grindz

"There is a lot more juice in grapefruit than meets the eye." ~ author unknown (but probably said by Jimmy Cagney at one time or another)

http://www.grindzrestaurant.com/

(Just a little Sunday morning Bruddah Iz-piration to go along with today's food theme.)


Place: grindz 
Location: 832 Clement Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues)
Hours: Friday, Saturday & Sunday open at 9:00am for "Brunch"
Meal: Kalua Benedict ~ toasted Hawai'ian bread, Kalua pig, taro leaves, 2 poached eggs,
tarragon hollandaise served with plantation potatoes; and a cuppa Bicycle Coffee


grindz (see last 'blog-entry from April 27th, 2013) is the last of my Breakfastary Rotation Starters; that just leaves the Bistro Restaurant at Cliff House to close it out next weekend with some World-Famous, Most Excellent Popovers(!) next weekend (that was not a typo, nor even a Type AB Negative; that is just my way of making fun of the redundant redundancy in the bistro-restaurant nomenclature name). 

I thought this sign above the door was pretty funny: "Maximum Occupancy 49 Persons". Why the odd number? They couldn't squeeze in just one more person to make it an even half-century? Besides, I counted and there are actually only forty-four seats available (at tables for two or four people). If you are going to try to tell me that maybe there is room for five more rug-rats in highchairs, nice try! Everyone knows that they aren't considered "people" until they can sit at the table like a real person (despite what those crazy Christian fundamentalist are trying to tell us). 

As I have already run through most of the viable stupid vegetarian dishes on the menu, I am repeating the first meal I tried there last year. There is still Veg N Eggs ~ 2 poached eggs, mushrooms, zucchini, spinach, potatoes, chili oil ~ to try; however, I am not sure how that is prepared/served, but I might have to try it on my next visit.

This must be some kinda "Benedict" weekend with me. Of course, I got this without the Kalua pig. Without the pork, this is more like a Hawai'ian version of Eggs Florentine, "Eggs Honolulutine", perhaps?! I really like the use of the taro leaves and the Hawai'ian bread (a variation of Portuguese sweet bread) in this dish. Plus, unlike yesterday's breakfast ("Brunch", whatever), the poached eggs were actually cooked properly this morning. I also really like the plantation potatoes; these are made with lots of red bell peppers, white onions, and celery in them (I think there were even some potatoes in it).

For condimentary supplements, grindz offers bottles of Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard red) and Huy Fong Foods Inc.® Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce; but, more importantly, they have both a fresh-made Hawai'ian ketchup and cruets of chilli vinegar (the waiter-server guy said that it goes best with the Loco Moco[1], so I probably won't get to try much of it). I used some of the Hawai'ian ketchup on the plantation potatoes and a small amount of my own Nando's Extra Hot Peri-Peri Sauce (Thanks, Kerry!) on top of the eggs (mixed in with the Hollandaise sauce again).


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Kalua Benedict ~ 7.2 


1. Not really a stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer, but just more of an epicurean name origin:

The most probable origin of the name "Loco moco" is that "loco" is a variation/Hawai'ian slang of "local" (there is another story that says that "Loco" was the nickname of the first boy to eat the concoction), while "moco" was added simply because it rhymed.