Nini’s Coffee Shop

A breakfastary roadtrip:
San Mateo, CA

(No official web-site.)


Place: Nini's Coffee Shop 
Location: 1000 N. Idaho Street (at Bayswater Avenue) 
(phonicular contact: 650-348-9578)
Hours: open at 6:30am Monday - Friday; open at 7:30am Saturday & Sunday
Meal: Vegetarian Omelette "Original" ~ Nini's cooks the vegetables, we don't throw them in raw - zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, tomatoes, Jack & Swiss cheese, sour cream & chives; served with homefried potatoes and toast

(It was very sunny out today. So…)


Q: What is better than a nice breakfast with friends in San Mateo?
A: A nice FREE breakfast with friends in San Mateo! (Thanks, Luke!)


Today was the make-up date from last weekend's scheduled breakfastary gathering at Nini's Coffee Shop (see last 'blog-entry from October 17th, 2010). Even with an additional week to rest up and get healthy, there was still just a total of five of us that made it this morning (three or four missed out again). At least the weather was an awesome Bay Area winter day (sorry to all the rest of you that are currently experiencing the full brunt of Al Gore's Global Colding) for the drive down there. Nini's has been a popular local breakfast-lunch joint since 1955. Proof of this was that there were lots of San Francisco 49ers fans there getting a good breakfast before today's Freezer… er, Football game in Green Bay.

Nini's has a very decent selection for breakfasts: Nini's "Traditional" Favorites; Some More Favorite Favorites; Wally's "Country" Oldies; Omelettes, Deluxe Omelettes, or Scrambles; and Hot Cake Specials. Zaria had the Santa Ana (from the Some More category) ~ scrambled eggs with bacon, spinach, cream cheese, olives, tomatoes, Parmesan cheese (this looked really good, and without the dead decaying swine-flesh strips I probably would have liked that, too). Marc had Toby's Omelette (from the weekend specials chalkboard) ~ hot links, Ortega chilies, mushrooms, Jack cheese, sour cream & chives. Steve had Bacon, Avocado, Cheddar cheese, Tomato Omelette (from the Omelettes, etc. category); I am not quite sure what the ingredients were in this one, though. Luke had Hot Cake Special #2 (from the Eponymous category) ~ two hot cakes, two strips bacon, and one egg any style (he chose over medium). So we had a pretty sufficient coverage of the menu.

I especially liked that my meal was called "Vegetarian Omelette", and not "Veggie Omelette" like many other places do; so they got an extra .1 GBS Rating points right there. However, they substituted "the vile weed" for zucchini (without any warning and I only found out about half-way into the omelette ~ so it was too late to ask for a replacement, which I would have probably done); so I am taking away .1 GBS Rating points right there, too. Other than the one "surprise" ingredient, I liked the rest of the omelette just fine, though, Newman! Another really nice thing is that they give you the option of adding bell peppers and onions to your homefries if you want; all of us that had the option made that very wise choice, of course. My choice of toast was sourdough.

For condimentary supplements, Nini's just offers Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard red). I used some of my own Serious Food… Silly Prices Mango Hot Sauce (Thanks, Cindy & Greg!) on the potatoes and some Hula Girl Chipotle Habanero (Thanks, Jim!) on the omelette. I had transferred some of the Hula Girl to a smaller 2 oz bottle that I had recently emptied[1] so that I would have another option to fit in my new Tabasco® holster (Thanks, Sean!). Zaria also used some of both of these hot sauces and seemed to like the Hula Girl the best.

On my way out of town this morning (well, on my way out of my neighborhood even), I stopped for a cuppa Coffee at Simple Pleasures Cafe (see 'blog-entry from March 15th, 2010) to enjoy on the drive down.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Vegetarian Omelette ~ 6.3; Simple Pleasures Cafe Coffee ~ 7.0


1. Important note: When emptying the remains from a bottle of hot sauce (especially if it is one of those extremely ridiculous "nookular" types), be sure to do so with extreme caution and adequate ventilation. There is a reason why capsaicin or pepper resin is one of the main ingredients in pepper sprays (why it's allowed in a food product, I have no idea).