Silky Gnocchi Pillows at Sodini's Green Valley

Ryan
Oct 1
3 min read

Updated: Oct 12

I was out and about at the 4th of July block party in North Beach in San Francisco, looking for a place to grab dinner. After a few false starts (it was really crowded everywhere), I settled on Sodini's Green Valley, an Italian restaurant that has apparently been in North Beach for over 100 years — pretty cool!

Sodini's made it on my radar because I heard it had great gnocchi. As much as I love trying totally new dishes, I have a hard time not ordering certain things when I see them on the menu. Gnocchi is one of those things, so let's check out Sodini's version.

I settled into covered, street front seating connected to the action going on around North Beach.

An old Italian restaurant nestled under Victorian architecture.

Let's take a moment of appreciation: San Francisco is the most beautiful city I've been to in the USA. (Possibly the world, but Prague probably takes that crown.) I love the rolling hills combined with bustling urban development. You see these kinds of views — and better, when the bay, ocean, and/or bridges are in play — all over the city.

Rolling hills, packed sidewalks, neon pizza signs, no cars allowed: basically heaven.

Complimentary bread was delivered to my table while I waited for the main event. The table comes equipped with a few condiments: Chili flakes, oil, processed parmesan cheese, balsamic vinegar. I cooked up a bath for my crusty white bread.

An elegant pre-dinner bath of oil, balsamic, chili flakes, and salt.

The bread was exactly the kind of bleached crustiness you're imagining, but it was appreciated nonetheless. To save room for the actual dinner, I only ate a little bit.

These photos really capture my imagination: An edible archipelago rising up out of an ocean of oil. The tectonic action in this miniature world is based on balsamic flows instead of magma flows — I love the smooth texture on the balsamic-obsidian islands.

A close up of the Big Island (right) and O'ahu (left). Really cool that the chili flake farms are visible from this high up!

I ordered garlic fries as a side. For the main, gorgonzola gnocchi with a creamy mushroom sauce. Let's examine the fries first.

"Steak"-style fries arrived at my table. Not my favorite style, but they look nice. How do they taste?

Disappointing. Not bad, just boring. The garlic flavor only came through if I happened to get a bite with a visible clump of garlic, and they were not salted nearly enough. I supplemented heavily with the table-shaker parm to provide more flavor and salt.

Table-shaker parm isn't "delicious", but hey it's better than nothing.

The fry texture was nice — decently crispy on the outside and fluffy inside. In retrospect, did I really expect amazing fries from an Italian place? I guess not, but I love fries so much and ordered them just in case they were amazing.

A lot of the garlic (and therefore flavor) was hidden on the bottom.

How about the gnocchi?

Silky gnocchi pillows filled with gorgonzola and enrobed with a creamy mushroom sauce.

These gnocchi were delicious. They were filled with a generous portion of gorgonzola, and the mushroom cream sauce was as rich and earthy as I hoped. The garlic bread was fine: standard American, could-have-been-frozen-at-some-point-but-still-tasty garlic bread, basically there just to sop up sauce.

For me, maybe the most important element of gnocchi is texture. This gnocchi was dense and easy to bite through, almost like fudge but more grainy and al dente. I like this style much more than "airy and cloud-like", which seems to be another popular gnocchi texture. Especially as a main course, I feel that gnocchi really needs heft so it can can stand alongside strong flavors.

Gorgonzola gems hidden inside the gnocchi.

I enjoyed how the gorgonzola kept its own separate, distinct identity. Because it was hidden away in the center, the gorgonzola did not meld with the sauce, which would have made the dish more one-note. Instead, there was another texture and intense taste to play with.

I used the mushroom cream sauce as a condiment for the bland-on-their-own fries. With the parm and sauce, look at how far these fries have come!