New Taraval Cafe

(No official website.)

1054 Taraval[1] Street (on the corner of 21st Avenue)

phonicular contact: (415) 731-3816

(There is no relationship between today's EweToob selection and this morning's breakfast; I just like Tanita Tikaram.)


I had breakfast this morning at New Taraval Cafe over in the Parkside[2] neighborhood of the Sunset. This is a friendly little neighborhood, family-owned place; while I was there several regulars came in and ordered without needing to tell the owner/server what they wanted. There are just six counter/diner stools and about eight burgundy vinyl-covered booths. It's called "New" Taraval Cafe, but something tells me it's been there since at least the 60's.

They have a pretty standard diner-menu for breakfast, but I was surprised to see that they even offer an Irish Breakfast ~ two eggs, Irish Bacon, sausage, with both black and white puddings (ughh!); however, no grilled tomatoes or baked beans. I went with a Spinach and Cheese Omelette ~ all orders served with home fried potatoes or fruit with toast. I also had a large glass of orange juice.

You get a choice of 'merican or Swiss cheese; I went with Swiss cheese and sourdough toast. The Swiss cheese was just the plain ol' processed, sliced type; this would have been much better with real Swiss cheese, of course. As usual, when the choice is between potatoes and fruit, I chose the potatoes. I was very happy to see that this was a HUGE pile of home fried potatoes, too.

I didn't bother ordering a cuppa coffee at the restaurant, but I did see a small place nearby that looked interesting. Brown Owl Coffee is just across the street and half a block down. They were serving Ethiopa Yasmine Garjeda Forest Reserve as the coffee of the day. The best part about this place is that they make each cuppa from fresh ground coffee beans and it is fresh dripped per cup! This was a light to medium roast, but it was a little too weak for me; it smelled great, but just wasn't quite strong enough for me. It was still good, and I am sure better than what they serve at New Taraval Cafe.

http://www.brownowlcoffee.com/

New Taraval Cafe offers for condimentary supplements just Crystal® and Tương Ớt Sriracha. I came fully prepared and used some (a lot) of my own Palo Alto Fire Fighters Pepper Sauce (the standard one; Thanks agains, Amys and Brian!) on the potatoes and just a little Cherry Republic® KaBOB's Kick'en Hot Sauce (Thanks, Cindy!) on the omelette.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:  Spinach and Cheese Omelette ~ 5.7; Brown Owl Coffee, Ethiopia Yasmine Garjeda Forest Reserve ~ 6.0


[1] Who was this Taraval guy and why does he warrant a street named after him? Sigismundo Taraval was an Italian Jesuit missionary in Baja California. As far as I can tell, he never made it as far north as San Francisco, though.

[2] This is technically the Parkside District of San Francisco, but unless you actually live in that neighborhood, you would just call it the Sunset District. The "park" part of "Parkside" does not refer to Golden Gate Park (which is about thirteen blocks north), but rather the stand of trees and plants around Laguna Puerca ("Pig Lake", and often called "Mud Lake" by old-timers), which is now called Pine Lake Park. Sigmund Stern Grove is actually part of Pine Lake Park.