Art's Café* in the Sunset (over in the Irving and 9th restaurant alley area) is a tiny little "hole in the wall" (in the words of the guy sitting next to me); it only seats 14 people max, Max ~ and everyone has a seat at the counter. Art's is a Korean family-owned and operated place and is only open for breakfast and lunch. They have several nice "Omeletes"** from which to choose and some nice Korean dishes for lunch. As everyone has a counter seat (and great view of ~ I assume ~ Art preparing the meals), it is pretty cool that the counter is covered with kitschy postcards from all over the World.
http://www.artscafesf.com/Home_Page.html
People come from all over the City to eat here, specifically for their hashbrowns, which are good. There is really nothing particularly special about them, they are just your basic shredded and grilled "potatos", Dan Quayle; however, they are served very thin (think German Kartofellpuffer-style) and extra crispy.
The couple sitting next to me were also Korean and had what Art's calls "hashbrown sandwiches" (and they had a side order of plain rice and kimchi to go with it). Art's stuffs "omelete"-style ingredients into the flattened hashbrowns and fold it over to look like a potato "omelete", per se. (And just who is this know-it-all Percy guy, and why does he always seem to get referenced?) I liked this idea a lot (and it is a great Vegan way of eating an "omelete") and would have ordered that if I didn't know what I was already going to order.
I ordered the Bi Bim Bop*** Veggie "Omelete": spinach, zucchini, carrots, (soy)bean sprouts, and Swiss cheese(?)****. I had ordered this once before and knew it to be a great choice. It was just as good the second time around. The Swiss cheese goes good with "omeletes", but is not something I would generally associate with a classic bibimbap.
For hot sauces they offer Tabasco® (plain ol' standard red), Crystal®, and their own homemade gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste), which is great and had much more flavour than either of the other two prepackaged bottles could provide. I covered both the "omelete" and hashbrowns with this sauce; very tasty and with just the right amount o' heat, too.
Come soon, Needa!***** And come back often…
Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Bi Bim Bop "Omelete" ~ 7.0; Hashbrowns ~ 6.4; Gochujang ~ 7.4
*(Avec accent aigu on the menu, but the outside sign and their website do not have the acute accent mark. I went with the "Café" spelling just 'cause I prefer that spelling, Frenchié.)
**("Omeletes" are how it is actually spelled on the menu. I am not giving them a hard time here, I just like how it is "mispeled". The accepted spellings are normally "omelet" or "omelette", and the latter wasn't even recognized by my auto-spellchecker thingy until I forced it to remember it.)
***("Bi Bim Bop" or "bibimbap" is a popular Korean dish. The word literally means "mixed rice" and is a mixture of julienned vegetables served over rice and normally with an egg ~ raw or fried ~ on top; all of which makes it a good choice for an "omelete".)
****(When I was living in Berlin-town, there was a Korean-Swiss restaurant right on the Kurfürstendamm/Ku'damm ~ which was "the Champs-Élysées of Berlin" at the time, Percé. I always thought that was a strange culinary combination, but the food was very good. Bulgogi fondue, perhaps?)
*****(Korean for "Thank you!" is "gamsahabnida" and sounds a bit like "come soon needa/come sum needa". At least that was how it was described to me by my Korean linguist roommate back at the Defense Language Institute, Presidio of Monterey. Hey, I just remembered, that bastage still owes me $250.00 from a loan I made to him back in 1978! The only other phrase I can remember ~ or butcher ~ is "Onions on your sneakers!"; actually it is "annyeonghaseyo", meaning "Hello!")
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