#51 Maccaronara with ricotta salata at A16

Two nights ago, B and I went to A16 with my dad, who was in town (briefly) for a conference. We'd only been to A16 once before, but really enjoyed our meal (the burrata on crostini was particularly memorable). We hadn't headed back because 1) it's in the Marina, where parking is difficult even on a weeknight, and 2) well, actually, I don't know what the second reason was! The impetus this time around was that my dad has been wanting to try the restaurant for a while.

Parking proved to be difficult as usual, even at 6:30pm on a Monday night. We balls-ily walked in without a reservation, and were told it would be about an hour and fifteen minutes! We agreed to wait once the hostess told us she could take our phone number to call when the table was ready. That sort of trick gives A16 a very appealing neighborhood-restaurant feel, which is surprising considering the national acclaim it and its former chef Nate Appleman have garnered. To top it off, the seventy-five minutes ended up being only forty minutes, which we whiled away at the Apple Store down the street before being called back to the restaurant.

We started off the meal with the pizza capricciosa; that is, we let the pizzaiolo determine our toppings completely. I was sure that with no stated restrictions we would end up with a pork product on our pizza, but to our surprise, we were served a lovely four cheese topped with fresh wild arugula. Six slices, three diners: you do the math.

I, of course, had the maccaronara (large size) for my main course. Maccaronara is a thick-ish pasta, served here with tomato ragu, a few large leaves of basil, and the aforementioned grated ricotta salata. It was quite good overall, and I appreciated the size of the portion. Often, restaurants seem to think that if they work so hard to make their own pasta, they shouldn't waste a whole bunch on an individual diner; my position is that the homemade pasta is so much more delicious than the standard that one should be served a larger-than-standard portion! The pastas at flour+water in the Mission were possibly more delicious, but certainly much smaller.

For his main course, B selected the five meatball special (apparently we had arrived at the restaurant on their traditional Meatball Monday). I think my meatballs are slightly better in flavor, but the soft, melt-in-your-mouth texture of these was unbeatable. My dad had swordfish with a pine nut/basil relish that was also delish. We finished off the meal by sharing a farro pudding that sounded and tasted intriguing; the problem was that it was more intriguing than delicious.

We enjoyed our meal so much that we'll try not to make it so long between visits to A16. We'll also have to head to #52 Fried Brussels sprouts at SPQR, A16's cousin in Japantown.