the ladies of emmy's

on a quiet saturday night, i decided to wander down to the san francisco establishment emmy's spaghetti shack with my roommate for a quick and dirty meal.

it's a place i've known about for a while now and a name that arose frequently in those ubiquitous 'what do you feel like eating?' discussions that all groups of friends have time and time again. yet while it always ended made the podium, it never earned the gold, meaning that after almost five years in the city, i'd yet to sample their famed spaghetti and meatballs.

and i'm happy to report that emmy's is the type of restaurant that you reminisce about when you move out of town. i'm not sure of all the ingredients -- definitely garlic, capers, chopped onions -- in those meatballs, but they were tasty.

still, i suspect good meatballs aren't unique to sf, so it's not just the food.

the whole dining area isn't any bigger than your average sf studio, which when you have a small bar and a live dj eating up space, means that the tables are lined up side-by-side with a couple of booths lining each of the walls. the plastic chairs and vinyl-upholstered booths lend no air of sophistication nor does the mystery door that joins the restuarant to a predominantly mexican dive bar that doubles as the waiting room.

but a restaurant can't claim itself as a piece of the neighborhood unless the staff creates that environment of familiarity. whether intentional, or as they claimed, not the hostess and two waitresses clad themselves in spaghetti-insprired garb -- matching red (maybe orange; the lighting is set to mood, making it hard to tell) apparel with white stripes. and as they shuffled between kitchen, table and bar, they broke stride briefly to chat each time they crossed paths, perhaps passing on wait duties as different members of the trio took our order, checked on our food, offered dessert and brought the bill. very communal indeed.

all through dinner, interspersed between bites of pasta, i found myself conjuring a back story for the charming little eatery. the staff, actually, three daughters of a single mother with just a year separating each of them, grew up as best friends, but had drifted apart when they spread out to opposite parts of the country to pursue their various careers. when their mother, emmy of course, fell ill, they returned to sf to sell the family business, but over a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, they decided instead to run the restaurant themselves.

i'm certain that i'm romanticizing what took place, but after two mediocre at best and pricey dinners this week, well i just can't help it.