When you move from one region to another, there's always some local delicacy you have to give up. When I moved from my hometown of Philadelphia, I realized I would never find a real cheesesteak anywhere else. In New Haven, Connecticut, the item is pizza. I knew I wouldn't find the same pizza anywhere else -- brick oven fired, thin but toothsome crust, sauce of sweet plum tomatoes, a light hand with the toppings -- but I didn't think it would get as bad as it apparently had several months after my move to San Francisco.
I live down the street from Goat Hill Pizza, a local favorite, but sadly I never found it satisfying. To me the pizza always tastes like it's made from canned ingredients: canned tomato paste for the sauce, canned black olives, canned artichoke hearts, etc. The aroma of baking pizza crust always smells good when wafts by as I pass on the street, but the crust itself never seems to live up to the promise. It's usually over-baked and too hard, turning finishing my half of the pizza into a chore.
I've tried Amici (not bad, a little greasy, avoid the unpleasantly dense sausage) and North Beach (good sauce, fresh toppings -- but they don't bother to sauté the onions and peppers) and had pretty much decided that this was as good as it was going to get. Then I started hearing that real Italian pizza was to be had at a little place in the Mission around the corner from Tartine. I happened to be in the neighborhood and checked out the menu -- housemade fennel sausage, white clam pizza, broccoli rabe pizza, margherita --it seemed like the real deal.
The seed was planted.
Last Friday it had blossomed into a fully-formed thought: "We're going to Delfina for dinner tomorrow," I told the husband. And we did. We started with asparagus with a lemon, crumbled hard boiled egg yolk, bread crumb, and olive oil dressing. It had the right mixture of tang of lemon, mellowed and made more substantial by the egg and olive oil, and the crunch of light, crispy breadcrumbs. We split the Salsiccia pizza, which featured their house made sausage. It was perfect. Light, crisp crust with juicy, fennel-studded sausage and just the right amount of sauce, cheese, and thinly sliced red pepper and red onion to complement it. We consumed it all in a reverent, near-total silence.
My quest for pizza in the Bay Area is finally over.
3611 18th St (between Guerrero and Dolores), 415 437 6800
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