~ Anthony Bourdain
http://www.grindzrestaurant.com/
Place: grindz
Location: 832 Clement Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues)
Hours: Friday, Saturday, & Sunday open at 9:00am for "Brunch"
Meal: Veg N Eggs ~ 2 poached eggs, mushrooms, zucchini, spinach, potatoes, chili oil; and a cuppa Bicycle Coffee Co.
(Keep in mind that Jake is playing this with just four strings. Of course, if it's jake with Freddie, it's jake with me.)
Once again working my way through my Breakfastary Rotation before Spring Training starts, I went back to grindz (see last 'blog-entry from September 15th, 2013) this morning. This is a smallish place and there is just seating for a total of forty-four people (with eight tables for four people and six tables for two people ~ or one person, even). I like that they open early enough on the weekends, but they really needn't call this meal "Brunch".
I recently found out that most retail brands of kimchi[1] (or even if it is homemade in a restaurant) use either fish sauce or dried shrimp as an ingredient. Because of which, I now have to ask if the kimchi being used in a restaurant is vegetarian-friendly or not. I have been able to locate a few decent brands locally that are made without the offending dead, decaying seafood for use at home. For future reference, I asked the cute, friendly (vegetarian- or not) waitress-server-person if the kimchi they used was made with any fish or shrimp; she was nice enough to check for me and told me the brand they use (they buy their kimchi, they do not make their own) has shrimp listed as an ingredient. So, that means that there are two to three less dishes on their "Brunch" menu that I can eat now. I'm sorry, but French toast and pancakes without any kimchi on top is just not tasty enough for me. 젠장!
This meal was served with the poached eggs placed on top of the pile of "veg", à la mode Eggs Benedict, just without any of Mr. Thomas' faux British baked goods underneath. I particularly liked that there was an abundance of spinach in with the "veg" stuff. I bet that this would also be great with some taro leaves (which they use in the Kalua Benedict) in place of the spinach. This also included julienne bell peppers and onions, but that is only because they are standard with the Plantation Potatoes that are used in the mix.
The cuppa Bicycle Coffee Co. (and several refills) was good as always. I can't stress enough that the really cool thing about this local Coffee roastery is that do all their deliveries throughout the city via bicycles!
grindz has for condimentary supplementation bottles of Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard red), Huy Fong Foods Inc.® Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, their own homemade Hawai'ian Ketchup, and a homemade chili oil. I used a bit of both of their homemade products on different areas of the "veg"; the Ketchup really is the way to go. I also used some of my own Youk's Hot Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) on top of one egg and some Mama Africa's™ Zulu Sauces Chili Mint (Thanks, Kerry!) on top of the other egg. I had recently transferred some of the Youk's to a smaller 2 oz bottle so that I could carry it with me in my new hot sauce holster (Thanks, Sean!) that I got for Christmas.
Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Veg N Eggs ~ 6.5; Bicycle Coffee Co. ~ 7.0
1. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day:
"Kimchi" (or "kimchee" or "gimchi", take your transliterary pick, or "peek" or "picg") is a hypercorrection of "cimch'i", earlier "timchoy" from Middle Chinese; equivalent to Chinese "chén" (meaning "steeped") plus "cày" (meaning "vegetables").
It appears that the Spell-check Nazis at Microsoft do not eat much Korean food either, as they did not recognize this word and I was forced to make them "rememberize" it now. I really think that Billy-boy needs to broaden his culinary horizons and eat out more often.
No comments:
Post a Comment