Caffé Union

I am very proud of my Uova di Paradiso!
(No double-entendre meant… well, not much.)

(No official website available.)

1830 Union Street (between Octavia and Laguna Streets)

Phonicular contact: (415) 673-4119

(Happy SF Pride Celebration! I completely forgot that this weekend was the SF Pride Celebration. Today is the annual parade down Market Street and then the Celebration at the Civic Center; if you have to go anywhere south of Market Street or anywhere downtown today, I suggest you wait until tomorrow, unless you happen to look really good in a pair of leather chaps… and not much else.)


I ventured back over to Cow Hollow again this morning and had breakfast at Caffé[1] Union. Coincidentally enough, they are located on Union Street (or Caffé Street, possibly) in Cow Hollow, along the restaurant/fancy-shmancy shop row between Van Ness and Fillmore. (Unfortunately, they don't offer freebie breakfasts on your birthday month, Rudy or Angela.)

Wild Parrots of San Francisco interlude/update:

While walking back to my car after breakfast, I heard a few of the little parrots flying overhead (you can't miss their distinctive chattering), but didn't see any when I looked up.

Caffé Union has a pretty decent breakfastary menu and if I didn't have French toast three times last week, I might have opted for the very tempting Grand Marnier Sourdough French Toast. They also have several other egg dishes and omelette choices. However, the most interesting item on the menu was Eggs of Paradise ~ two poached eggs in fresh homemade Tomato sauce with grilled French bread. I also ordered a side of Potato Herb Pancake and a cuppa coffee.

This was a very, very good choice (I would have said "eggsellent", but I hate those cutesy, made-up words). As simple-sounding as this all was, it really worked (to call this dish "simple" is not meant as an insult, I mean it as "simple" as in "simply sublime"). Their red gravy/tomato sauce was very tasty and any nonna would be proud to serve this on a plate of macaroni. There was lots of fresh basil chiffonade (Now this is an actual culinary term, not a cutesy, made-up word, but the "jeenyuses" at Microsoft Works Word Processor don't recognize it. Hey, Billy-boy, you may want to think about having Emeril or Rachel Ray do some spell-checking for you guys.) piled on top of the poached eggs. The toasted/grilled French bread was drizzled with extra virgin olive oil (Yes, I can tell the difference, Rachel), with no need for any extra butter, and these were great to dip into and soak up all of the remaining red gravy. I spoke with the owner/chef(?) and he said that this was the one egg dish that his dad used to make at home all the time; it is sorta their signature egg dish now.

As for the Potato Herb Pancake, I was expecting this to be of the shredded potato-style/German Kartoffelpuffer; however, it was more like a standard pancake ~ probably made with potato flour ~ with several herbs in the batter. It was good, but I like the Kartoffelpuffer version better. It was served with some puréed applesauce on the side; this may have been a homemade applesauce, but, again, I would have preferred a more chunky style of apple compote or Apfelmus.

Their house coffee is from America's Best Coffee Roasting Company. This was a good enough cuppa; however, nothing better than I can make at home. They are a small, local coffee roastery (okay, this is one of those cutesy, made-up words) out of Oakland, CA. I think that they might want to start with the claim "Oakland's Best" or "San Francisco Bay's Best" first and work their way up to the lofty "America's" title.

http://www.ambestcoffee.com/

Caffé Union has as condimentary supplements: Tabasco® (the standard red), Tapatio®, and Cholula® (which is a pretty nice selection for most places). I had come prepared with a few from my own collection, but neither the eggs in red gravy nor the Potato Herb Pancake needed any additional spicy flavouring. (So there will be no unnecessary "gratitudes" expressed here to any of you bastages that have provided me with any of my hot sauces.)

As good as this breakfast was (and I will be going back again), I was a little disappointed that it was made with plain ol' chicken eggs, though; with the "Paradise" moniker, I was expecting two ostrich or emu eggs, at least.

Glen Bacon Scale Rating:  Uova di Paradiso ~ 7.3; Potato Herb Pancake  ~ 6.2


[1] Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer (and my own Microsoft Nazi Spell-checker) of the day:

"Caffé" (con l'accento acuto) is not the correct Italian spelling of this word; it should be "Caffè" (con l'accento grave). This word simply means "coffee" in Italian, and has come to be used as a "small restaurant or coffeehouse" much the same as the word "café" (avec accent aigu, bien sûr) has come to be used in French.

Both "caffè" and "café" come from the Arabic word for coffee, "قهوة" (pronounced  just like it looks).