(Good luck trying to measure the diastole and systole of an artichoke heart, too.)
http://www.townsendrb.com/
Place: Town's End Restaurant & Bakery
Location: 2 Townsend Street (on the Embarcadero)
Hours: open Monday-Friday at 7:30am for Breakfast; open Saturday-Sunday at 8:00am for "Brunch"
Meal: Asparagus Benedict ~ grilled organic local asparagus on our English muffin, poached eggs, Hollandaise (eggs & omelettes are served with a choice of potato-carrot pancakes [with apple compote & sour cream], grilled polenta, or fresh fruit); all meals are served with a selection of pastries from their bakery; and a cuppa Mr. Espresso® Coffee
(Just a couple of the Beatles covers this morning from EweToob to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of their invasion of America. And how come we never heard of the Far Right complaining about these Brit wetbacks coming over here and taking all the jobs away from all the 'merican musicians?)
I was actually planning on eating at Primo Patio Cafe again (see 'blog-entry from October 8th, 2011), but, as they have an actual outdoor patio space for dining, they were closed this morning due to the rain. Thinking quickly on my feet (because people lying down tend to think very slowly?), I figured that as long as I was in the area that I should just go back to Town's End Restaurant & Bakery (see last 'blog-entry from October 28th, 2012). This turned out to be a very good back-up choice (and, in actuality, it was probably better than the originally scheduled destination).
Almost as soon as you sit down, they bring out a mini-basket of baked goods for you to enjoy while waiting to order and before your meal arrives. Today's mini-basket included: four mini-muffins (two corn muffins, one cranberry muffin, and one chocolate chip muffin) and one mini-scone (your basic raisin). And not to be missed is their seasonal fresh-made jams to be used with the pastries. Today's fresh-made jam was a blueberry jam. Due to its colour, I thought it was a raspberry jam at first until the friendly server-person-lady corrected me ~ either way, it was still very good.
As always, Town's End offered several other (seasonal and always changing) good ideas for breakfast (both of the vegetarian and dead, decaying animal flesh eater variety), particularly of note this morning: Spinach, Tomato & Mushroom Omelette (they don't specify what ingredients are in this one, but I am sure I would have liked it, anyway); Red Pepper Scrambled Eggs (with fire-roasted red peppers, green onions & Laura Chenel goat cheese); or Wild Mushroom Omelette (roasted garlic & yellow cippolini onions, wild arugula, wild yellowfoot mushrooms, with Nicasio Valley organic Farmstead cheese).
This was a great take on ol' Benny's eggs. I particularly liked that the asparagus was grilled ~ this was a nice touch and one that added a depth of flavour ~ and I was also very happy to see that there was a good amount of it, too, which is always a plus. Their Hollandaise sauce had an extremely intense yellow hue to it (I doubt the above photo will do it jaundiced justice, though; don't worry, the photographer has already been reprimanded for his ineptness); I understand that most Hollandaise sauces are basically yellow (egg yolks are the main ingredient, after all), but this was even deeper yellow than I have normally seen (now it makes me wonder what other places have been putting in their Hollandaise sauces).
For a change, I opted for the grilled polenta instead of the potato-carrot pancakes (the fresh fruit was never really a viable choice with me, anyway). The grilled polenta was good, but their potato-carrot pancakes are even better. I had even thought about ordering a side of the pancakes, but it would really have been too much food for me to finish (a side order is four pancakes, and with finishing all of the baked goods I was sufficiently sated). Now what might be an even better idea is if they made a Benedict dish using the grilled polenta as the basis for it; with asparagus or sun-dried tomatoes that would easily have rated a 7.2 (or higher) on the Glen Bacon Scale.
For condimentary supplementation, Town's End has both Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard red) and Cholula® Hot Sauce. I forewent any of the former (or latter) and just used some of my own Hula Girl Chipotle Habanero (Thanks, Jim!) on one of the eggs and on one of the polenta squares. Chipotle really seems to enhance a Hollandaise sauce (no matter the shade of yellow) and goes equally as well with corn.
Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Asparagus Benedict ~ 6.7; Basket of mini-muffins/scone ~ 7.0; Blueberry jam (even if it wasn't very blue-ish or purple-ish and fooled the likes of me) ~ 7.3
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