Early Bird Special: 54 Mint
An early taste of SF Weekly's Wednesday food review. 
Jen Siska 54 Mint's caprese salad.
This may be a city whose obsession with thin-crust shows no sign of cooling, but newcomer 54 Mint (16 Mint at Jessie) isn't exactly willing to pander. No, the still-new Italian restaurant in Mint Plaza's sleek Euroscape has a very Sicily-meets-Manhattan sense of itself, one that doesn't include Cali-style pies. Not surprising, since one of the owners here is co-owner of Il Buco in New York City. SF Weekly critic Meredith Brody loved what she calls the "lusty, uncompromising, boldly flavored" cooking here -- read the full review later today at SFWeekly.com. Until then, immerse yourself in a preview (after the jump).
Italian food scholars make fun of American kitchens that pile lots of sauce on pasta, but the kitchen at 54 Mint does just that. The bucatini con le sarde mixed plenty of mashed fresh sardines, wild fennel, pine nuts, and raisins with its thick, al dente strands of imported durum grain pasta. The trenette al pesto trapanese was thinner, softer strands of house-made pasta blended with a Sicilian pesto made with tomatoes, almonds (some still roughly chopped), and fresh basil -- without the expected cheese. (Parmesan was freshly grated atop the pastas at table on request.) The gnocchi al ragu was superb: lots of silky potato gnocchi topped with an equal quantity of deeply flavored meat ragout made with beef and pork. It was my favorite dish of the meal.
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