alana’s Cafe

A breakfastary roadtrip:
Burlingame, CA

and

Walk For Alia ~ "Road to Recovery"

http://www.alanascafe.com/

(This is their official web-site; however, I couldn't get it to work today. I know they actually exist as I ate there this morning.)

(Well, "Adia" is close enough to "Alia" and "Alana" for me.)


I found myself having to get up at O-Dark Thirty (and, despite what the stupid movie was called, the correct Military term is "Oh-Dark Thirty", not "Zero Dark Thirty". Who are you going to believe, me or Hollywoodland?) this morning to participate in a walk-a-thon for a friend's daughter, Alia Coleman. Alia is 19 years old and has been diagnosed with advanced Gastro Intestinal Stomach Tumor (GIST) after complaining of stomach pains while in Arizona trying out for a dance team in late April 2013. She has already gone through one surgery and is currently trying to regain her strength as she begins a series of treatments towards recovery from this Cancer.  The Coleman family and friends are organizing a number of fundraisers, including this walk-a-thon, to assist the family with medical expenses that are very costly for any kind of Cancer treatment.

This is a partial family picture of (mom) Marie, Alia, and (sister) Kendall Coleman. (Yes, Marie is actually their mother, not an older sister.)

I skipped breakfast before the 3-mile walk-a-thon (from Mariners Point Golf Park in Foster City to Seal Point Dog Park in San Mateo) as the only places which were open that early on my way were just coffee or doughnut shops. We were all done with the walk by 9:30am and I was just going to head on home and skip breakfast, but when I was heading north on 101, I figured I might as well stop in Burlingame for a late breakfast (just beating the dreaded "Brunch" crowd by a few minutes). I have had lunch a few times before at alana's Cafe, but this was my first time getting there in time for an actual breakfast. Like most joints along upscaley Burlingame Avenue, this place is a very nice and friendly restaurant; and they open at 8:00am on weekends.

alana's Cafe has a pretty decent breakfast menu with lots of different scrambles and egg dishes from which to choose; plus, the requisite griddle fare: French Toast (made from homemade raisin focaccia[1]); Southern Pecan Pancakes (served with a mixed berry compote); and Martha's Famous Swedish Oatmeal Pancakes (served with you choice of fruit on the side). The Jalisco Scramble (black olives, mild green chiles, green onions, tomatoes, Cheddar cheese, and homemade tomatillo salsa) looked pretty good, but I ended up ordering the Farmer's Garden ~ homefries, tomatoes, scallions, mushrooms, Cheddar and Provolone cheeses, sautéed and topped with two poached eggs; served with choice of bread (I went with whole wheat toast). I also had a large glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice.

I mainly chose this dish as it incorporated potatoes into it and as a main ingredient. Any time potatoes are the focus of a dish, I am right there. This was very good and cheesy (as to be expected with two different types of cheese).

alana's Cafe only has Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (both the standard red and green jalapeño) for bottled condimentary supplements on the tables and counter. I hadn't planned on going out to breakfast this morning, so I didn't bring any of my own stash with me for a change; however, I noticed someone else using some fresh homemade salsas and asked if I could have one of those, too. I used their red salsa, which turned out to be a Pineapple-Mango-Habanero salsa, judiciously on top of the pile. I didn't know that one of the ingredients was habanero (until asking after I had already used and tasted it) and went a little heavy-handed with it, but luckily it was mostly flavour and not so much heat. The homemade green salsa was probably a tomatillo salsa, but I didn't try any of it.

If anyone reading this knows Bobby and Marie Coleman (even if you don't and just think Cancer bites the big weenie) and would like to donate any money to help support the costs of Alia's recovery, you can either contact Bobby and Marie via defacedbook or you can contact this organization:

http://youth4fitnessandeducation.org/wordpress/Home.html

Youth Fitness Education/YFE was the organization that organized today's walk-a-thon so that any donations made to assist with Alia's recovery could be 100% tax-deductible. Just let them know you want to donate money for Alia Coleman's recovery. You won't even need to get up before the rooster and walk three miles to do so.

Be strong, Alia!


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Farmer's Garden ~ 6.0; Pineapple-Mango-Habanero salsa ~ 7.3; Alia kicking Cancer's butt ~ 9.5


1. Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-culinaristic pointer of the day:

First off, die Microsoft Spell-check Nazis didn't recognize this as a valid word. Really, der Fuhr-Gates? Do you only eat at restaurants that serve Wonder Bread® and the like?

"Focaccia" is the diminutive form of the Italian word "fuoco" ("fire") and comes from Latin "focus" ("fireplace, hearth").