(A mini-roadtrip to Sausalito[1])
I had breakfast this morning at Taste of Rome in Sausalito, right along Bridgeway (and I have no idea how much a bridge weighs, so don't ask me) with some old friends (well, some a lot older than others *cough*Harvey*cough*) that were back in town after moving to Seattle recently: Harvey, Jamie, and their little daughter, Lizzie. That is a picture of Harvey and Lizzie (with her new tiger friend) in front of the restaurant. Like most establishments in town, this place is located just yards from the San Francisco Bay.
Sausalito always reminds me of a Left Coast version of a Cape Cod tourist town ~ lots of souvenir and art shops, but short on good places for breakfast or "Brunch". Harvey, Jamie, and Lizzie are staying at Casa Madrona and the house restaurant there really had nothing much substantial for breakfast (just coffee and pastries, etc.), so it was good that I happened to find Taste of Rome. I actually ran into Harvey, Jamie, and Lizzie a half hour before I was scheduled to meet them for breakfast while I was walking around Sausalito looking for a good place to eat; I had already passed by Taste of Rome and liked the looks of their breakfast menu, and it was just two blocks away from where they are staying.
For a coffee house, Taste of Rome actually has a very decent selection of breakfast dishes. They have several omelettes and scrambles, Eggs Benedicts, and frittatas. I ordered the Frittata col Gorgonzola[2] ~ egg, bacon & Gorgonzola cheese with Potatoes (choice of toast and a cup of fruit). Harvey had the Denver Omelet ~ Ham, Cheddar cheese, bell peppers, and green onion (I am pretty sure that whenever Harvey eats breakfast in Colorado's capital city that he orders the Sausalito Omelette). Jamie had (Traditional) Eggs Benedict ~ with Canadian bacon. Lizzie just had a Toasted Bagel with butter and jam. For drinks, I had a Doppio Espresso; Harvey and Jamie both had non-fat Lattes; and Lizzie had a Strawberry Smoothie.
(I suppose I could have taken a picture of all of the other meals, but in the end I just took a picture of mine only. Harvey and Jamie can start their own Seattle version of a breakfastary 'blog if they want to.)
I skipped the dead, decaying, crispy pork flesh (Sorry, Glen.) and substituted mushrooms instead (Sorry, Skip.). It was nice that they even offered to substitute something else for me (the counter-lady was very nice and helpful… and cute, too). This was not a very large frittata, but it was pretty good with lots of stinky, cheesy goodness.
You can choose from either home fries or hashbrowns as your potato side dish; I love a place where you get to choose from two different types of potatoes. We all went with the home fries. I asked the cute counter-lady which she would recommend, and she agreed with what I always say that "potatoes of any kind really make it a breakfast" (it didn't really make a decision for me, but did I mention she was cute?). We all agreed that these were really good home fries (with whole rosemary sprigs roasted in with them).
I went with sourdough toast this morning (I liked that it was grilled, not toasted; as was Lizzie's bagel). Harvey had English muffins as his toast/bread choice. Jamie didn't really get to make a choice for her English muffins with the Traditional Eggs Benedict, of course. I thought it pretty funny that they actually forgot Lizzie's butter with her bagel, but we had more than enough butter to go around.
Taste of Rome offers for condimentary supplementation just Tabasco® (but they offer two types: the standard red and green Jalapeño), which isn't that bad for an Italian caffee place. It really didn't matter as usual, as I had come prepared and used some of my Palo Alto Fire Fighters Pepper Sauce (Thanks agains, Amys!) on my potatoes; Harvey and Jamie used some, too (Harvey on both his omelette and potatoes and Jamie just on her potatoes); and they both agreed with me that this little, local sauce has some great flavour and just the right amount of heat. Lizzie just had butter and a little strawberry jam on her bagel.
Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Frittata col Gorgonzola ~ 6.5
[1] Sausalito is located in Marin County and is the next town due north of San Francisco directly across the Golden Gate Bridge. It's not really much of a "roadtrip", more like just a "$6.00 bridge trip".
Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day:
"Sausalito" is not Italiano for "a small amount of gravy", it actually comes from the Spanish "sauzalito", meaning "small willow grove", from "sauce" (meaning "willow") + collective derivative "-al" (meaning "place of abundance") + diminutive suffix "-ito"; with orthographic corruption from z to s.
[2] Gorgonzola cheese is one of my favourite of the stinkier, blue cheese varieties. It is named after the village near Milan, Italy where it was first made.
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