San Martin, CA
http://www.thesanmartincafe.com/
Place: San Martin Café
Location: 13475 Monterey Highway, San Martin[1], CA
Hours: open at 7:00am 7 days a week
Meal: (Me) San Martin Café Special (2 scrambled eggs with ground beef, spinach, mushrooms, and onions, topped with melted cheese; served with potatoes ~ hashbrowns or country potatoes ~ and toast); (Dave) Huevos Rancheros with 2 eggs (2 eggs over a corn tortilla, topped with a spicy ranchero sauce and cheese; served with potatoes and toast); and we both had cuppas coffee
(If I have to explain the relationship between this song and today, you really need to get out more often… just not today to shop.)
For the past few years my Thanksgiving Day tradition has been to head due south (about 82 miles worth) to the garlicky city of Gilroy. I am most thankful that I have old friends that will actually put up with me for the holiday (and put me up for the night). (Thanks, Dave, Patryce, Zoey, Nellie, and Comet!) The morning after (that would be today) it is always nice to go out to breakfast (see last 'blog-entry from November 26th, 2010) to work off the big meal from the day before and to give Dave a break from more cooking (Don't worry, I still made him pay for breakfast; I was his "guest" after all). Today's breakfastary destination happened to be to San Martin Café.
San Martin Café is located right along (Old) Monterey Highway, as is most of San Martin itself, too. San Martin is a small town located between Morgan Hill and Gilroy. Anyone that had traveled from San Francisco to Monterey back in the 70's (before Highway 101 was completed in that long stretch between Gilroy and San Jose) would have passed right through San Martin and probably not even noticed it.
San Martin Café is a small, local diner-ish place. It seemed to be doing a pretty decent business this Friday morning, filled probably mainly with localites and none of the idiots heading to the Gilroy Outlet Malls to save $2.00 (but waste six hours in line) on that newest iPhone mobular contraption for a Christmas gift. There are also two picnic benches out front for al fresco dining (I don't know how to say that in Spanish, though) on nicer days (Well, it was pretty sunny out this morning, just a bit coolish still). Their breakfast menu is pretty extensive and some of the other choices that looked interesting were: Mexican Omelette (Ortega chilies, avocado, sour cream, Jack and Cheddar cheese, and Spanish salsa); Chile verde with 2 eggs (Our most popular breakfast dish! Tender pork in a zesty green sauce. Served with potatoes and toast); and Breakfast Burritos (Fresh tortillas stuffed with scrambled eggs, potatoes, beans, cheese, Pico de Gallo salsa, and your choice of meat: Sausage, Linguica, Chorizo, Bacon, Ham, Beef, Chicken, or Chili Verde).
Naturally, I skipped the ground-up dead, decaying bovine flesh in my scramble, but I liked all of the other ingredients. I was particularly happy to see that they used fresh, sautéed spinach and not the frozen stuff; this was a nice detail for just a small, local place. I hope the mushrooms were a local product, too. I had hashbrowns and sourdough toast as my side choices.
Dave didn't really get a choice of potatoes or toast, but his meal did come with a mess o' frijoles refritos (which actually makes more sense with this dish). However, I thought this really should have come with some warm corn tortillas to sop up all the good salsa ranchera, too. (I tasted some of it while Dave wasn't looking and it was really very good; con sabor mucho gusto y más fuego.) I didn't bother taking a picture of Dave's meal; he can start his own damn 'blog-thingy if he wants to highlight his own food!
For condimentary supplementation San Martin Café has Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce on all the tables. But if you ask, they will bring out a fresher concoction of their own in plastic squeeze bottles. I really liked that one and used it generously all over my hashbrowns. It had a pretty decent spice and flavour to it. I asked what was in it and they told me it was simply Tapatío® blended up with some fresh red jalapeños. It fooled ME, Jerry!
Walk Like a Franciscan?
Anyone that has traveled along Highway 280 and driven past the Crystal Springs Safety Roadside Rest Area (just south of Hillsborough) has probably seen the large monument to Father Junípero Serra:
All that I can think of whenever I see it is that he was either the very first surfer-dude in California history or the song ♪Walk Like an Egyptian ♪.
Glen Bacon Scale Rating: San Martin Café Special ~ 6.4 (particularly due to the addition of their "special" salsa; I forgot to ask Dave for the GBS Rating of his Huevos Rancheros, but based on the salsa ranchera alone, I would give it at least a 6.4 or 6.5)
1. You may ask yourself, who the heck was this "San Martin" guy? You may ask yourself, why the heck does he deserve a town named after him?
Well, here's some information from our friendly friends at Wikipedia (saving me the trouble of typing it all out):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Martin,_CA
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