My Nua Favorite Restaurant

I hit up Nua last night with the Mister. What can I say? It was superb. I wanted to walk back into that tiny kitchen and give chef Anna Bautista a big fat hug. It's the first new restaurant I've eaten at in ages -- perhaps all year, come to think of it -- where I don't have a single gripe about the food. The menu is chock full of appetizers as well as a half-dozen entrées, and we took it upon ourselves to assume you could order a series of small plates if you wanted to. Our  waiter has clearly been hiding under a rock since 1986, because when we told him our plan to nosh tapas-style, he tried to put the kibosh on that, insisting that we "might not get enough starch with our meat." (He was serious. I was speechless.) Still, I forgave him for being so...weird?... because he steered me to the most smoking Spanish Crianza ever -- a pretty, pretty wine that I ordered not once, not twice, but four times in a row. I haven't done that since 2001*.

Onto the food. The food was coursed perfectly (which means the kitchen has heard of the small plates craze currently sweeping the country even if Waiter Man hasn't). We started with a gorgeous chicken liver mousse and country paté. The kumquat and fennel mostarda was the perfect thing to "stab through the fat," as Norman Van Aken would say, and if they'd been selling bottles of it I'd have some in my pantry right now. Next up? Crispy sardines on top of pickled shallots (maybe not pickled but somehow sweet yet not caramelized), green beans, cauliflower and currants. Divine. The prawns with paprika, garlic, sherry, and chilies were good, but it was the sauce soaked into hunks of bread that got me. If I could fill up my bathtub with that sauce, I'd go swimming in it. The housemade lamb merguez sausage was good, but it was the salad of cucumbers, mint and fennel that made it sing, and the velvety soft pillows of herbed gnocchi surrounded by tender baby artichokes, enoki mushrooms, and a few shavings of Pecorino Romano were springtime in a bowl.

But the favorite? The aria, the triumph, the piece de résistance? That honor goes to CAULIFLOWER.

Yes, people. Cauliflower.

The humble vegetable was chopped into teeny-weeny florets, roasted, and tossed with capers, pine nuts, and parsley. Our server gushed about it. When we were done licking the bowl clean, we thanked him for his suggestion. Then Mr. FM gobbled up a blueberry-fromage blanc tartlet. (I finally got in a bite edgewise.)

I really, really like this place. It was casual, friendly (they sat us an hour ahead of our reservation) and utterly delicious. I want to go back. Now. Now!!!

***
*Or so.

Comments

[Amy Sherman]

Yup. I liked it too. I reviewed it over at SF Station a few weeks ago. Some of the portions were too small but in general everything was lip-smacking good.

[Jennifer Jeffrey]

Yum! Must add Nua to my list of Places To Go Sooner Rather Than Later. The list is rather long-ish at the moment. I haven't been feeling terribly social.