http://www.ellassanfrancisco.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-7VprPX8kg&feature=fvst
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIDOEsQL7lA&feature=related
(Because the first EweToob link wasn't the best quality, and you can never have too much of Lady Ella.)
When last we visited Ella's (see 'blog-entry from July 1oth, 2011 for last visit) in Laurel Heights, we were accompanied by the always pretty and friendly Miss Hartman ("Hey, Amy-monster!"). Today I went there all by myself, so I once again sat at the bakery counter to watch all the baked goods being made.
Before heading over to Ella's I stopped for a cuppa coffee at Cafe la Flore[1] over on Clement Street in the Richmond District (Warning: "Bad Coffee" rant about to start).
Minor coffee-snob rant of the day:
While this was not quite as bad as the extremely craptastic cuppa that I had at Caffe Capriccio (see 'blog-entry from April 17th, 2011), it still was not that good either for a "perfeshinal coffee-making-joint". I have been to this place several times in the past and the coffee is usually very good (or much better than it was today); so, I'll cut them some slack and just chalk it up (maybe that was the problem, someone put chalk in the coffee grounds?) to a bad brew day.
I kept reconsidering and really wanted to like the coffee, but kept downgrading it after each subsequent sip. This is kinda like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman ~ initially, upon first glance, they are about 6.5 each on the Glen Bacon Scale; however, after they open their mouths and with each successive, completely inane, mind-numbingly stupid vapidity uttered from their pretty lips, they go down… and down… and down (and not in a good way, Mr. Clinton).
Luckily I threw the cup away before it reached negative numbers. If I had known the coffee was going to be as bad as it was, I would have just waited and ordered a cuppa at Ella's, which offers a pretty decent cuppa, or I would have ordered a cuppa very good coffee at Peet's after breakfast, which is just down the street from Ella's.
Moral to the rant: If you are in the business of selling coffee, please make sure it is better than the swill I can make (badly) at home all by myself.
(No official website available.)
As always, Ella's weekend "Brunch" specials all looked very good (sans any of the dead, decaying horseflesh items, of course), I went with the potato scramble with curried cauliflower, shitakes[2] (sic), grilled red onions, cilantro, and gouda ~ with two eggs over medium laid on top; and chose the honey-oat-raisin toast (again), with some strawberry jam on one slice. I also had a glass of Ginger Orange Juice Punch.
Ella's potato scrambles always have interesting and tasty combinations. Now I would never have paired curried cauliflower with shiitake, but with the addition of the fresh cilantro (of which there was a lot, too; not just the standard sprinkling of some chopped-up bits, but entire leaves/sprigs throughout the scramble) it all worked out nicely. I am not normally a big fan of strawberry jam, but this was home-made (restaurant-made) and was pretty decent; not that the honey-oat-raisin toast really needed any extra flavour as it is one of my favourites, anyway.
As I was more than aware that Ella's offers as condimentary supplementation just "the usual suspects", Captain Renault, I went with some of my new Benito's Original Naranja on the entire mess (Thanks again, Brian!).
You can always be assured about one thing dining at Ella's, there will always be a hardy breakfast, Mr. Arthur Stanley Jefferson.
Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Potato Scramble ~ 7.0; Cafe la Flore coffee ~ 5.9
1. I was surprised that they didn't spell this as "Café" on their awning. I think the place is run and owned by a woman from France.
Stupid, completely useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, première partie:
"la Flore" en français just means "the flora"; and is spelled with a normal "e", not avec accent aigu.
2. This should actually be "shiitake", not "shitake" (which actually sounds like something one would get after eating too many bad shiitake); at least they didn't have the completely redundant, repetitious, supererogatory, and saying the same thing "mushrooms" after it. I pointed this out to my waiter-guy-type person and he agreed with me, but seeing as this is a weekend special for this weekend only, I really doubt that they will be reprinting any menus on my recommendation.
Secondary stupid, completely useless cunning linguist pointer of the day (and a reiteration from a previous 'blog-entry):
"Shiitake" is the combined Japanese word for "oak/tree" ("shii") and "mushroom" ("take"), Mr. Roboto.
No comments:
Post a Comment