Sunrise Cafe

Gilroy, CA




I had Thanksgiving dinner down in Gilroy yesterday with an old Air Force buddy ("Hello, Dave!"). For any of you that have never been to Gilroy, it is about 80 miles due south of San Francisco (about 1½ hours drive away), so I spent the night after a great meal ("Thanks again, Dave!"). Gilroy's nickname is "the Garlic Capital of the World", although Gilroy does not actually lead the world in garlic production (while garlic is grown in Gilroy, its nickname comes from the fact that Gilroy Foods processes more garlic than any other factory in the world; most pickled, minced, and powdered garlic comes from Gilroy; check in your fridge or pantry, more than likely you have some Gilroy garlic products). Driving through Gilroy in the summertime at night with the windows open always smells like a pizza factory, and that's a good thing, Martha. Gilroy is also known for its annual Gilroy Garlic Festival where they feature all types of garlicky foods… Garlic Ice Cream, anyone?




This morning Dave and I went to breakfast at a local diner-ish place called Sunrise Cafe (sans accent aigu). Dave said he had never been there before (he has lived in Gilroy for over 10 years now), so this was a new experience for the both of us. When we walked in the door, I saw a business card for the restaurant that had the name "John Karas" on it. I immediately thought this had to be a Greek-owned place. The special breakfasts that Dave and I ordered would pique this assumption. Dave told me a little story about the Sunrise Cafe: several years ago apparently there was a little local scandal with the previous owners, as the wife had the husband killed for the insurance money. That kind of thing always adds to the flavour of a place.

(Here is a link provided by Dave of the nefarious affair:

 http://secure.gilroydispatch.com/news/12764-after-two-years-twisted-murder-for-hire-trial-begins )

Sunrise Cafe has a pretty decent breakfast menu from which to choose. I ordered the Greek Scramble ~ scrambled eggs, fresh diced tomato (noted as singular on the menu), onions, Gyro* meat (which I skipped), and Feta cheese. Dave ordered the Gyro Omelette ~ filled with slices of Gyro meat, fresh diced tomatoes (which was plural here for some reason), and Feta cheese. There was lots of Feta in both the Scramble and Omelette, and from what I could see, there was a good amount of Gyro meat in the Omelette, too. Breakfast meals come with hash browns and toast of your choice; marble rye for me, Jerry, and Dave had plain white bread toast.

Everything was great. Both servings were huge, there had to have been 3-4 eggs in each dish, and the hash browns filled up the rest of the plate. I did the best I could and ate almost all of my meal; Dave finished about half of his and the rest was taken home as a literal "doggy bag" for a mid-morning snack for Dave's "girls": Morgan, Zoey, and Nellie (three very spoiled, but great dogs ~ each was a rescue dog, too). The only thing I might have added in either/both meal would have been some chopped/diced/or whole Καλαμάτα olives; now that would have truly been πολύ καλό. Dave told me he will be going back there again soon.

Here is a picture of my meal (with noted marble rye, ya old bag!):




This is Dave's most awesome meal:




And this is a totally posed photo of Dave pretending to eat his meal:




They have both the ubiquitous Tabasco® sauce (the standard red version) and Tapatío® on the tables; I went with some of the Tapatío® on the hash browns. In my opinion, the only thing missing was some authentic τζατζίκι for either of the dishes or, better yet, for use on the hash browns.

As we were leaving, I spoke with the owner, Γιάννης Καράς, and he confirmed that he was Greek. Μίλησα λίγα ελληνικά in my best (worst) pigeon-Greek with him.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Greek Scramble ~ 6.5; Gyro Omelette ~ 7.0 (I had coached Dave on the intricacies of the GBS and he changed his original assessment from a 6.5 to a 7.0; the omelette really did have a lot of Feta and Gyro meat in it)


*(Completely useless cunning linguist pointer of the day:
 
"Gyro", or more correctly "Gyros", is most closely pronounced in English as "yeero" or "yeeros", not as "jiro" or "jiros". "Γύρος" in Greek means "turn", as the meat ~ normally lamb, or a combination of lamb and beef ~ is generally on a rotating vertical spit. The word root can be seen in the words "gyrate" or "gyroscope"… or "yeerate" or "yeeroscope" even.)