While I was in San Francisco for my conference, I didn’t
just eat pastries from Mr. Holmes’ Bakehouse. I also had dinner with a coworker
at Cesario’s one night. It’s always fun to check out new places when I’m away
from home and it’s easy enough to google “best restaurants” near whatever hotel
we were staying at. Cesario’s popped as #4 on Trip Advisor and it was easy to
make a reservation through Open Table so that’s where we ended up.
Turns out it was a good thing I had made a reservation as, when we arrived, the tables were nearly all full, there was a party ahead of
us looking to be seated and we were able to leapfrog them, both because of the
reservation and that the only table available was a two-topper. The restaurant
was at a corner and, typical of San Francisco, was fairly small in terms of
seating.
Service was pretty decent, considering how crowded they
were, and our server took the time to answer questions and requests for
recommendations. The bread in the bread basket wasn’t crusty, which is a little
surprising considering it was an Italian restaurant. I suspect they outsource
their bread and get it from a bakery (a common practice) rather than baking
inhouse.
We were hungry so we ordered polenta “fries” as the
appetizer. The “fries” came out as fried polenta cut into chunky rectangles and
served with marinara sauce. While they didn’t bear any resemblance to actual
fries, they were pretty tasty and hit the right spot.
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| Polenta "fries" |
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| Linguine Vongole |
For my entrée, I ordered my ubiquitous spaghetti and
meatballs, my go-to choice whenever I try a new Italian restaurant, much like
pad thai is my go-to test for a new Thai place. In hindsight, I really should
mix up my order since it isn’t that hard to make good spaghetti and meatballs
and I probably didn’t give Cesario’s enough runway to impress me with their
Italian dishes. My coworker, on the advice of our server, ordered the linguine
vongole. And we split the tiramisu for dessert. The food was good and the
service was nice. It’s the kind of restaurant that’s a safe choice in terms of
the food but if you wanted a little more adventure in your dining choices, San
Francisco offers many options. For myself, I enjoyed it but it’s hard to go
wrong with pasta.
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| Spaghetti and Meatballs |
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| Tiramisu |
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