The Liberty Café and Bakery

"Hope makes a good breakfast. Eat plenty of it." ~ Ian Fleming, From Russia With Love

http://www.thelibertycafe.com/


Place: The Liberty Café and Bakery
Location: 410 Cortland Avenue
Hours: "Brunch" ~ 9am - 3pm, Saturday-Sunday
Meal: Veggie[1] Frittata ~ portabello, arugala (sic), Sun dried tomato, mozz. (which I hoped was a reference to Mozzarella cheese and not some kinda choral mozzetta, which always makes for a very stringy breakfast dish) with mixed greens; a side order of Country Potatoes (I assumed the country was either Peru or Bolivia); and a cuppa America's Best Coffee 

(Man. That Keanu Reeves dude can surely act. I really bought it that he was that Dr. Huxtable guy. And Phylicia Rashād never looked better as Catherine Earnshaw, too.)


I made a return trip to the Liberty Café and Bakery (see last 'blog-entry from August 21st, 2010) way over in Bernal Heights[2], Heathcliff. This is a really good place for breakfast (which they unfortunately call "Brunch"), but it's always a bit of a trek getting there. For the rest of this 'blog-entry, I will be shortening their name to the Liberty Café, which they alternately have written as "Café" (avec accent aigu) in some places on their web-site and as "Cafe" (sans accent aigu) on their signage and menu. There really aren't that many places from which to choose breakfast (or "Brunch") on "Main Street" (Cortland Avenue), Bernal Heights.

I sat outside again in the open-air patio area between the main restaurant (house) and the cottage-bakery out back. It was still a bit chilly this morning (and the Sun hadn't quite reached the enclosed patio area yet) and they offered to turn on those overhead gas heater thingys, but I declined. I had a jacket on and was fine; besides, if I wanted to sit inside where it was warmer, I could easily have done so. What is the point of eating outside otherwise?

I found this pretty cool. They even show movies on Friday and Saturday nights in the patio area now on one of the blank walls. Tonight they are showing both "My Neighbor Totoro"[3] and "High Fidelity"[4].

stupid parklet mini-rant of the day
Seriously?! The entire business area of Cortland Avenue is barely 6-7 blocks long and there is one of these stupid urban wastelets there. Luckily, it is just one of the two-parking space obstructions, but it is still a completely useless blight. I guess having to walk "all the way" to either Bernal Heights Park (which is THREE blocks away, of course) or Holly Park (well, I can see how SIX blocks might be just too far away for most people to walk while trying to balance their Decaf Mocha Double Latte with soymilk and a twist with their mobular device pressed to their empty heads). This one happens to be located in front of some place called Kinfolk; yet still another place to make my "List". Hmmm?! Maybe the city should turn both Bernal Heights Park and Holly Park into parking garages and rename the neighborhood "Stupid Parklet Heights".

(Back to breakfast or "Brunch".)

The Liberty Café has several good things from which to choose on their standard breakfastary (well, "Weekend Brunch") menu. Plus, they offer a few different frittata specials on the weekend (one for stupid vegetarians and another for dead, decaying animal flesh-eaters). 

The frittata was very good. It was served as a thick, huge slice, sort of quiche-style. It had lots of portobello (or portabello or portobella, take your pick) and sun-dried (or Sun dried, again, your choice) tomatoes. These were also very good homefries; simple enough, but nice and large crispy chunks. "Mixed greens" is always just a euphemism for lettucey-salad junk minus any cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, etc. I ate some of those, but focused mostly on the frittata and potatoes. I just have one minor criticism: with "Bakery" as part of their name, I would liked to have seen some kinda complimentary fresh-baked goods come with the meal.

I have had America's Best Coffee many times before, and it is always a pretty decent cuppa. However, their claim to being the "Best Coffee" in 'merica might be a little lofty. I would have no problem with them calling themselves "America's Very Good Coffee", at least.

The Liberty Café only has for condimentary supplementation Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the original red) and Tapatío®. Once again I took the liberty to use some of my own Palo Alto Firefighters XX Habanero Pepper Sauce (Thanks agains, Amys and Brian!) on the homefries and some Dave's Gourmet® Ginger Peach Hot Sauce (Thanks, Jim!) on the frittata. Okay, I completely forgot to bring some Big Papi En Fuego Hot Sauce with me this morning, but, just to make sure, for some extra added Boston Red Sox mojo, I just did a Русский Стандарт Platinum Vodka[5] (Thanks, Greg & Cindy!) shooter with 4 drops of Off The Wall Triple (Thanks, Kerry!) in it. Kids, I would not recommend that you try this at home, or if you do, skip the hot sauce in your Vodka, that stuff can kill ya. I also had a shot of pickle juice chaser with it ~ don't ask, it's a Russkij thing.

Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Veggie Frittata ~ 6.5; Русский Стандарт Platinum Vodka ~ 8.5

1. Completely requited rant of the day:

This is just a small pet peeve with me. I have always hated it when places call their vegetarian or vegetable specials "Veggie". Would they call their dead, decaying animal flesh specials "Carnie" or "Meatie"?

Also:

It's Boston, not "Beantown".

It's New York City, not "the Big Apple" (and in case you were wondering ~ and even if you weren't ~ why I chose the colour green instead of red for my "apple", I like Granny Smith apples the best, Mr. Chapman*).

And, lastly, but not leastly:

It's San Francisco, never ever "Frisco"… EVAH!

*(Who was himself a stupid "Veggie", by the way.)

2. Here is some extra added Bernal Heights information courtesy of our friendly friends at Wikipedia:

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

I wonder what José Cornelio would have to say about all these stupid parklets popping up around the city; to say nothing of what poor ol' Nanny Goat might feel.

3. "My Neighbor Totoro" is a 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film. Despite what I thought, it wasn't an Italian sequel to "The Wizard of Oz".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096283/

4. "High Fidelity" is a 2000 American comedy-drama film starring John Cusack. It is based on the 1995 British novel of the same name by Nick Hornby (meaning the novel was also called "High Fidelity", not "Nick Hornby"). I liked the movie a lot, but, as always, the book was much better.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146882/

5. Русский Стандарт (which is just standard Russkij for "Russian Standard") Vodka is a brand of high-end Russian Vodka. The Platinum happens to be one of their best variants and is one of the best Vodkas that I have ever had; this is a sipping/shots only Vodka, not to be wasted in crummy mixed drinks ~ use your Absolut® or Stolichnaya® for that. I was given a bottle of this a few years ago as a gift and still have some left that I like to use for special occasions. (Yeah, so, maybe I'm not as big a drunk as a lot of people think that I am.)

http://www.russianstandardvodka.com/#/ru