Town’s End Restaurant & Bakery

http://www.townsendrb.com/

(The first EweToob link should be self-explanatory ~ or do I need to explain myself? ~ the second one is to celebrate the season.)

It has been a while since I ate breakfast at Town's End Restaurant & Bakery (see last 'blog-entry from June 13th, 2010). As they are located over by AT&T Park, I figured what better place to enjoy an early morning repast during the 2012 World Series. I think it important to note, that the last time I ate here, Matt Cain also pitched (and won) that day for the San Francisco Giants. Also of a Baseball connection, the owners of Town's End used to own Home Plate (see last 'blog-entry from October 13th, 2012) before they opened this place over twenty years ago now. They are located right along the Embarcadero with a great view of the Bay and the Bay Bridge.

They call the early morning meal "Brunch" on the weekends, but they open up early enough (8:00am) to forgive that snooty-ass moniker. They have a pretty decent selection of items from which to choose on their standard Breakfast/"Brunch" menu, as well as a few "Brunch Specials" which change regularly depending on what is in season. I went with the seasonal October Omelette: organic yellow pear cherry tomatoes (now, if that ain't a mouthful), Portabella[1] & Lobster[2] mushrooms, roasted cipollini[3] onions, & Nicasio Valley Farmstead cheese. "We use organic cage-free eggs from Petaluma Farms."; "Eggs & omelettes are served with a choice of potato-carrot pancakes (with apple compote & sour cream), grilled polenta[4], or fresh fruit."; "All meals are served with a selection of pastries from our bakery." (That would make sense for the "& Bakery" part of their name). I also had a cuppa coffee.

This was a good enough omelette; I like their frittatas better, though. It was made with lots of tomatoes, some halved and others whole (depending on their sizes). I was not sure what to expect from the Lobstah mushrooms; they are actually reddish in colour and have a lot milder flavour than Portobello mushrooms. I went with the grilled polenta for a change; I have had their potato-carrot pancakes many times in the past and knew them to be top-notch (and, once again, any fool can make a stupid fresh fruit salad… as long as the fool has some stupid fresh fruit available); the polenta was very good, but their potato-carrot pancakes are still better. Today's basket of mini-baked goods included: 1 chocolate chip muffin, 2 cranberry muffins, and 1 scone. And today's homemade jam was a very tasty tart Red Plum.

Town's End offers for condimentary supplements both Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard red) and Cholula® Hot Sauce. I had brought a few of my own and just used some of my Youk's Hot Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) on the omelette.

For any of you still following along here, today's entry would be my breakfastary 'blog milestone POST #300. (I'll bet you all thought I would grow tired of this stupid 'blog-stuff after a few months. Ha! Sometimes my AADD can be curbed by…
Oh, look! Squirrels!!!)


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: October Omelette ~ 6.8; Basket of mini-muffins/scones ~ 7.0; Red Plum Jam ~ 7.4


1. Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-horticultural pointer del giorno, numero uno:

"Portabella" (also called "Portobello" and "Portabello"; I prefer the "Portobello" spelling) mushrooms are just large, mature crimini or button/common mushrooms. I can't find any reason why these are called what they are, but "porto bello" in Italiano simply means "beautiful harbour". Perhaps they were first cultivated in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

2. For anyone else unfamiliar with the Lobstah mushroom, here is some info from our friends at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobster_mushroom

3. Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-horticultural pointer of del giorno, numero due:

"Cipollini" just means "little onions" in Italiano. The word for "onion" is "cipolla", the diminutive would be "cipollina" (singular) and "cipolline" (plural).

4. Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-epicurean pointer del giorno, numero  tre:
 
"Polenta" is Italiano and comes from Latin for "hulled and crushed grain (especially barley)". The word "pollen" comes from the same Latin word root.