3621 18th St San Francisco, California 94110, (415) 552-4055
tasted on Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Bottom Line:

Delfina has a small but focused cheese selection and I found all the cheeses in exceptional to good condition. The cheeses available are varied and form a solid plate when paired  together.

Score card: 12 out of 20

Menu: 2 out of 4, Selection: 3 out of 5, Service: 1 out of 3, Cheese: 5 out of 5, Accompaniments: 1 out of 3

Full Review:

I’ve wanted to go to Delfina for ages – but my car-bound-butt hates trying to find parking in the Mission. But the weather was gorgeous and a drive around Dolores Park wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, so I headed out at 5:30 pm hoping to find free meter parking. Luckily, parking was relatively easy and I am in Delfina by 6 pm. The décor is open and inviting. I get seated at the bar next to the open kitchen. An additional bonus for me was that I was also ted next to the cheese case!

good thing they had a glass front or I may have stolen the entire piece of Cusie!

The cheese course was listed on the dessert menu so I had to discretely and like a non-crazy person ask for the dessert menu instead of the regular menu – ah the trials of a cheese blogger! The cheese selection was pretty straight forward: Cypress Grove Fog Lights, Robiola Tre Latte, Cusie di Tobacco, Red Cow Parmigiano Reggiano, and Point Reyes Lucy Rose. The cheeses is priced $7.75 each or $16 for a tasting. I of course go for the full tasting flight.

The only thing I would suggest to Delfina about their menu listing is that it would be nice to know if the cheeses were fresh, semi-soft, semi-hard or hard in texture. I think that would make it easier for customers to choose a flight for individual cheeses, if they aren’t a cheese hog like me.

I’ve been trying to limit my alcohol intake to maximize my gym efforts and drinking tends to make my pictures a bit shaky – so I’m going on the wagon for the sake of this blog (kidding but only a little)! So instead of the usual wine pairing I decided to pair with brewed tea. Tea and cheese pairings have been the talk of the cheese world; classes have popped up at the Oregon Cheese Festival; Culture magazine had a feature about it. I decide on a black tea called Jade Oolong tea. What’s great about tea is that you can brew it to match the intensity of flavor of the cheese. So with the Fog Lights I drank it lighter and then brewed it darker for the more robust cheeses like the blue and the Cusie. – but I’m getting ahead of myself

a good alternative to wine - especially in foggy SF!

Unsurprisingly with Delfina’s reputation for great food, I was seduced by a menu item: house made ricotta with a salad of spring asparagus. I love asparagus and it did have cheese as the first ingredient so I felt justified in ordering it for this post! And then the bartender told me that the house made ricotta was made with goat’s milk! Double WIN! I was so excited – I think I even did a little chair dance.

so good - I just wanted more!

But when the salad came out, I was a little disappointed. The headline ingredient (house made ricotta) was just a small schmear on a piece of toast/ large crouton. The serving was maybe a heaping tablespoon. And to make matters worse – it was SOOOOO good! In fact the whole dish was superb. The asparagus was dressed with a balanced vinaigrette with lots of herbs (I distinctly tasted cilantro – love that stuff!). It was bright and quite lovely. The ricotta was light, fluffy, and so delicate with a delicate lemony hint that was perfectly accented by the herbs in the dressing. But for $12 I was expecting a bit more ricotta.

well rounded selection

With the lovely taste of goat’s milk and fresh bright herbs on my palate, I dig into my cheese plate. The Fog Lights, which I sometimes find a bit salty, was very balanced – a splendid example of this fluffy goat cheese from Cypress Grove. The Robiola Tre Latte was very young and hadn’t developed the oozy center that I find so attractive and compelling. Don’t get me wrong – this cheese is delightful at this age I just personally don’t have it very often. That’s one of the great things about having cheese plates – it really breaks you out of your normal patterns and forces you to look at a cheese in a new light. I wasn’t sure if the tea was going to be too bitter for this cheese and make it too “hoofy” for my tastes. But the tannins in my lightly steeped tea cut through the richness of the cheese without masking the tart tanginess of the Tre Latte.

The next cheese, Cusie di tobacco, was really the true star of the plate. It was earthy, dense, slightly sweet, with a great level of moisture – just superb! The leathery notes I tasted last time I had this cheese were non-existent in this sample. Instead there was just a light whiff of leather that just teased your senses. The condition of this cheese was phenomenal especially paired with the tea. It reminded me of a Vietnamese dessert made with lotus seed and seaweed (chè thạch sen). The pairing really made this cheese sing. I love it when yummy things happen!

I don’t know if it was the Cusie that blew my mind but I was disappointed by the Red Cow Parmigiano Reggiano (P.R.). I had heard from a colleague with an exceptional palate that “Red Cow” P.R. really stood out in a tasting of several P.R.s. Red Cow P.R. is made from the rich and creamy milk of the original breed of cow for P.R., the Pezzata Rossa; a breed almost extinct by the by the late 1980s. So I was stoked to see it featured on the menu. But it was just – well, Parmigiano Reggiano. I don’t know if it had been sitting around for a while or if the Cusie blew my tastes buds out of the water. I’ll have to revisit Red Cow P.R. to see. But it was nice to see it served with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. So often we forget that P.R. can be a wonderful addition to a cheese plate.

The anchor of the plate was “Lucy Rose” from Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese. I’ve only ever seen their Original Blue and hadn’t heard of the Lucy Rose. After some slick sleuthing, I found out that the “Lucy Rose” was a batch of Point Reyes Original Blue made when Craig, Annie and Lucy (their daughter) Stoll came to visit the farm and made a batch of cheese. Incidentally, they were also at the farm filming a segment for a PBS series called “Chefs A’ Field. This season of the series just won a Beard award! It’s cool to know that not only are the restaurateurs so involved in sourcing their ingredients but that they are passing down their knowledge to the next generation!

Overall, I don’t think I would make a special trip just to try Delfina’s cheese selection but if I happen to go there with friends, the cheese plate is excellent to share as an appetizer or to finish a meal.

~keep the cheese rolling~