Bistro Restaurant at Cliff House

"I'm not interested in reality, bring me the magic!" ~ Tennessee Williams, Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire

(I heard that he was originally going to set the play in San Francisco, not N'Orleans, but "A Cable Car Named Powell & Hyde" just didn't have quite the same effect.)

http://cliffhouse.com/bistro/


Place: Bistro Restaurant at Cliff House
Location: 1090 Point Lobos (at the end of the Earth/Ocean Beach)
Hours: open for breakfast Monday - Saturday at 9:00am and Sunday at 8:30am
Meal: Sautéed Vegetable[1] Scramble ~ Scrambled Eggs, Red Peppers, Tomatoes, Scallions, Button Mushrooms, and Melted Goat Cheese ~ served with fresh fruit and roasted potatoes; and, of course, a basket of (World) Famous Cliff House Popovers(!)

(This is as good as it gets today for a EweToobular juxtaselections. "Fork" ~ "breakfast", get it? Whatever.

I was actually going to save that song for when I finally went to Fork for breakfast, but I found out that they have recently closed shop ~ restaurant, whatever ~ before I could ever eat there.)


In finally closing out my Breakfastary Rotation for the season (and just a few days after the closing of the Baseball Season, have you; thus, Football Season has officially begun with me now. Congratulations to the 2014 World Series Champion San Francisco Giants!), I went back to Bistro Restaurant at Cliff House (see last 'blog-entry from July 2oth, 2014). 

For such a supposably nice sunny morning, there was just one solo surfer (because two solo surfers would be a duo) out enjoying the waves along Ocean Beach this morning. (See. Just as a passerine bird of the Family Alaudidae[2], I decided to use "supposably"[3] ~ which everyone knows shud aktually be spellded "supossably" ~ to see if anyone was paying attention there.) I did see a pouch of pelicans[4] flying right by my window, too.

I think I found a wall of Hollywoodland stars autographed pictures that I have not yet chronicled/documented. It included the likes of : Archibald Leach (who has never been in my kitchen either, Cliff), Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton, Danny Glover, and Sonja Henie (without her tutu, though, Tommy and Ray). Unfortunately, I thought that I had already included it before. It looks like I need to photograph that wall in January with my next scheduled visit (or sooner if I go back before then). I think that it would be nice if the restaurant would document all of their autographed photos and maybe have a directory of names. 

Also, Jackie Gleason was looking over my shoulder the whole time I was eating breakfast (I have already documented that wall once before). I think he was eyeing my (World) Famous Cliff House Popovers(!). You may be "The Great One", but you can get your own damn (World) Famous Cliff House Popovers(!), Reginald Van Gleason III.

I have had this same meal several times over (the last time was in January) now. It's always very good, but the real reason I keep coming back several times a year is their (World) Famous Cliff House Popovers(!); of which there were three in the basket this morning. Nice! (They always ask if you would like more, but I have found that three is about my limit and I would hate to waste any of them if they brought out more.)

Today's fruits[5]: grapes; strawberry (just one, hence the singular); watermelon; cantaloupe; and honeydew melon.

Bistro Restaurant has for condimentary supplementation just Tabasco® Brand Hot Sauce (the standard red). I used just a little of my own (as a little goes a long way with this one) Fat Cat®
Chairman Meow's  Revenge (Scorpion Pepper Sauce) (Thanks, Cindy & Greg!) on the scrambled mess and some El Yucateco® XXXtra Hot Sauce Salsa Kutbil-ik® de Chile Habanero (Thanks, Brian! I think it's pretty funny that of the dozen or so hot sauces that I currently have in my collection, I may have contributed just one or two myself.) on the potatoes.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Sautéed Vegetable Scramble ~ 6.7; (World) Famous Cliff House Popovers(!) ~ 8.2


1. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, számú:

Just because I felt like it (and because the whole Uralic Language Family is all a bit of a mystery to me), here are the words for all of the vegetables in Hungarian. (Sorry, you are on your own as to the actual pronunciation of any of these words. It took me four days in Budapest just to learn how to say "Thank you.")

Vegetable ~ "zöldség"
Red bell pepper ~ "piros kaliforniai paprika"
Tomato ~ "paradicsom"
Scallion ~ "zöldhagymavál"
Button mushroom ~ "gomb gomba"

2. That would be more commonly known as a "Lark" to most of you non-lovers of Fine Feathered Friends.

The actual term of venery for a group of larks is an "exaltation of larks".  

Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, szám két:

"Lark" in Hungarian is "pacsirta" (the bird) and "czíny" (a prank).

3. I was very surprised to find out that both "supposably" and "supposedly" are actual correct adverbs for either (respectively) "suppose" or "supposed". Who knew? Apparently not Billy-boy Gates and his group of Spell-checker Nazis at Microsoft, as they do not recognise "supposably" as a valid word. Seems like they are about as intelligent as Ms. Chanandler Bong and also owe Joey Tribbiani an apology. 

4. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, szám három:

Can you say "Pelican" in Hungarian? Like hell I can, it's "pelikán".

As best as I can tell, the actual term of venery for a group of pelicans is a "pod". But that seemed kind of boring, so I came up with my own term ~ a "pouch of pelicans"; it just sound like it belongs.

5. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, szám négy:

Also the Hungarian words for:

Fruit ~ "gyümölcs"
Grape ~ "szőlő"
Strawberry ~ "eper"
Watermelon ~ "görögdinnye"
Cantaloupe ~ "kantalup dinnye"
Honeydew melon ~ "sárgadinnye"