Food review: Gnocchi bolognese pasta

Restaurant: Stelline (San Francisco)
Food description: Gnocchi (potato pasta) with bolognese meat sauce, pecorino cheese, and garlic bread
Food rating: 7 out of 10
Times ordered: 2

I'm a real sucker for pasta, so I'm really glad that Stelline is next door to keep that steady flow of pasta comin'. They must have realized this and went and raised all the prices on me, humph!! The ossobuco is now $13! Now I have to go back and edit that blog post (a cruel maneuver indeed). Of course this whole price adjustment is simply going to make me more critical of the food, so it goes both ways. I typically order penne bolognese, but the last couple of weeks, I finally tried the gnocchi. Gnocchi is sometimes annoying to eat because it's so dense, the center stays burning hot forever and it's not like you can blow on it to cool it off. So if you wanna eat this dish, just be prepared to lose a layer of skin from your upper palate. I'd say it's probably worth it because it's one of the better pasta dishes that Stelline offers. The gnocchi is decent, but the secret's in the bolognese sauce. It's nice and meaty and thick, with a little cream thrown in to tame the tang. I love it when the pasta sauce isn't overly tangy or sweet. There's some yummy pecorino cheese in the sauce, which adds that finishing touch of cheesy saltiness. Although the sauce is quite good, it's also quite heavy. You can actually see an orange layer of grease oozing out of the sauce, that is, if you care. I know it sure didn't stop me from sopping up every last bit of sauce with my garlic bread! Other than that, the garlic bread is useless. It's all dried out and has no taste. Oh yeah, I almost forgot: the second time I tried this pasta, they garnished it with some raw chopped tomatoes. What were they thinking? I could care less if my pasta looks cute, I just want it to taste good. No tomatoes next time por favor. Other than that, it's a top menu choice for Stelline.

Food review: Nine hour bolognese

Restaurant: NOPA (San Francisco)
Food description: Bolognese sauce over creamy polenta with parmesan and wilted greens
Food rating: 9 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

I'm really bummed my picture didn't turn out that well. I really should have taken the time to take several artistic shots but frankly the smell of this dish was too delectable for me to do more than take a hasty snapshot and then dig in. NOPA is famed for their nine hour bolognese (featured in this recent SFGate article) so of course I had to try it when I finally got a reservation for dinner here. This is seriously one of the most delicious dishes I've ever eaten. It is the perfect embodiment of comfort food, the bolognese truly tastes like someone has slaved over it for nine hours. To create the sauce, different cuts of meat (it can be anything but at NOPA usually is beef, pork, lamb or pancetta) is first stewed in milk for three hours, then wine for another three hours and then tomatoes for the last three and then voila, bolognese sauce. And it only took nine hours! The result is delicious. The sauce was rich with flavor, at first you tasted the meat and then the tomatoes and then underneath it all the subtle hint of creaminess that comes from the meat being stewed in the milk. It's not often you get to experience such sublimely multi layered flavors in one dish. Heavenly. It's served with a creamy polenta which is a perfect complement to the robust sauce. I'm not the biggest fan of polenta but this one was cooked very well with a smooth not grainy texture and cooked to a creamy consistency. I could eat this every day for weeks and not get tired of it.