The Richmond

We left the Palace of Fine Arts hungry. Apparently, sitting through an afternoon double feature of film noir with only a cocktail in between will do that. So, after a brief discussion, Juan, Matt, Cole, Eleanor, and I headed over to the Richmond to have pizza at Pizzetta 211.

Pizzetta 211 is an impossibly tiny place on a block of 23rd that, except for a few anomalous store fronts, is lined completed with houses. It’s a bit hard to find, and Juan and his posse had some difficulty. We squeezed ourselves around a tiny table that could barely fit the five of us and perused the menu. Deliciously foreign sounding pizzas, calzones, and salads covered one side, and beers and wine the other.

We ordered three pizzas to share (my apologies for not remembering the names of all the toppings): the duck confit with greens, the mushroom with an almond concoction, and the rosemary with pine nuts and some unbelievable cheese. All three were amazing. The crust was thin but buttery, flakey, and crisp without seeming like a cracker. The toppings were insanely good too. The duck was rich and moist without overpowering the delicate greens or the crust (I’m not a huge fan of pizza crust but this one I would eat alone). The mushroom slice tasted of fresh woody mushroom. And, with the first bite of the rosemary piece, my nostrils filled with the aroma of the herb.

After pizza, we took a short drive to Genki Crepes on Clement for dessert. I love this place. Susie had taken me for my inaugural Genki Crepe run (we had driven across the Bridge just to go there—this was when I was living on the other side of the Bay) ages ago, and I remembering wandering along the aisles, mouth open in awe and delight, gathering Asian treats in mysterious but cute packaging for a care package for Jeanne. This time, with a new group of kids, I still meandered along the shelves in bewilderment.

I had a litchi crepe with green tea ice cream, a far cry from my usual Nutella and banana. And, it wasn’t as I was hoping it would be. Quite stupidly, I had imagined the litchi would be in a form of some flavorful paste or jelly spread across the thin pancake (just like Nutella is). And, of course, it wasn’t. It was canned whole litchi berries plunked in between the mound of ice cream, the whip cream (which I didn’t expect either), and the crepe. The litchi was good as all canned litchi are, but not really a good addition to the crepe. It seemed to be its own separate entity, and I ate it as such—plucking the berry out with my fingers and popping it into my mouth whole. With the berries gone, eating the crepe was just like eating an ice cream cone, and the crepe was crisp just like one.

It was only about seven o’clock at night when we were done—quite early but seeming very late—and I was ready to crawl into bed. I was exhausted. Watching movies and eating pizza and crepes just plain wore me out.