The Original U.S. Restaurant in San Francisco, California: A Restaurant Review

North Beach is definitely a neighborhood of restaurants, but not one of diners. About the closest you get here is actually over in Fisherman's Wharf, and that's a seriously overpriced Denny's and an OK IHOP that suffers from mass tourist influx at all times while the sun is up.

The Original U.S. Restaurant goes a long way to fill in this gap in culinary establishments here near the old waterfront. It's something of a diner mixed with an Italian restaurant, apropos to the stretch of Columbus it is located on. It's also a bit more formal than the standard diner, as well as pricey, but still nowhere near "fine dining" levels on either count. Basically, it's a comfortable and very decent restaurant where the service is well-mannered and tries to treat you well.

The breakfast menu is all diner style. They serve egg dishes, omelettes, pancakes and french toast, and you're pretty much SOL if you want anything else. I felt they really had some gall charging $6 for one egg (though you do get potatoes and toast with it), but everything else is in the more reasonable range of $7 to $9. Aside from basic eggs and bacon you can have eggs Benedict, eggs Florentine, eggs Blackstone, an omelette made to order, pancakes or French toast with sides for under $10 for the entree. You can also cop a short stack by itself for $6, side orders range from $2 to $5 and include fruit and yogurt, granola and fruit, cereal, oatmeal, toast (white, wheat, French or rye), potatoes, bacon, ham or sausage.

The lunch menu offers more of a range between Italian dishes and American diner standbys. For diner fare, there's various sandwiches - Monte Cristo, Italian sausage, grilled chicken breast, tuna melt, roast beef, meatball, vegetarian and a hamburger all for about $8 each and with a side of fries. The Italian side of things is a pasta menu composed of penne Siciliana, spaghetti pomodoro, spaghetti aglio e olio, fusili, spaghetti with meatballs and a mix of spaghetti and ravioli. These run eight to nine bucks per plate. There's also a series of rotating daily Italian specials for $10 to $15, much more meat-heavy dishes with usually two or three choices per day.

The dinner menu offers up a much wider range of pastas, as well as a good amount of chicken and meat dishes, and a few fish dishes such as cioppino, petrale sole and salmon fillet. You can also get salads and antipasti for usually under $10. The pasta and meat dishes mostly hover between $12 to $15.

Finally, there are good desserts, which are about five bucks each - biscotti, amaretto cheesecake, cannoli, chocolate gelato cake, spumoni torte, tiramisu and dolce del giorno. I'm a big fan of tiramisu and I like the way they make it here.

The long and short on this place is that they charge about as much as the Fisherman's Wharf Denny's does, but for infinitely better food. Laugh at the lazy and timid tourists standing in line to drop $20 on microwaved garbage and head on up the hill to this place instead. For a diner itch, or for affordable and unpretentious sit-down Italian, it's currently my top choice in North Beach.