Anniversary Dinner at Biga San Diego

Last Saturday marked Jake and I’s tenth anniversary! Gosh, I can’t believe it’s been ten years already! I wanted to pick the restaurant this year since last year’s was… um… not the best dinner we ever had. Bless Jake.

I decided to pick Biga since I’ve been wanting to visit for quite awhile. I made reservations for Saturday night for the two of us.

Near us was this big party of 30 people. More on them in a minute. 

Menu! Lots of things sounded delicious it was hard to choose.

Pizzzzzzzzzas. 

Meats and cheeses! 

Our very nice waitress, Lisa, brought out this little amuse bouche to start. It was a crostini with peas and I think a pea ricotta? It was a tasty little bite, though the bread was weirdly chewy instead of crisp.

I loved these piggy plates!

We had already put in our order for food after some debate and while we were waiting for food to arrive, we noticed the big party next to us getting served these bowls of food. The crust looked glorious on top and we stopped someone to ask what it was. He told us the party had a special menu created for them and this was a special Wild Boar Lasagna. Our eyes lit up and we both commented that it looked really good and he asked us, “Do you want me to check and see if I have extra?” With no hesitation we said “YES, PLEASE” and off he went to check. He happily told us there were extra and said he’d get one out for us so we also got to partake in this special pasta! Turns out this gentleman was the executive chef and owner of the restaurant! I was surprised to see him actually delivering food to the customers since… well, usually you don’t see the executive chef come out, so it was great to see him wanting to interact with his customers. 

The Wild Boar Lasagna [$18] was filled with layers of creamy bechamel and bits of wild boar (aka…. piggy pork). The wild boar was chunky, sort of like a sausage. There was a good amount of cheese in between the layers of homemade lasagna. The whole thing was incredibly creamy packed with herbs and lots of flavor! Damn it was a good start to our evening. 

Of course we had to try one of Biga’s pizzas as well! Jake knows that I adore burrata so we ended up trying the Burrata Pizza [$16]. This pizza comes with fior de latte (a semi soft fresh cheese similar to mozzarella), pecorino, parmesan, basil, burrata, prosciutto di parma, fennel pollen, and local honey. 

I was pretty much in love after the first bite.

First off, the crust was excellent. Nice and light, crispy bottom, good overall chew. The prosciutto di parma on this pizza was ridiculously food. It melted in your mouth! Jake and I were fantasizing about wrapped it around some fresh Tuscan cantaloupe and imagining just how delicious it would be. The mix of cheeses was flavorful without feeling like you’re about to enter into an immediate heavy food coma. The honey came into play from time to time, adding a touch of sweetness to the whole pizza. Hot damn, it was incredible.   

We ordered the Organic Biga Heritage Bread Plate [$5] paired with a side of fresh house made mozzarella [$5] to munch on as well.  The owner swung by and delivered this to our table, making sure to drizzle some olive oil on top of the magnificently creamy mozzarella cheese. We ended taking most of this home since we had so many other things to try. 

The breads were a mix of four different flavors: rye, a bacon date bread, a levain bread, and a kalamata olive bread. We immediately devoured the bacon-date bread which clearly had bits of bacons and dates in it (yum). I’m not a fan of rye or olives so I skipped those. 

We got the next two dishes at the same time and just shared and ate everything together. This is the Pappardelle alla Norcino [$18]. It is pappardelle (curly pasta that is made in house!) with italian sausage and sage. There’s a bit of heat to this dish, probably from the sausage. The pasta was cooked to a perfect al dente and the accompanying sauce was a perfect vehicle for the pasta. The sausage was in smaller, ground up chunks but there was a lot of it throughout the whole dish. This was a creamy-sauce based dish with no tomatoes or tomato sauce in sight. But it was packed full of herby flavors that Jake and I really enjoyed. This was the only dish that we 100% completed since Jake couldn’t stop eating it (and quite frankly, I didn’t blame him, it was SO GOOD). 

Our waitress told us about the Porchetta and noted that it’s Saturday… the only day that Porchetta is available since it’s seasoned for three days and then slowly cooked for six hours. Um, what?!?! SIGN ME UP. After that description of course we ordered the Pasture Raised Porchetta [$28] and were NOT disappointed. The porchetta is a mix of pork shoulder and pork belly. The pork was SO TENDER. No dryness at all. I have no idea what the sauce was on the bottom of the plate but it was scrumptious with the pork bits. 

The most important part: THE CRISPY SKIN

I could have died and gone to heaven after munching on this gloriously crunchy pork skin. Fatty, crunchy, oh-I’m-gonna-swoon-now, deliciously excellent pork skin. HOT DAMN. You need to go eat this!

We had the option of roasted potatoes or roasted brussel sprouts for our side dish with the porchetta. We picked potatoes since I don’t like those little bitter demon balls brussel sprouts. We asked our waitress to cover them in parmesan cheese (after this photo was taken) which made them extra delightful. 

Biga was nice enough to treat us to a complimentary dessert for our anniversary. We got this nice slice of tiramisu. It was a bit on the bitter side for me, but I still liked it overall. I like the creamy mascarpone part, at least! 

Jake and I have reminisced about this meal several times this week, exclaiming it was one of the best meals we’ve ever had. I was in foodie nirvana for this meal and I can’t wait to go back when they change up their menu to try more of Biga’s delicious food! The service was wonderful, the atmosphere was delightful, and the food was amazing. Go try it!

Biga San Diego
950 6th Avenue, Suite C
San Diego, CA 92101