pomelo

Destination Known: Noe Valley


http://www.pomelosf.com/


(Think globally, eat locally.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WDly1Oc_P4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWtCittJyr0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY

(I didn't take that many photos this morning, so I figured I'd fill in with a few more videos from EweToob instead.)


This morning, I revisited pomelo (see 'blog-entry from September 18th, 2010) way over on the end of Church Street in Noe Valley. If this place were a bit closer and opened earlier than 10:00am on the weekends, I would surely eat there more often. They have a great "globally-inspired" menu from which to choose. Both the makena (Maui) and lupa (Siena) looked really tempting. I have had the lupa before and know it is very good; it's basically a frittata with noodles and other great stuff in it. The makena is a nice version of French toast: "banana-stuffed mascarpone brioche french toast with roasted macadamias and warm coconut syrup"; now that sounds like it is worth another "trip" all the way back there (beats a six-hour flight to Hawai'i).

Today's freebie mini-muffin ~ strawberries and hazelnut. It was still warm and fresh out of the oven. I could have eaten a few more of those.

I like to live by the motto: When in Greece… do as the Romans do, so I had the noe valley (San Francisco) omelette (which is also available as a scramble) with green asparagus, cherry tomatoes, garden cress, chives, and parmesan, served with multigrain toast and choice of house potatoes or organic field greens (read: rabbit food). The noe valley changes seasonally and is usually a fresh and interesting combination. I also had a glass of herbal hibiscus* sangría** (non-alcoholic).



This was bursting with lots of good asparagus goodness; there were easily 3-4 spears or more in it. I am not really sure what "garden cress" is, though. Just two minor negative points: the cherry tomatoes were halved and seemed a bit too large for the omelette, I think these would have been better cut into quarters; and there might have been a little more Parmesan cheese in it. All in all, this was a nice flavour combination with all of the fresh ingredients.

The "sangría" was very tasty, with lots of noticeable cinnamon in it; there were just no fresh fruit slices in it, though. That kinda goes against what the whole sangría thing should be.

They offer a pretty decent selection of condimentary supplements: Tabasco® (both the green Jalapeño version and the Chipotle one) and Cholula®. I knew this beforehand, so I didn't even bother schlepping any of my own with me this morning. I used some of the Chipotle on the potatoes; I just left the omelette virgin (did I not mention all the asparagus goodness?).

So that it wasn't an entirely wasted trip "all the way" over to Church Street, after breakfast I walked down the street and went to a nearby German import store: picked me up some good Pumpernickel Schrotbrot (wholemeal bread), Berlin Style Frisch-Gurken, a six-pack of Malz Bier, and (pay special attention, Cindy and Greg) some pre-packaged, ready-made Rösti (see the Bettys 'blog-entry from December 15th, 2010 for a description of what this most excellent shredded potato dish is) ~ all I have to do is reheat it and brew me up a cuppa Bettys coffee and I'm back in Yorkshire Heaven.

And it's always nice to take a little trip to Noe Valley without ever having to leave the City…


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: noe valley omelette ~ 6.9; herbal hibiscus sangría ~ 6.8


*(Hibiscus tea is made from the Hibiscus flower. It is really good served either hot or iced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibiscus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibiscus_tea )

**(Useless cunning linguist pointer of the day:
"Sangría" gets its name from its blood-red appearance; the word for "blood" in Spanish is "sangre".

Here is some additional sangría information from our friends at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangria )