~ Miguel de Cervantes
http://www.bakerstreetbistro.com/
Place: Baker Street Bistro
Location: 2953 Baker Street (at Lombard Street)
Hours: open at 9:00am for "Brunch" on Saturday & Sunday
Meal: Pain Perdu ~ (A brunch favorite!) Two slices of cinnamon French Toast, fresh fruit, strawberry coulis & crème fraîche; a side order of Home Potatoes; and a cuppa Coffee
(R.I.P. Phil Everly; January 19, 1939 - January 3, 2014.
Hence the first EweToob video. The second song is just a Leonard Cohen cover by Madeleine Peyroux; they were playing some of her music on the house stereo during breakfast this morning.)
I couldn't think of a better first breakfastary meal for 2014 than un retour à Baker Street Bistro (see last 'blog-entry from August 31st, 2013). As I walked through the door, I was greeted heartily with a "Bonne Année!" by Mademoiselle Chantal (I hadn't the heart to tell her that my name isn't "Année", though). I decided to sit inside for a change; it was just bordering on cold still (even a bit too coolish with a jacket on) to sit outside on their sidewalk patio café area. However, it was so sunny this morning that I did have to keep my sunglasses on inside the entire time (and I am neither Corey Hart, nor Timbuk 3). There was only one couple that "braved the cold" and sat out there, but they had a large (Standard) French Poodle with them and didn't have much choice.
Baker Street Bistro still had up their Christmas (well, Noël) decorations and there was this pretty cool idea. La cage aux ornements?!
the Wild Parrots of San Francisco Interlude
I once again parked over by the Presidio and heard several of my fine-feathered friends, but they were too high up in the eucalyptus trees for me to see any of them this morning. By the time I had returned after eating breakfast (and walking around a bit on Lombard Street), they had all pretty much dispersed for the morning to other parts of the city.
What else can I say about cette version ultime de Pain Perdu that I haven't already said? Once again, it was rated the Number 1 Best Breakfast of 2013 (well, according to some stupid little local breakfast 'blog-thingy). How many ways can I say "fantastic"[1], after all?
As usual, I made my Café à la Turca and added some of the mint leaves from the garnish. This was a habit I started many years ago when I first started going to Baker Street Bistro. I initially did it to see if I could make use of a normally useless garnish, but also mainly to freak out the people that came around refilling my Coffee during the meal.
Les fruits du jour: framboises (raspberries); myrtilles (blueberries); orange (orange ~ it always amazes me how the French have a different word for everything); cantaloup (cantaloupe ~ See? If I weren't a cunning linguist, I would never have guessed at what this was.); pastèque (watermelon); pommes (apples); et (and) ananas (pineapples).
Knowing that Baker Street Bistro only has Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard red) for condimentary supplementation and also fully knowing (Is it considered "pessimistic" or "optimistic" to only know something half-fully?) what I was going to order today I only brought one bottle of my own hot sauces. I used some El Yucatero® XXXtra Hot Sauce Salsa Kutbil-ik® de Chile Habanero (Thanks, Brian!) on the potatoes (the Pain Perdu really didn't need any extra spicing up, of course).
C'est tout fantastique! (Whatever the heck that means.)
Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Pain Perdu ~ 8.2; the Wild Parrots of San Francisco (literally "sight unseen" even) ~ 8.5
1. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer(s) of the day:
Arabic ~ "خيالي"
Dutch/German ~ "fantastisch"
Greek ~ "φανταστικός"
Hungarian ~ "fantasztikus"
Irish ~ "iontach"
Italian ~ "fantastico" (the Italians, like the French, really do have strange words for everything, too)
Latin ~ "prodigialis"
Russian ~ "фантастический"
Spanish ~ "fantástico" (as can be seen here, the Spanish language can be quite as confusing as Italian and French)
Turkish ~ "harika"
Welsh ~ "gwych"
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