http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku1GU9p0NcQ
I had breakfast in North Beach at Mama♥s on Washington Square this morning. This is another local (and tourist) treasure for breakfast spots. The operative word here is "little" ~ only 10-12 tables (and many of those are just a "table for two"). Much like Dottie's, the wait is generally ½-hour to an hour (today I waited ½-hour just to get inside the door and another 15 minutes to order ~ more on that in a bit); however, the food is more than worth the wait, as long as the weather is clear and nice (being as it is Summer in the City, it was a cool 55-60° max and foggy this morning ~ somehow I really doubt that John Sebastian was talking about San Francisco in his 60's classic Rock-and/or-Roll song).
http://www.mamas-sf.com/
Mama♥s could easily be in my "Breakfast Rotation" somewhere (along with Dottie's, Ella's, Chloe♥s, Baker Street Bistro, Boogaloos, and Cliff House ~ DFA-ing whom, I am not quite sure) if not for the location and wait. Early Sunday mornings are easy to find a decent parking spot (I actually found one right along Washington Square Park), but just try to find a decent (free) spot after 9:00am otherwise on the weekends. The ordering process at Mama♥s is kinda strange: after waiting outside (it only feels like forever), you will again wait in line at the counter to order your meal and pay for it up front; then, only after there is a table open, they will seat you. This process can be another 15-20 minutes in itself.
Mama♥s offers many different types of French toasts from which to choose and what they call "Momelettes". I had the Kugelhuph French Toast. This is made with a home baked brioche-style bread. The bread has golden raisins, cinnamon, dates, and sliced almonds in it. And they added berries on top: (fresh) strawberries, (fresh) blueberries, (probably frozen) raspberries, and some champagne (? tiny little suckers) grapes on the side. This makes for a very tasty combination (and they have gen-u-wine maple syrup ~ none o' that watered-down imitation stuff ~ which is a big plus). I rounded out the meal with a side of grilled red potatoes ('cause there wasn't enough carbohydrates in the meal already) and a glass ("large" and for real again for a change) of ruby red grapefruit juice.
About half-way through the meal, I overheard the waitress tell another patron to be sure to try their homemade olallieberry jam that is on each table. She was right ~ it went great with the grilled potatoes. Otherwise, they only offer two types of Tabasco®: Red (standard) and Green (jalapeño).
While waiting in line I only saw a few (2-3) of the Wild Parrots* of Telegraph Hill flying overhead. I made sure to point it out to some people standing in line and explain the story to them. One of them has been living in San Francisco for four years and had never heard of this "only in San Francisco" phenomenon, and he had an out of town guest from Missouri (I am sure they don't see many wild parrots flying around St. Louis or Kansas City).
http://www.markbittner.net/parrot_pages/wildparrots.html
Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Kugelhuph French Toast ~ 7.5, Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill ~ 8.2
*(Useless cunning linguist story of the day:
One time when I visited Mama♥s, I overheard a German couple speaking and saw a flock of the wild parrots flying by and I pointed up and said "Papageien", which is German for "parrots". The couple must have thought me completely daft and just stared at me blankly, "Oh, the idiotischen Americaner; he thinks that all birds are 'parrots'." I pointed up again and said, "Nein, Papageien." They looked up this time and noticed the green and red feathers and answered back to me in perfect English: "Those ARE parrots!"; I then went on to explain the story to them, too. I only remember this word in German as it is much the same as the word for "parrot" in Russki: попугай ~ pronounced "papa-GUY" for you non-Cyrillic readers. Similarly, the word in Italiano is pappagallo; and "parrot" in Greek is παπαγάλος ~ pronounced just like it looks.)
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