Sunday, September 21, 2014

Nob Hill Grille

"Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken." ~ Bertrand Russell



http://nobhillgrille.com/


Place: Nob Hill Grille
Location: 969 Hyde Street (on the corner of Pine Street, and, as their name implies,  on Nob Hill)
Hours:  open at 8:30am on Saturday and Sunday for "Weekend Brunch"
Meal: huevos rancheros ~ choice of red beef sauce or vegetarian tomatillo sauce (I will give you two guesses which one I chose) with corn tortillas, two fried eggs, Mexican rice, black beans, shredded lettuce and sour cream; a side order of homefries; and a cuppa (and a few more refillas) Contraband Coffee, Black Market blend/roast

http://www.contrabandcoffeebar.com/





(Tomorrow is Johnette Napolitano's birthday, so I am doing another mini-EweToobular concert just like I did yesterday for little Lenny Cohen. Video #2 is to prove that Dennis Miller was once actually relevant; just still not very funny, though.

Sorry, Puddles Pity Party doesn't have any covers of any Concrete Blonde songs that I know about.)


Today's breakfastary sojourn brought us (well, me) back to Nob Hill Grille (see last 'blog-entry from July 22nd, 2012)[1]. I still think they really missed the Joycean mark and should have named the restaurant "Nob Hille Grille". Even though they actually call their early morning weekend meal "Brunch", the fact that they open up at 8:30am is good enough for me. I like that early on a Sunday morning, parking in the neighborhood is pretty easy to locate.

Nob Hille Grille is a nice neighborhoody joint (well, if your neighborhood happens to be Nob Hill) and isn't that large of a place. The seating is just: seven stools at the counter overlooking the kitchen area; three tables for two and one table for four in the original/main/front dining area; the back room dining area (which is actually down a set of stairs and was once part of a different building; they even have it demarcated as "1315 [Pine Street]" at the top of the stairs down to the area) has another three tables for four and four tables for two; and, on days when it is nice enough to sit outside (this morning was, but I still ate indoors), there are two tables for two along the Hyde Street sidewalk (believe me, it's way too steep to have any tables along the Pine Street side).




There is a cool new piece of artwork above the counter just as you enter. It is a of collage of Mel Ramos' Superman. The original oil-on-canvas painting's current Fortress of Solitude happens to be the de Young, Fine Art Museum of San Francisco, in Golden Gate Park.





There are only about eleven items on the "Weekend Brunch" menu. If I hadn't ordered the huevos rancheros this morning, I was thinking about either getting: build your own omelette or scramble (three eggs with your choice of cheese plus homefries and wheat toast; I probably would have built mine with avocado, tomato, and goat cheese; they call this "build your own", but I am pretty sure they have cooks to actually make these for you ~ no one wants me making junk in their kitchen) or french toast (vanilla brioche bread topped with berries and crème anglaise; I have had this a few times before and know that it is very good). And for anyone that partakes of the crisped-up belly of dead, decaying little piggies, they also offer a bacon fritter (sweet bacon filled fritters served with bourbon maple syrup ~ I could probably do a few shots of that syrup, at least).




I had never seen Huevos Rancheros done this way before, but the two eggs were between two corn tortillas ~ sorta like a Huevos Rancheros sandwich ~ and I liked it a lot. This had a very good tomatillo salsa ~ con mucho sabor. This had a nice pico de gallo on top of the pile; however, I am not gonna lie to you, there was a good amount of white onions in it (which is fine with me, I like a lot of onions; of course, if you happen to be a Mahāyāna Buddhist, you will have to forego this topping ~ I recommend going with the red beef sauce instead). They state that this comes with "black beans" on their on-line menu, but these were actually whole pinto beans this morning (I like both, so no grande cosa); I think that some Cotija cheese or queso fresco crumbled on top of the beans might also have been a nice touch.

I really like their rendition of homefries (which is one of the reasons I didn't have a problem with the addition of yet more carbohydrates in my meal). These are always done nice and crispy and made with lots of green and red bell peppers and (more still) white onions (Sorry, Gautama).

Contraband Coffee is about as "local" as you can get for this place. It is located just two blocks away (also on Nob Hill). This was a very nice blend/roast. I wasn't quite sold on it with my first cuppa, but, by the third refilla, I really enjoyed it. It also seemed to pair very nicely with all of the sabores mexicanos of the meal.

Nob Hille Grille had Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard red) and Huy Fong Foods Inc® Sriracha "Rooster" Hot Chili Sauce for condimentary supplements. As I was just talking about the dreaded Scorpion Chilli this morning on defacedbook (Hey, Victoria!), I decided to go with some of my own Fat Cat® Chairman Meow's Revenge (Scorpion Pepper Sauce) (Thanks, Cindy & Greg!) on the potatoes (but I used it very sparingly, probably just eight to ten drops; this hot sauce does have a bit of a sting to it, but it is still not the worst of my collection). I didn't add any hot sauce to the tasty tomatillo salsa (I tasted it first just to make sure and it really didn't need me messing it up).


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: huevos rancheros ~ 6.9; Contraband Coffee, Black Market ~ 6.8


1. I have only been doing this stupid li'l 'blog-thing for a little over four-and-a-half years now, and I finally figured out how to make a hyperlink in the text. 

I probably should say a big "THANKS!" to Cabin Jim for his help and expertise in these stupid 'blog-things (he keeps two, himself)… I should, but I won't.

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