore which read so much about in class, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlighetti, William Burroughs to name a few.
Once everyone arrived we proceeded to the restaurant, Bocce Cafe. There was lots of space considering our 17 people party was more than 75% of the people there. There was karaoke btw. Upon looking on the menu I knew I want to try the gnocchi because I had never had it before, but Marco and I decided to order two things and split them so we can try more dishes. We got the gnocchi and house pizza which was weird because it had NO CHEEE. I thought that was something The Beats would do in a food sense. To go against mainstream America with a cheese-less pizza. The gnocchi was so good I can see why a lot of people talk about it. It melts in your mouth and the soft texture, I don't think I have had anything like it before. House Pizza was interesting, garlic, spinach, and marinara. The best part of the pizza was the crust, it had a crunch to it but it wasn't rock hard.
After dinner we got to go behind the scenes of a European bakery called the Italian French Bakery. The bakery had two unreinforced brick oven, which means there's no rebar or anything other than the cement holding the bricks together. You know they're old because everything today need to be reinforced in due to earthquakes. It was like looking into history seeing the two ovens, how the heated bricks makes the bread. Possibly of on the beat writers went to the same bakery got a cup of coffee and brainstormed for their books. oh everyone got free baguettes, it was a perfect way to end a wonderful night with wonderful people.
