http://www.cafebeansf.com/
(That is supposed to be their official web-site, but I can't seem to get it to work. I suppose it is either a new one that hasn't been set up yet or an older one that is no longer valid. Whatever. Their phonicular contact is: 415-928-0888.)
Place: café bean
Location: 800 Sutter Street (on the corner of Jones Street)
Hours: (unconfirmed, but from a few other Intro-Net sources) open at 7:00am every day of the week (plus, they were just setting up the sidewalk tables when I had arrived there around 7:20am this morning)
Meal: Cinnamon Apple[2] Dutch Pancake[3] and two eggs over-medium; and a very decent cuppa coffee
(The first EweToob video just goes to prove that back in 1979 Debbie Harry could even make a potato sack look good.)
Voor het ontbijt ik naar café bean. This is a little neighborhoody Dutch-style café located in lower Nob Hill or the upper Tenderloin (it all depends on your point of view, or how you like to point your nose). I like that they officially spell their name with "café" (avec accent aigu). But why is it not koffiehuis boon, though? Ik weet het niet.
In the middle of the space, there is just one main large, communal table that can seat eight people. There are four window-counter seats (where I chose to sit even though they were basically empty when I had arrived). There are two more tables in the corner window area with cushions that seat five people total. There are also four sidewalk two-seater tables when the weather allows it (today allowed it).
For being just a smallish, corner café (of koffiehuis), they actually have a pretty sufficient menu. They only offer the Dutch Pancakes on the weekends, but they have around fourteen different options (fourteen of the same options wouldn't really be much to speak about). There were several omelettes that looked good, too: Rembrandt (ham, mushroom, olive spread, and cheese); De Groot (pork sausage and spinach); Van Gogh (bell pepper, onion, avocado, and cream cheese); De Vries (egg white, tofu, bell pepper, onion, and tomato); and a few others. There were also several items on a daily/weekend specials chalkboard. The only thing that I can think to complain about is that there are no breakfastary potato side dishes of any kind on the menu.
This version of a Dutch Pancake was sort of a thicker crêpe batter and about the size of the entire plate. It had lots of cinnamon, sugar, and sliced apples on top. It was unlike the oven-baked version I had at Outerlands (see 'blog-entry from April 15th, 2012), but it was still very good. (Of course, café bean doesn't have any stupid parklets associated with it; so it all evens out in my book, of boek.) I wonder if this would be a good meal to order on a first date and you are a cheapskate and didn't plan on also paying for the woman's meal (I am sure you could also plan on not getting a second date with the woman).
I never found out what the actual brand of coffee was that they serve, but it was a Dark French Roast. It had the name "Chester's" on the thermos, but the lady behind the counter said that wasn't the name of the coffee roastery, it was just the name that the owner had given it. Who names their thermoses?!
As there were no potato side dishes, I didn't bother to ask what café bean had for condimentary supplementation. I did use some of my own Palo Alto Firefighters Pepper Sauce (Thanks agains, Amys and Brian.) on the eggs. The pancake didn't really need any spicing up and I just used some of the maple syrup that was provided. (Okay. I confess. I did use just the smallest amount of my Youk's Hot Sauce ~ Thanks, Kevin! ~ on a portion of the pancake. And I am not ashamed to say, it really wasn't half-bad. Of course, I suppose, that just means it really wasn't half-good either.)
Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Cinnamon Apple Dutch Pancake ~ 6.6
1. This is not a reference to Glen of the eponymous Scale Rating above. This (especially ironic for me) phrase came about when I awoke this morning at 3:00am and just couldn't get back to sleep. For some reason, the idea popped into my head to do anagrams of my name. Here are some (telling in places) examples:
"A Narcing Womb"
"Banan Cow Grim"
"Baring Cowman"
"Barman Cowing"
"Bang Warm Icon"
"Bowman Arcing"
"Brag Manic Now"
"Cab Warming On"
"Comb A Warning"
"Crab Win Mango"
"Macaw Born Gin"
"Manna Big Crow"
"Wanna Brim Cog"
If you would like to try with your own names, check out this web-site (Ain't the World Wild Webs fun?):
http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/
"I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long." ~ Mitch Hedberg
"I thought I had insomnia once; but then I woke up and realized it was just a bad dream... ironically, I could not get back to sleep for hours after that." ~ Steven Wright
"I am only truly awake when I am sleeping." ~ Mr. Bean
Of course, I'll probably be two hours off all day now. Maybe I shoulda got the Denver Omelette for breakfast to even it all out…
2. The stuff you learn when you are just minding your own business.
One time I was walking through the San Francisco Botanical Garden and happened to see the botanical name for a crab apple tree (they have a lot of the plants and trees labeled for all of the Latin botanist wannabes out there apparently). The crab apple is in the Genus: Malus and in the Family: Rosaceae. Rosaceae is just another name for "the rose family". I never knew that apples were in that same family. If you weren't aware of that simple fact either, now you have also learned something new today.
In addition to apples, the Family Rosaceae includes many other edible fruits, such as: pears, quinces, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries (which are not true botanical berries, by the way), strawberries (also not botanical berries), and raspberries (another not-botanical berry). Almonds are also in this same Family.
And just because I felt like it, here is stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, number one:
Albanian ~ "mollë"
Bosnian/Croatian ~ "jabuka"
Catalan ~ "poma"
Czech/Slovak ~ "jablko"
Danish ~ "æble"
Dutch ~ "appel"
Esperanto ~ "pomon"
Estonian ~ "õun"
Filipino ~ "mansanas"
Finish ~ "omena"
French ~ "pomme"
German ~ "Apfel"
Greek ~ "μήλο"
Haitian Creole ~ "pòm"
Hungarian ~ "alma"
Icelandic ~ "epli"
Indonesian ~ "apel"
Irish ~ "úll"
Italian ~ "mela"
Latin ~ "malum" or "pomum"
Latvian ~ "ābols"
Lithuanian ~ "obuolys"
Norwegian ~ "eple"
Polish ~ "jabłko"
Portuguese ~ "maçã"
Russian ~ "яблоко"
Serbian ~ "јабука"
Slovenian ~ "jabolko"
Spanish ~ "manzana"
Swedish ~ "äpple"
Turkish ~ "elma"
Vietnamese ~ "táo"
Welsh ~ "afal"
"An apple by any other name would taste as tart…"
"So, how do you like them rose fruits?!"
3. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, nummer twee:
"Pancakes" in Dutch is either "pannenkoeken" or "pannekoeken". "Apple" is "appel" (see above), "cinnamon" is "kaneel", and "sugar" is "suiker".
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