Ella’s ~ Neo Classical American Cooking

"The one with the orange-yogurt pancakes with gingered pear compote (and a side of potatoes)."

http://www.ellassanfrancisco.com/


Place: Ella's ~ Neo Classical American Cooking
Location: 500 Presidio Avenue (on the corner of California Street)
Hours:  open for breakfast Monday - Friday at 7:00am; open for "Brunch" Saturday and Sunday at 8:30am
Meal: orange-yogurt pancakes with gingered[1] pear compote ~ with Coombs Family Farms pure maple syrup, Vermont; and a side of (roasted) potatoes

(There really is no juxtaselections as to why I am using these songs of Lady Ella's this morning; I just happen to like them is all. 

I also like Louis Prima's take on the second song: "I got it good and that ain't bad…")


Continuing with the Fall ("Neo" or not, Mr. Reeves) Classic (¡Vamos Gigantes!) workout of my Breakfastary Rotation, I went back to Ella's ~ Neo Classical American Cooking (see last 'blog-entry from July 5th, 2014). I got to sit at an actual table (as opposed to my normally sitting at the counter seats overlooking the kitchen or bakery) for a change as they were not very busy at all when they had first opened up this fine autumnal morning.

As can be seen from the above photo of their weekend "Brunch" menu (and I am pretty sure that should read "October 18-19"), there really aren't that many items from which to choose (and less so for stupid vegetarian types). Some of the other items that looked like they might be something good: house made sausage scramble (with spinach, roasted red bell peppers, Kalamata olives, and Feta cheese; which I would have ordered without the dead, decaying grounded-up porky offal, of course); open faced omelette with smoked salmon (lemon dill cream cheese, grilled asparagus, and toasted onion; which I would have ordered without the dead, decaying piscine thing, too); or potato scramble (with grilled fennel, roasted beets, roasted carrots, and Havarti; however, I just had a very similar combination of this on my last visit there).

These were three HUGE and thick pancakes, and with the potatoes it really was an awful lot of food. As it was, I only finished about 2-½ pancakes and most of the potatoes. I probably mighta shoulda asked if they did half-orders (or 2/3-orders, at least). I would have liked a little bit more of the gingered pear compote stuff as it was pretty tasty; however, it was all used up with the top pancake. (Those damn top pancakes think they are soooo special and that it's always all about them!) Luckily, the pancakes were also very good on their own, though. The maple syrup was put to good use with the bottom two (well, bottom 1-½) pancakes. And just because I can and it was there on the table already, I made the last bite that I ate topped with some of their homemade strawberry jam.

For condimentary supplementation Ella's has Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (two types: the standard red and green jalapeño). I simply used some of my own Fairhope Favorites Aged-n-Charred Moonshine Hot Sauce XXX (Thanks again, Phyll!) on the potatoes.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: orange-yogurt pancakes with gingered pear compote  ~ 6.8


1. I was a little surprised to find out that the word "ginger" can also be used as a verb (and that the Spell-check Nazis at Microsoft have absolutely no problem with it).  As can be seen in the phrases: "He gingered up his oration with a few ribald jokes…" or "Man, she really gingered up her hair with that new henna rinse!"