My recent favorite restaurant. Emmy's, with its low-lit smallness, black booths and pretty old aprons strung along the walls as décor, combines a West Village, NYC hole-in-the-wall nostalgia and the buzzing vibe of a small San Francisco trip hop lounge (e.g. DJs spinning the likes of Tribe Friday - Saturday). The cuisine is high-end California-Mediterranean at a low, low price point; their huge plate of fabulous spaghetti is only $6 (a couple of bucks more to add gigantic meatballs), so you can go out to a fabulous, stylish Friday dinner with friends and get away with dropping less than a tenner if you're feeling extra po that week. Or, if you're feeling a little fancier, get down with some of the terrific wines on their list, order up a plate of house-cured salmon with flatbreads and horseradish crème fraiche ($9 or so) and a sizable flatiron steak with high-garlic eggplant caponata and salsa verde ($16.50-ish).

- Excerpt from SF Station Review by Tracie Broom