toast eatery

"You have Van Gogh's ear for music." 
~ Billy Wilder

http://www.toasteateryonpolk.com/


Place: toast eatery
Location: 1601 Polk Street (on the corner of Sacramento Street)
Hours: open at 7:00am every day of the week
Meal: Mediterranean Scrambler ~ spinach, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, onions, and Feta (served with hashbrowns and choice of toast ~ white, whole wheat, rye, sourdough, or English muffin); and a cuppa (and a coupla refillas) most excellent Coffee (unfortunately I did not catch the brand or roast/blend)

(I just felt like some music from South Carolina's answer to the Allman Brothers Band this morning. That Marshall guy has a pretty good voice and his buddy, Tucker, can play a mean guitar!)


At toast eatery, they serve "American classic comfort food" (with just the modifiers in italic script[1] for some reason). This made a sensible destination to me for a classically comfortable American Memorial Day Weekend breakfast. They are in the same spot that used to house Bob's Diner for many years on Nob Hill, just bordering the Tenderloin[2]. Seating-wise there are eight diner-counter stools; three additional seats at the lower end of the diner-counter; four window-booths for four; three tables for four; four tables for two; and, weather permitting (or whether permitted), there are also five sidewalk tables for two. 

There are two other locations for toast eatery (and both are in Noe Valley; see previous 'blog-entry from October 31st, 2010) that may or may not still be owned by the same people. For some reason, this location on Polk Street has their own separate web-site, but the menus are still basically the same. Nu?! As with the other two locations, there is original artwork inside by local San Francisco artist, Sirron Norris. 

http://www.sirronnorris.com/

(By the way, that clock/watch in the Ferry Building tower actually works.)


I like that they open up pretty early (and I was not the first customer of the day for a change) every day of the week and that breakfast is served all day, and I was happy to see that it is actually called "Breakfast" on their menu, not stupid "Brunch". They have a pretty extensive breakfastary menu from which to choose. Some other tasteful ideas: California Scrambler (egg whites, tomatoes, fresh basil, Cheddar, and avocado ~ I was leaning towards this one [and almost fell off my seat in doing so, too], because I do not think in all the times that I have eaten breakfast [or stupid "Brunch"] that I have ever had an "egg white" omelette or scramble dish before; however, the deciding factor[s] for me was [were] the inclusion of artichoke hearts and Feta in my meal today); Polk Street Omelette (avocado, spinach, bacon [which I would have had omitted, of course], onions, and Cheddar); or Wet Veggie Burrito (flour tortilla filled with black beans, scrambled eggs, Cheddar, and sour cream; topped with ranchero salsa[3] and avocado) also sounded pretty good.

Feta, spinach, and artichoke hearts. What is not to like?! (And anyone not named "Greg" would not mind the mess of diced, fresh tomatoes in it, either.) It really only had two artichoke heart quarters in it, but they were grilled/charred before adding them in, so that is a plus. There was a sufficient amount of Feta in it, but I could always go for more. 

If I have one major complaint about the joint, it is that for a place that takes their name from the burned bread genre, they really only offer standard bready choices. And those are all just from pre-sliced commercial loaves. You would think they could at least offer a few fresh-baked items from which to choose.

toast eatery offers the standard San Francisco Triumvirate of Hot Sauces® (Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce ~ the standard red; Cholula® Hot Sauce; and Tapatío®) for condimentary supplements. While I wish that I had had some of that Cholula® yesterday, this morning I just went with some of my own Big Papi En Fuego Hot Sauce Off The Wall Triple Hot (Thanks, Kerry!) on the scramble mess and Pickapeppa Sauce (Thanks, Amy!) on the hashbrowns.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Mediterranean Scrambler ~ 6.5


1. I was going to make some kinda corny joke about "Non capisco!" the script for not being completely in Italiano; however, I just discovered this morning that the adjective "italic" actually refers to anything "of or pertaining to Italy". Ain't the World Wild Webs just full of information?!

2. I like to tell people that the Tenderloin goes from "Polk-Bush" all the way down to the corner of "1 Polk & 2 Fell", which is actually close enough for comic purposes.

3. Stupid, useless (and, in this case, pretty nitpickery) cunning linguist pointer of the day:

Technically, I think this should either be called "Ranchero salsa" (if they wanted to use the "Ranch/ranch" modifier as a proper noun) or "salsa ranchera" (if they wanted to agree with gender… and gender agreement is all the rage these days, of course!).