San Francisco, CA - Contigo; Out of all the restaurants I tried either by walking, trolleys, and/or buses, this is the one place I would happily sit on a train and bus, then have to walk a bit. This was as good as it gets. It was recommended by a friend and I'm so glad we went. It has a wonderful atmosphere, but it comes down to the food, right?

Well, it receives five stars, so you can guess I enjoyed the food. Dish after dish was spectacular. Unfortunately I don't remember the actual names of each dish, sorry, but I'll do my best to describe them. After all, we had nine dishes while we were there. Maybe someone who works there will stumble upon this and tell me the actual names.

Our first tapas was mangos with cheese. It truly was a great way to start. It was fresh, ripe, wonderful combination of the fruit and cheese. (4.5 Stars)

We moved onto toast with tomato bruschetta. The toast was wonderfully crunchy despite the tomato spread on it. This was probably the least favorite of all the dishes, not a home run, but a double or triple. (3 Stars)

I was the only one who wanted to try the monidito (sardines), which worked out well, all three for me. I was expecting a very salty piece of fish, but it was prepared in a way where it wasn't and the toast underneath helped to make the whole bite very mild. (4 Stars)

Next on our palette was the albondigas (meatballs). It is pork meat balls in a tomato sherry sauce. OUT OF THE PARK HOMERUN! Wow, was this one out of two favorite dishes that night. After the meatballs were done, I was still scrapping the tomato sauce. It was slightly spicy, just enough heat, making you want more. (6 out of 5 Stars)

The second favorite dish was the brussels sprouts. Up until this evening, I never ate brussels sprouts. This dish made me do an about-face for brussels sprouts. I now say I eat them. I feel like they blanched them before cooking them because they were cooked, yet still deliciously crunchy. It also had a lemon dressing that made you lick your lips and hoping there were some sauce on them. As a surprise, there was a layer of thinly sliced almonds underneath giving it just an additional flavor, but the right amount of texture. (5 Stars)

I didn't see this one on the menu today, but if it's not, what a loss. The next one was Pimientos de Padron (small peppers sauteed and sprinkled with sea salt). These were yummy and zero were left. I was expecting them to be spicy, but were not. They had just enough charred flavor that was complimented with the salt. (4 Stars)

The crispy potatoes arrived with a tomato dressing. I think I would have enjoyed these more if it wasn't next to my favorite ones. Since it was competing side-by-side, it fell to waste side. We finished them, don't get me wrong, they were tasty, but couldn't compete with the brussels sprouts and meat balls. (3 Stars)

Moving onto dessert, we tried two. The first one was an ice cream dish, but I don't remember what type, once again competing side-by-side with a better dish. (3 Stars)

The dessert that left us wanting more was the chocolate caliente con churros. These were delicious Mexican cinnamon sticks that we could dip into hot molten chocolate. Once the sticks were gone, we were using our spoons to dig out the chocolate. Yummy! (4.5 Stars)