Sunday, June 30, 2013

Kuleto’s

Authentic San Francisco



http://www.kuletos.com/





Today's breakfastary adventure started out downtown on Union Square. I met up with an old Air Force buddy's (Hey, Dave!) son, Matthew, and his roommate[1], Tom. They were staying at the Westin St. Francis (Oooh! Aren't we the posh ones?!). They were in town to attend the SF Pride Parade. (Now why two good-looking young men would want to watch all of that homosexual debauchery is beyond me. I really doubt they will find many available single women there.) The last time that I had seen Matt was back in 1988 when he was just a little kid of five or so and his family was visiting California. Matt said he doesn't remember that visit at all, but I think I had more fun when they were visiting than he did or could remember, anyway. 

As this was a spur of the moment trip for them, Matt only contacted me yesterday afternoon to suggest getting together for breakfast. I hardly ever get downtown to eat breakfast and had to think of some places in the general vicinity. There are not that many good places to eat that I have tried. I know that I had eaten at a few of the closer restaurants along Geary Street last year (see the label: "Breakfast on Geary"). However, I knew of one place nearby that I have been meaning to try, but just hadn't gotten around to yet; it's never a lot of fun to drive downtown where there is really a lack of parking spots (wait for it)...


stupid parklet mini-rant
This block of Powell Street is taken up almost entirely (less three spaces only) ~ on both sides of the street ~ by these anti-parking abominations. I find it very ironic that these non-parking spaces are all sponsored by the automotive company Audi.





From the hotel, we simply headed down Powell Street and went to Kuleto's, which is just a block away. Kuleto's is an old-style "authentic San Francisco" (their words on their web-site) restaurant that has been a fixture for many years. It is in the same building that houses Villa Florence (why it's not called "Villa Firenze", immano) right in front of the Powell Street Cable Car line.

Kuleto's has a decent enough breakfast menu selection and we all saw something we would like. I had the Eggs Fra Diavalo[2] (sic) ~ two eggs any style served with creamy polenta and spicy Marinara sauce. Matt had the Kuleto's Eggs Benedict ~ Niman Ranch ham, toasted muffin, hollandaise. And Tom had the Egg White Omelette ~ Bloomsdale spinach, portabello mushrooms, Sky Hill goat cheese; he had them add some Dungeness crab to it, too (and they were kind enough to do so… for an additional $10.00 charge ~ which we only found out how much they were going to add after they brought out the bill. But I suppose they can afford it. Did I tell you they stayed at the hoity-toity Westin St. Francis?) We all had coffee all around, too.




These were all pretty decent choices, and we all cleaned our plates so we must have liked them well enough. I had my two eggs over medium. I would have liked a side order of potatoes maybe included (just not for an addition $10.00 charge, of course). I suppose they assume that most people would think polenta and potatoes would be too many carbohydrates; well, they would be wrong.

We didn't ask for any condimentary supplements, but I happened to notice that Kuleto's had Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard red) on a few of the tables. I used some of my own Hula Girl Chipotle Habanero (Thanks, Jim!) on top of the spicy Marinara sauce. I suppose I should have tasted their sauce first to see if it needed any extra spicing-up. As it was, even with the added Chipotle Habanero, it wasn't all that spicy really. Tom also used some of the Chipotle Habanero on his egg white omelette as he said it could probably use some spicing-up, too.

After breakfast, as I walked them over to watch the festivities, I had to ask Tom why there is a yearly parade to celebrate Gay Pride but there is never any celebration or acknowledgement of Single White Losers like me. He told me that, of course, there is always San Diego's Comicon and several Star Trek conventions yearly… Ouch!

So that's what all the rainbow flags mean along Market Street recently! I just thought it was for San Francisco's bid for the 2018
Winter Olympics.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Eggs Fra Diavalo ~ 6.0 

(I didn't bother to poll Matt or Tom for their GBS ratings. I would have had to explain the whole thing to them and they only had a small amount of free time this morning. I did tell them that Dottie's True blue café has a sister location in Scottsdale, AZ that they should check out and let me know what they think of it.)


1. Actually, Matt and Tom are in a Civil Union and have been since October 21st, 2012. However, they both live in Arizona; what that means is, that by the time Arizona ever allows Same-Sex Marriages, maybe their grandkids will actually be able to get married legally to whomever they want.

I just hope that by stating this that I haven't outed Matt and Tom to any of their homosexual friends.

2. Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-historical pointer of the day:

"Fra Diavolo" is the popular name given to Michele Pezza, a famous Neapolitan guerrilla leader who resisted the French occupation of Naples in 1798-1799. Why he has an egg dish named after him in San Francisco, I do not know.

Part A:

"Fra" or "fratello" means "brother" in Italiano.

Part B:

"Diavolo" means "devil" in Italiano.

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