Title: Zarzuela
Author: GCS
Last saved by: ENU

Zarzuela in San Francisco, CA – update, dinner
Review date: December  2011
No website: Yelp reviews http://www.yelp.com/biz/zarzuela-san-francisco and sample menu at http://www.themenupage.com/zarauelamenu.html

We met our friends Bruce and Marg for a Christmas dinner at their favorite restaurant, Zarzuela. We'd eaten here in August 2009 and really enjoyed it. Again we parked at the small nearby public garage, as we didn't fancy a walk straight uphill for three long blocks. The intersection of Green and Hyde Streets is on one of the steeper hills in the Russian Hill neighborhood. A $25 tab for parking is well worth the convenience of being half a block away on the only level part of Hyde St.

Zarzuela doesn't take reservations, so we gave ourselves an hour to drive in at primetime rush hour, arriving with a perfect ten minutes to spare before they opened the doors. The service was enthusiastic but a little slow this time, but we finally got the recitation of daily specials and ordered our food.

We picked one of the specials, the small green padron peppers, sauteed in olive oil until their skin blisters. Sometimes they're hot, but these were nicely sweet. We also ordered the Serrano ham with bread and tomato, which was a perfect partner to the pepper dish. There were only four slices of toasted bread spread with chopped tomato, but there was a generous amount of thinly sliced ham. 

This is the dry-cured ham, so much more flavorful than wet-cured American travesties like Hormel, and equal to Virginia's famed Smithfield ham. It's dark, almost the color of jerky, but soft and smooth on the tongue. After the toasts were gone, we used the extra slices of ham to wrap around the grilled peppers, making a sensational new pairing. This kind of ham, BTW, is right up there with great prosciutto in price. A Serrano runs about $100/lb. when you can find it, so Zarzuela is to be applauded for its generous portion.

We also got dates, stuffed with giant almonds and wrapped with ham, a tapas staple that too many cooks try to dress up with unnecessary additions of goat cheese or cream cheese or chorizo. This is one of those 3-ingredient recipes that should be left alone. It's a simple, sweet-savory mouthful, and very good as is. 

Carlos again ordered the crab bisque Basque style, which was a creamy tomato bisque with generous chunks of crab. It's still a great soup, very tasty. We also reordered three dishes: the Spanish chorizo sliced and just browned in olive oil, the poached octopus with sliced potatoes and the grilled pork tenders.

This time we liked the chorizo a little more, as it matched better with what we had ordered. Marg loves the octopus, although we find it on the bland side. The pork tenders are two skewers of small thin pieces of pork in a garlic-rosemary sauce that begged for bread to wipe it up with, so we did.

We decided to try the Arroz Caldoso a la Marinera, which turned out to be a soupier version of paella with the same spices and same ingredients, just more broth to make a softer rice. It was good, but we all agreed we prefer the drier paella.

Carlos has recently turned into a bread pudding fiend, so he enjoyed Zarzuela's version which is light and not overly sweet. I tried the mango sherbet cheesecake, a sort of hybrid dessert of a thin layer of cheesecake with mango sherbet molded above it, and coconut-white chocolate curls on top. It wasn't anything remarkable, but good with a cup of coffee. Bruce had a traditional flan while Marg finished with a glass of Amontillado sherry.

Bruce again picked up the tab, so we don't have prices. 

Zarzuela
2000 Hyde St. @Union, San Francisco
(no website)
Review date:  August 2009

Our friends Bruce and Marg are subletting in the City until the end of August. They invited us to dinner to help celebrate their 28^th wedding anniversary, so we shlepped into the city, fighting the Giants game traffic

Bruce, being of Portugese descent, had traveled in Spain and Portugal some years back on a trip with Marg. It gave them both a lifelong taste for tapas, so they were very excited to find Zarzuela a mere two blocks from their temporary home. They tried it almost immediately and loved it, so asked us to meet them there for a repeat visit.

Zarzuela doesn’t take reservations, so we all made sure to meet up as soon as they opened the doors at 5:30. Carlos immediately decided to try the Crab Bisque, which was a beautiful, not too rich puree based on a delicious sofrito with just enough crab so you could savor it. 

The Patatas Bravas, fried potatoes with spiced Tomato Sauce, are actually a bit bland, with a very mild tomato-pimento sauce. They’re good, but the Croquetas de Jamon Y Pollo, chicken and ham croquettes, were sensational. Mostly mashed potatoes with just a bit of chicken and ham ground up in the mixture, they’re almost liquidly creamy underneath a perfect, crispy brown exterior. A single dish of it wasn’t enough – we ordered a second to share.

