North Beach Part 2

And then we emerged from China Town to North Beach, the Italian community.  Our mission was to find good coffee and pastry.  All we had was
crummy coffee on the way so I was craving GOOD STRONG coffee!  Unfortunately there were so many places to choose from we had a difficult time deciding which one to choose.  We settled on Caffe Puccini.  We order double shot Americanos with apple torta.  They served the coffee in white porcelain cups and it was heaven.  There is something to be said for drinking coffee out of a real cup and not a paper cup.  The torta was crumbly with sliced apples and was delish.  I loved sitting down in a cute cafe and drinking good coffee.  Far above the Starbucks experience!

We didn't have much luck finding the pastries we remembered from Rome.  We stopped at a bakery and bought more coffee to drink and a pastry.  We were not too thrilled by the pastry.  North Beach has cute little shops so we wandered around visiting shops.  An artist I think could do well selling in SF, either in a shop or street market.  My favorite shop we found was the HAT SHOP!

At first I was totally intimidated by the outside of the shop.  It looked like it could have a severe snob factor going.  They saw us though hesitating outside and welcomed us in to try on hats!  It was like playing dress up!  Fancy women's hats with feathers!  Of course they were over 100.00 dollars.  Then we discovered the sale table.  O, O, O, I had fun trying on cloches, fedoras, and straw hats!

All types of people walked in to try on hats.  We had fun complimenting people in their hats.  There are just some people though that can pull off hats.  I'm marginal but I love hats so that I bought 2 straw hats on sale.  One a cloche and the other a straw wide brim hat.  I have had nothing but compliments on them.  Besides it keeps the sun off my face!

Deciding on a place for lunch was difficult also.  We finally chose one because the maitre de invited us to look at a menu.  We were one of maybe 4 tables but the dining experience was superb.  Jan can only have small amount so she ordered an appetizer.  Me? Well pasta is one of those foods I don't get so I splurged.  I had the Fettuccine ai Frutti di Mare and a glass of Chianti.  YUM!

It was funny that the place next door was hopping with people and our restaurant was so slow yet we had superb food and service.

Check out that cute hat!!!