Ella’s

"The One with the Grilled Fennel, Roasted Beets, Lemon Roasted Onions, and Havarti… and Amy."



http://www.ellassanfrancisco.com/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIDOEsQL7lA

(Well, Lady Ella, it is summertime, but you could never tell it from one of these foggy San Francisco Sunday mornings.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4xp2lgiAjY


Breakfast at Ella's again this morning (see 'blog-entry from April 3rd, 2011 for my last visit); this time with my friend Amy (Hey, Amy!). This was like my 100th visit there (well, give or take a few dozen), but the first time for Amy. She seemed to like it and is probably now another convert (Ella's is in my Breakfast Rotation and I go several times a year)… now Amy just needs to go to Dottie's True blue café with me.




As always, their ever-changing weekend Brunch menu had many good, fresh choices from which to select. They had a nice garlic rosemary shrimp scramble with braised leeks, pea sprouts, cherry tomatoes, and asiago. I tried talking Amy into ordering that one as I am a big fan of the pea sprouts thingy, but she is not a big fan of the shrimp with eggs thingy. I suppose I could have ordered that one myself without the dead, decaying marine insects.

Amy ended up ordering the folded omelette with niman ranch bacon, avocado, cilantro, chipotle crema, and jack. I had the potato scramble with grilled fennel, roasted beets, lemon roasted onion, and havarti. We split an order of fresh baked pineapple upside-down cake. I did talk Amy into trying one of my stalwarts, the ginger orange juice punch (had one myself, too), for which she was very glad I did.





Amy's omelette looked very good and she liked it a lot; she did mention that they could have used a little more of the chipotle crema on it, though. I knew I was going to enjoy my potato scramble as it had some of my favourite ingredients in it: beets ~ good, fennel ~ good; as expected, it was another winner.

Amy was most impressed with the ginger orange juice punch (she rated it at a GBS 9.0) and Ella's fresh-baked goods (again GBS rated at 9.0 by Amy). We both ordered the honey oat raisin toast; whereas, we should have ordered two different types of toast so that we could have shared and compared the differences. The honey oat raisin is really the best ("It was like butter" per Amy), but all of their baked goods are always fresh and tasty. The large slice (chunk) of pineapple upside-down cake was even still warm when they brought it to our table.

Ella's only offers as condimentary supplements Tabasco® (both the standard red and Jalapeño green) and Tapatío®. I used some Trees Can't Dance ~ African Hot Sauce on my scramble (Thanks, Greg and Cindy!), and Amy tried a little of that along with some Cholula® (which seemed about right with the whole chipotle crema thing).

We both agreed that fresh and interesting ingredients always make for the best meals. I just need to school Amy on the intricacies of the highly scientific Glen Bacon Scale.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Potato Scramble ~ 7.4; Folded Omelette ~ 9.0 (this was Amy's rating); Ginger Orange Juice Punch ~ 7.1