The Empanada of the day was tuna. It’s baked in a large size, so instead of individual pies you get four sandwiched triangles with no crust ends. The tuna filling was a full inch high, and the taste….sublime! Saffron, olives, roasted peppers – ah, this is what tuna salad should be, not the mayo- and pickle relish-laden Sunkist canned tuna salad that is the only thing most Americans know.

We probably would have ordered another plate of it, but we got sidetracked by the opportunity to order a wider variety of plates that Bruce and Marg hadn’t tried before. The Cazuela De Queso De Cabra, baked goat cheese in a tomato sauce, had a wonderful earthy, acid-y taste that begged to use up every slice of the generous serving of bread each table receives.

The Champinones Plancha, mixed mushrooms, were roasted (the restaurant often uses those small iron skillets for serving). There was the slightest tang of white wine, just enough to enhance but not so much it detracted. The Gambas Ajillo, shrimp sauteed in garlic and olive oil, also came in an iron skillet. It was so redolent of toasty garlic that any one of us probably could have killed a vampire with our breath alone at ten paces – IOW, it was perfect.

The Pulpo a La Gallega was tender thinly sliced poached octopus, layered atop slices of potato with mild seasonings of onion, olive oil, and pimenton. Like the grilled pork tenders (two skewers of moist, tender pork served with a dollop of mashed potatoes), both were simple yet excellent.

Another winner was the Boquerones, marinated filets of fresh anchovy served atop red and yellow roasted bell peppers. Tangy fish and sweet bells – a great combo.

The loser, by default, was the Chorizo. This might seem odd, but the Bay Area has long had a sizable Portugese population making homemade sausages, well before chefs like Bruce Aidell popularized gourmet sausages. It’s easy to get spoiled here, with everyone from Amaral’s to Saag (what? You didn’t know Saag is not only based in San Leandro, but makes excellent fresh sausages too?) to Niman Ranch and Schwarz’s Le Picque-Nique brands. 

Spanish chorizo is smoked, unlike the Portugese version. Therefore, it’s thinner and denser than, say, our personal long-time favorite, Amaral’s hot linguiça, which is a thicker, chunky (and spicy) sausage-lover’s delight. Zarzuela’s sausage wasn’t bad, just not very interesting in view of the many other great sausages so easily available to us.

We finished with three desserts and two sherries. The chocolate roll with brandy was good, but if you want to stay authentic, stick to the caramel flan or the rice pudding. Both are traditional Spanish/Portugese desserts, and Zarzuela’s versions are both excellent, dusted with high-quality cinnamon. 

The sherries are excellent – and if you want to splurge, get the 20-year old Sandeman’s oloroso. Truly a perfect ending!

It’s fun to get beyond the usual paella and explore more of what Spanish cuisine offers. This is a gutsy, earthy cooking that may lack the refinement of great French or Chinese cuisine, but OTOH has kept its soul intact. It’s interesting that modern health concerns have forced tough changes on traditional French and Chinese, but (outside of the fact there were no veggies except for onions and peppers) all the tapas were utterly satisfying without being overly rich or salty. 

It’s much more in line with how many of us like to eat these days, albeit you need to remember that Spanish and Portugese cooking is carnivore-oriented. Don’t even try coming here if you’re a vegetarian – it can be done, but you’ll wonder what all the fuss is about. And forget the vegans entirely, it’s not nice to let your friends go hungry at the table.

If you’re lucky – we were – the family patriarch (who also helps wait tables) will belt out a Spanish song, on request. He’s got a great voice, and it shows what kind of place this is.

Zarzuela is definitely two steps above B44 (downtown SF), but the location isn’t the easiest one for anyone living outside the Russian Hill area. Be warned street parking is not only limited, there are steep hills all around so it can be a hike even if you find a space a couple of blocks away.  There is evening parking at a local garage (an auto repair place that makes space available for the dozen or so people willing to pay $20 to park their car for a few hours). Access is easiest if you’re coming up Union Street heading towards downtown; turn right at Hyde and the garage entrance is two doors from the corner. There’s no validation, but it’s only a few steps to the restaurant so it’s very convenient.

For four people, we had one soup, ten tapas plates, three desserts, a beverage and two sherries, with tip it was around the $210-220 range (I’m not sure how much Bruce tipped, although I did see the bill total). A bargain, and worth every penny.