{"id":1517,"date":"2014-06-19T00:25:32","date_gmt":"2014-06-18T16:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/?p=1517"},"modified":"2024-04-19T00:09:53","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T16:09:53","slug":"acqua-e-farina-restaurant-review-hayward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/2014\/06\/acqua-e-farina-restaurant-review-hayward\/","title":{"rendered":"Acqua e Farina – Restaurant Review – Hayward"},"content":{"rendered":"

I walked past Acqua e Farina<\/strong> several times, on my way to and from my favorite tea house, The Golden Tea Garden<\/a>,\u00a0 before I noticed its existence.\u00a0 From the outside, the restaurant looked simple and inviting, like an old world, hole-in-the-wall sort of place.\u00a0\u00a0 I put it on the back of my mind as a place to try some day, and from there I retrieved it last April, when I was looking for a place to celebrate my anniversary, with both my husband and children.\u00a0 We had a great experience then, which I repeated last night with a group of friends.<\/p>\n

As we discovered once we actually went into Acqua e Farina, this little restaurant occupies the space which was once the home of Rue de Main<\/a>.\u00a0 The dining room is a little strange, with several smallish eating areas.\u00a0 The largest one is decorated with wall paintings of\u00a0 Italian village storefronts, so you can easily pretend that you are eating al fresco<\/em> in a piazza<\/em>.\u00a0 It’s quite nice.<\/p>\n

The menu <\/a>is filled with classic Italian and Italian-American dishes.\u00a0 The pasta ones are nicely priced in the low-to-mid teens with meat and fish dishes in the high teens.\u00a0 A porterhouse steak tops the price list at $30.<\/p>\n

We started by sharing the prosciutto ($8) and the polenta ($7).\u00a0 The prosciutto, which came wrapping thick slices of melon, was good, though this is not a favorite dish of mine.\u00a0 The polenta, however, was outstanding.\u00a0 The baked slices are served with mushrooms in a Madeira sauce that is just out of this world.\u00a0 I’d had it in my previous visit, and it was just as good this time.\u00a0 Don’t miss it.<\/p>\n

For my main dish, I had the gnocchi della casa<\/em> ($14), which came with a creamy tomato sauce.\u00a0 The gnocchi just melted in my mouth, and the sauce was quite pleasant.\u00a0 Like most of the entrees at Acqua e Farina, this wouldn’t win any culinary awards, but it was solid.\u00a0 My previous visit I’d had the spinach ravioli in meat sauce ($14), and I had enjoyed them, but not as much as the gnocchi.\u00a0 This time, my friend Katrina had the ravioli but in a pesto sauce, which she enjoyed very much.\u00a0 At a previous visit, one of my daughters had the lasagne di carne<\/em> ($14.5), which she also liked.\u00a0 Again, no culinary awards, but good, simple Italian food.<\/p>\n

Acqua e Farina may do even better with its non-pasta dishes.\u00a0 Eddie found her salmone alla griglia<\/em>, salmon grilled and served with a garlic, basil and fresh tomato white wine sauce ($19.5) to be the best salmon she’d had in a while. Parker, meanwhile, was very pleased with her melanzane del giorno\u00a0<\/em>($12.5), eggplant in a tomato sauce, topped with mozzarella.\u00a0 She found it a big heavy on the cheese for her taste, but thought it was very good.<\/p>\n

The desserts may be Acqua e Farina’s weak point.\u00a0 My ricotta cheesecake ($6) was light but unexciting, and while I didn’t try Eddie’s lemon sorbet ($4), I did notice she only ate half of her dish.\u00a0 I can’t remember what I thought of the tartufo di cioccolato<\/em> ($5.5), chocolate ice cream with hazelnuts, which I had in my first visit, which means it wasn’t particularly memorable.<\/p>\n

Service was outstanding both times. The waiters were attentive and friendly, though this time they failed a bit in the replenishing drinks part.\u00a0 The meal after tax and tip came to about $133.<\/p>\n

In all, Acqua e Farina is a solid restaurant for when you want a nice night out at a moderate price.<\/p>\n

Acqua e Farina<\/strong>
\n22622 Main Street
\nHayward, CA
\n510.888.1568
\nhttp:\/\/acqua-e-farina.com\/<\/a>
\nLunch: M-Sa 11 AM – 2:30 PM
\nDinner: Su-Th 4-9 PM, F-Sa 4-10 PM<\/p>\n

Hayward Restaurant Reviews<\/a><\/p>\n

Bay Area Restaurant Reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I walked past Acqua e Farina several times, on my way to and from my favorite tea house, The Golden Tea Garden,\u00a0 before I noticed its existence.\u00a0 From the outside, the restaurant looked simple and inviting, like an old world, hole-in-the-wall sort of place.\u00a0\u00a0 I put it on the back of my mind as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[612,99,168,281,616,28],"class_list":["post-1517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-restaurants","tag-eddie","tag-hayward","tag-italian","tag-italian-food","tag-katrina","tag-reviews","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}