Home Plate Restaurant

"I have never developed indigestion from eating my words." ~ Winston Churchill 

http://www.homeplatesf.com/


Place: Home Plate Restaurant  
Location: 2274 Lombard Street (near the corner of Pierce Street)
Hours: they are open every day at 7:00am
Meal: Parmesan Pesto Omelette ~ mushroom, spinach, pesto, Parmesan cheese (served with 2 potato-carrot pancakes, or hash browns, and toast: wheat, white, rye, or sourdough; and a fresh baked mini-scone is served with each breakfast entrée); and a medium glass of (pink) grapefruit juice

http://www.danielnorgren.se/

(Today's EweToobular mini-concert was brought to you by the Borås House of Blues.)


Because it is nearing the start of Baseball Season yet again, I decided to head back to Home Plate Restaurant for a breakfastary repast (see last 'blog-entry from October 13th, 2012; I can't believe it has been that long since my last visit ~ this place is good enough that it could easily be in my Breakfast Starting Rotation). I love that they open up very early every day (and for breakfast ~ none of that "Brunch" nonsense); of course, this is probably just due more to their location along tourista motel-hotel row, but at least it's another early morning option for locals, too (as long as they don't mind schlepping all the way over to the Marina/Cow Hollow area that early; one big plus is that there is plenty of legal and free parking right on Lombard Street at that hour).

Home Plate offers several different types of scrambles, omelettes, and frittatas. So this made for some other hard choices: Fried Polenta (mushroom, pine nuts, and Parmesan cheese; homemade fried polenta (2), two eggs any style); Bangkok Frittata (shrimps [sic], mushroom, tomato, green onion, cilantro, jalapeños, kaffir lime[1] leaves, galangal[2], lime juice; served with 2 potato-carrot pancakes, or hash browns, and toast ~ I would have ordered this without the dead, decaying aquatic insects, of course); or my standard fall-back there, Greek Frittata (spinach, tomatoes, Kalamata[3] olives, Feta cheese; also served with the same sides as my omelette this morning ~ this is a major winner as it has both copious amounts of Feta cheese and authentic Kalamata olives in it).

The mini-scone was still warm right out of the oven when they served it to me this morning. It was served with a little homemade apple butter/sauce/jam and mango jam this morning (both had deep, rich colours, as can clearly be seen in the above photo).

Simply put, this was a very good omelette (and entire breakfast, too). Unlike a lot of places that have Parmesan cheese as an ingredient, you could actually taste the Parmesan and pesto in every bite (and this is a good thing, of course, if you like Parmesan and pesto, but if you didn't, you would have ordered something different, right?). Like yesterday's meal, there was a decent amount of fresh spinach again in my eggy-breakfast dish. So what? The only person that may have a problem with that is someone that ascribes to a Blutonian way of thinking. 

Of course I opted for the potato-carrot pancakes. Even if the meal didn't come with these, I probably would have ordered them as a side dish; they are that good. My toasted bread choice was rye this morning. I had actually wanted to order either a fresh cantaloupe juice or particularly a  honeydew melon juice (in keeping with the whole greenery theme today in honor of that guy that isn't really a Såint, isn't really from Ireland, nor really named "Patrick"), but it was too early in the morning and they were not up to full staff and these were not available yet. For any of you "late-risers" (after 8:00am or so), that head to Home Plate, I really suggest trying one of their fresh juices.

Home Plate has a nice selection of condimentary supplements: Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard red), Cholula® Hot Sauce, Tapatío®, and Huy Fong Foods® Sriracha (this is basically the San Francisco Triumvirate of Hot Sauces + One). I just used some of my own Serious Food… Silly Prices Chunky Habanero Hot Sauce all over the omelette. If I had gotten the Bangkok Frittata, I probably would have used some Sriracha on it. On the potato-carrot pancakes I just kept with the provided dollop of sour cream and apple butter/sauce/jam (though a bit of the habanero hot sauce did get on one and it went really well with a mixture of applesauce and sour cream).

As I had skipped any caffeinated beverages with my meal, I prepared a cuppa Bettys Pai Mu Dan White Tea[4] (Thanks, Cindy & Greg!) at home to enjoy while typing up this 'blog-entry.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Parmesan Pesto Omelette ~ 7.0; potato-carrot pancakes ~ 7.1; mini-scone with homemade jams ~ 7.4


1. Kaffir Lime is used extensively in Southeast Asian cuisines, both the actual citrus fruit and the leaves of the trees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_lime

2. I really had no idea what "Galangal" was, so here is some information from our friendly friends at Wikipedia again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galangal

3. What the heck?! "Kalamata" was once again unrecognised as a valid word by der Führer Wilhelm Tore and his Microsoft Spell-check Nazis. I guess they only enjoy those tasteless black jobbies that come out of a can.

4. Which should never be taken with any "Harvey Milk" in it, of course, but I hear it goes very well with a snack of Twinkies®.