Little Star Pizza is a popular pizza place with 2 locations in San Francisco. We visited the Divisidero location and ordered deep dish pizza. It took about 30 minutes to get our pizza.
Decor, Vibe - This place is in the middle of the Western addition, not the best of neighborhoods. The place is dark and feels cramped. Hipsters in their 20’s were mostly eating here and drinking Pabst and listening to the jukebox. Wait times can be long from 7-9pm.

Menu Pictures

Website Menu

Picks:

Classic ($17 for 9in, $22 for 12in)- Sausage, mushrooms, green bell peppers and onions would feed about 2 people. The pizza was full of chunky tomatoes to a point of being sour and strong. Sausage was not spicy nor was it flavorful. Corn mealy buttery crust was best part. Lots of toppings but not a lot of sausage. A good pizza but we like Zachary’s better.

Mediterranean Chicken ($18 for 9in, $23/12in) Chicken breast, artichoke hearts, red bell peppers, green olives, onions, feta had lots of chicken and dark olives. The Classic was better than this one as this was a little more soggy and less filling.

OK:
None

Pans:
None

Little Star Pizza had friendly service that was about average. Cheap $10 corkage. Limited dessert menu. Cash only.
This restaurant serves decent deep dish pizza that is a cut below Zachary’s in the East Bay. Of course it is just a matter of personal preference with this level of quality. It is worth visiting if you are in the area and do not feel hitting the East bay. CASH only

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Gitane Restaurant and Bar is a “modern, funky, and artistically bold restaurant” in downtown San Francisco in a hidden alley. It focuses on Basque small plates or tapas. They have a large beautiful bar area, outdoor seating, and upstairs dining room.

Beautiful Bar

Upstairs Dining area

Decor, Vibe - Modern, eclectic feel with lots of interesting colors and textures. Mostly people in their 20’s to 50’s were dining. Lots of yuppies in the bar.

Menu Pictures

Website Menu

Picks:

Eggplant asada ($10) sliced grilled eggplant, chilled and rolled with herbed goat cheese, arugula salad, balsamic reduction had 4 decent sized pieces of eggplant on top of a small salad. Quality and freshness was good.

Cordero natural lamb foreshank ($27), braised in tempranillo red wine, orange zest, coriander, with baked polenta was one big piece of tender lamb. Still a gamey but the meat came right off the bone. Polenta was too salty.

San sebastian Cocktail ($9) sagatiba cachaça, fresh lime juice, lemon, mandarin, & grapefruit slices was a potent balance drink. Not too sweet or fruity.

OK:

Ribs ($12) hill natural baby back pork ribs, honey-soy glaze, brussel sprout leaves, parsnip puree, crisped serrano ham was just too lukewarm. Sauce was not special.

Espinaca ($5) sauteed spinach, pine nuts, golden raisins was an average spinach dish.

Pans:
None

Gitane Restaurant and Bar is a very stylish and fun place. The food is average, nothing amazing. We would recommend going here for drinks and a couple small plates. Bigger meals get pricey, causing value to severely erode.

Viognier Restaurant is named after a grape grown in France. We tried lunch and dinner here. The menu changes seasonally. We had not eaten here for a while, so it was time to rekindle our memories.
Dinner is a prix fix 3 to 5 course meal where you can select any course including 3 entrees.

Cocktail

Decor, Vibe - Rustic decor with stylish art and a large open kitchen. It is a power lunch place with lots of well dressed business people. At dinner on a Sunday night it was pretty barren.

Menu Pictures

Dinner Menu

Extensive Wine List

Website Menu

Picks:

Steak Frites ($21 Lunch) New York steak, Homemade Fries, Bearnaise Aioli had a bunch of fries and a small piece of high quality meat that was cooked correctly.

Warm Scallop and Prawn Salad ($20 Lunch) with baby spinach, avacado, bacon, Sherry Dijon Vinagrette. It only had 2 of each tasty shellfish. Dressing was a little too creamy.

Main Lobster Salad (Dinner) with apples, persimmons, walnuts came with lots of tender lobster. The fruit balanced out the lobsters very well.

Seared Yellowfin Tuna (Dinner) with farro, lemon, watercress, extra virgin olive oil was delicious. The tuna was fresh and cut very well. All ingredients worked well together.

Seared Duck Breast (Dinner) with Huckleberry Jus, Happy boy farms Turnips was cooked to a perfect medium rare. Tender meat and crispy skin made for a very good dish. Could have used more huckleberry sauce.

Grilled Prime Beef Strip Loin (Dinner) with Kennebee potato hash, garlic spinach, piquillo pepper sauce was done to a nice medium rare. Good quality meat with good flavor made this a good pick.

Line Caught Halibut (Dinner) with shitake, pistachio, lemon brown butter emulsion was cooked just right. It is hard to cook fish perfectly, but they did it. Very good sized portion.

Souffled Pumpkin Cheesecake (Dinner) with maple baked kabocha, toasted pepitas, Candied ginger was inventive as it was more like a cake with cheese cake flavor. Interesting and still very good.

OK:

Wild Mushroom Soup ($10 Lunch) was average, not creamy but nothing special.

Organic Baby Field Greens ($9 Lunch) was a pretty standard salad with good quality greens.

Pans:
None

Service was decent especially seeing how empty the place was during lunch. There are not a lot of alternatives for high end dining in San Mateo, making this one of the best bets. Prices are on the high side but quality rivals many places in San Francisco charging more.

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Viognier Restaurant is know for their extensive 1700+ bottle wine collection. Glasses start at $8, bottles from $23, $25 Corkage.