24366 Thu May 29 20:21:41 -0700 2003 9 1 San Francisco Bay Area 0 94842 I know this post comes a bit late, but I will be going to Niebaum Coppola's in Palo Alto tonight. Any recommendations? Anything I should not get? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! Thu May 29 20:21:41 -0700 2003 0 Elisa 1 94844 I think I've heard that the pizzas are good at the Palo Alto branch (but not at the one on Columbus). I think that was from Victoria Libin, who knows her Neapolitan pizza. Thu May 29 20:34:27 -0700 2003 94842 0 Missy P. 2 94847 Thanks. It is a bit of a craze of mine. I don't understand why the Palo Alto branch can produce thin, crispy bottom, charred edged, yet tender pizza and the S.F. branch produces chewy dried out crust. It is a mystery. Thu May 29 20:42:27 -0700 2003 94844 0 Victoria Libin 3 95015 Victoria, thanks for sharing this tip. I remember talking to you about it but lost the details amidst so much Cambodian food. (g) P.S. Did you receive my email? Sun Jun 01 01:18:17 -0700 2003 94847 0 Melanie Wong 1 94845 If it's anything like N-C's in San Francisco, it's really not about the food, which is just simple bistro fare. I had a calzone, which was so-so. Thu May 29 20:35:39 -0700 2003 94842 0 Gary Soup 1 94846 Order the pizza margherita made with Buffalo Mozzarella (they will charge you a bit extra for it). Pizza is the best thing to order there. They cook in a wood burning oven and is quite close to real Neapolitan pizza: Thin but not cracker thin, crispy bottom crust with slight charring on the edges, small amount of crushed tomatoes, small amount of fior di latte (cow's milk mozzarella) or buffalo mozzarella, olive oil, and some basil. I also really like the plain marinara (no cheese) after starting with some steamed mussels. The caveat is that Neapolitan style pizza is very minimalistic and if you like pizza heavy with toppings or cheese, you will not like it. Service is painfully slow many times. Thu May 29 20:38:45 -0700 2003 94842 0 Victoria Libin 1 94857 Perhaps too late for you, but I'll share my opinion for the benefit of all hounds. Coppola in Palo Alto is one of the worst restaurants at which I have ever eaten. The service is dreadfully slow and incompetent. Don't bother asking for water, pepper, whatever. If it doesn't show up of its own accord, it's not coming. Ever. The arugula salad was utterly amazing in its awfulness. Someone had taken about 4 pounds of yellow edged arugula and compacted it into a quart-sized bowl. I mean really compacted; it was as though someone had repeatedly jumped on the full bowl. Atop it all was a puddle of separated oil and vinegar. No salt, no pepper, no other ingredients whatsoever. It was not a salad, it was a Compressed Hemisphere of Herbs with Two Fluids. The other dish I had, penne/rigatoni with meat sauce, should have been named Pasta Sybil. It managed to be, all at the same time: watery and greasy, hard and mushy, hot and cold, salty and bland, bad and worse. The fresh parmigiano that was promised when the pasta was first excreted upon my table never arrived, nor did the cheese that I asked for some time later. It was probably for the best. The cheese was likely terrible, and if by some wild chance it was not, scattering it over my pasta would have been a terribly sad waste of good cheese. I did not try the pizza, but take Victoria's word on it. She's an expert on the subject so I'm sure she's correct. If I were forced to go there again, I'd gather up all the patience in my soul, hope for a table on the sidewalk on a warm evening, and order the pizza and nothing else. Thu May 29 21:54:48 -0700 2003 94842 0 nja 2 94872 Yes, order anything other than the simple, margherita or marinara pizza at your own risk and I agree on the service. I go there once a month or so with some Italian friends just to get one of those two pizzas and we joke all night about the service, or lack thereof. The mussels are the only decent item other than the pizza and one time they messed that up too by overcooking them...ummm nothing like chewy mussels...blech. Fri May 30 02:28:35 -0700 2003 94857 0 Victoria Libin 2 94957 Hi, I think Niebaum-Coppola Cafe' in Palo Alto is a great restaurant. I had a very good experiance there everytime. The specials are wonderfull. 3 nights ago I had a roasted leg of lamb and my girlfriend had the branzino al sale wich his a whole Mediterranean Seabass cooked in the woodburning oven in a Sicilian sea salt crust. I noticed that their specials change every day and everything I ever had there was really good. The pizza is fantastic, and the service was always good. The only thing is that it gets a little loud. Fri May 30 22:20:11 -0700 2003 94857 0 joe 1 95024 Thanks for everyone's input. Our group had the calamari as one of our appetizers. It was cooked perfectly, not chewy and very tender. I had the rigatoni with meat sauce and thought it was quite tasty and left me with a homey feeling. Someone had ordered the spaghetti carbonara (sp?), which looked great. I'll have to order that next time. All in all the food was pretty good -- I didn't have high expectations especially after reading some of the posts. Service was slow, close to lacking and the it was pretty noisy, definitely not a place for a quiet evening. Once again, thank you for the posts! Sun Jun 01 03:25:38 -0700 2003 94842 0 Elisa