Pat’s Cafe

"Give a man an inch and he'll think he's a ruler."

(Of course, I always thought the expression was: "Give a man an extra inch and he'll think he's Ron Jeremy.")

http://patscafesf.com/


Place: Pat's Cafe
Location: 2330 Taylor Street (between Chestnut and Francisco Streets, just off Columbus Avenue)
Hours: open at 7:30am seven days a week (including Saturday and Sunday)
Meal: Mediterranean Omelet ~ Feta, onions, eggplant, salsa, & pesto (comes with choice of toast and homefries); and a cuppa (and one-and-a-half refillas) Mr. Espresso® (I did not get the specific blend/roast, though)

http://mrespresso.com/

(I bet that not many people are aware that Keb' Mo's real name is actually "Pat Williams".)


I returned to Pat's Cafe (see previous 'blog-entry from January 5th, 2013; and I can't believe it has been almost two years since my first visit there) for breakfast this morning. It's a neighborhoody-sized place with seating of about twelve to thirteen tables for two, four tables for four, and two sidewalk tables for two (outside on the neighborhood sidewalk). They are located right along the Powell-Mason Sts. Cable Car line, somewhere in the demilitarised zone of North Beach-Russian Hill-Fisherman's Wharf.

Their walls are adorned with photos and artwork by local artists that are for sale (well, the photos and artwork are for sale, but I am sure the local artists can be had for a reasonable pri¢e, too). The place was also nicely decorated for the holiday season with lots of Poinsettias[1], multi-coloured lights, and a wire 7"-tall Christmas tree (either green, red, or silver) on every table (my table also lucked-out and had ein kleine Nussknacker dude).

Pat's Cafe offers many other good ideas for breakfast, too. I could have easily gone with: San Francisco Omelet (fresh basil, tomatoes, Feta cheese); California Omelet (avocado, Cheddar cheese, mushrooms, onions, Aidell's fresh chicken apple sausage ~ which I would have ordered less the ground-up, dead, decaying poultry product, of course); Chilaquiles; or three different crêpes (two savory and one sweet). They also have a Weekend "Brunch" Specials menu (with several different types of Benedict dishes mainly).

The omelette was made with a lot of eggplant (which was diced in ¼"-pieces, not in large chunks or slices; this made them very easy to work with inside the omelette). However, I would have liked more Feta in it (but that is usually a complaint with me, I always want more Feta; as I always say, Mr. Kevin Moore, "Mo' Feta ~ mo' betta!"). I had sourdough as my toasty choice. Their version of homefries was really good, too; the potatoes were generously dusted with Old Bay[2] spices (from what I could tell) all over them.

For condimentary supplements, Pat's Cafe has both Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard yuletidey red) and Tapatío®. I just used some (about seven to eight drops only) of my own Fat Cat®
Chairman Meow's Revenge (Scorpion Pepper Sauce) (Thanks, Cindy & Greg!) on just the omelette; the potatoes were nicely-enough seasoned already.

I liked this place a lot. They could be Breakfastary Rotation-worthy if ever need be. They offer a number of decent breakfastary items (even for stupid vegetarians); they open up every day early enough to always be considered "breakfast" over "Brunch" for me (I had arrived this morning just a li'l after 7:30am and they were already open and with another early-rising customer there that had already ordered even); and they have a very attentive and friendly staff (Sorry, Mrs. Huneycutt, I didn't get my server-guy's name this morning ~ well, I know he was Mexican, so let's say he was un servidor-hombre). 


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Mediterranean Omelet ~ 6.7


1. Stupid, useless (and extremely boring) cunning linguist pointer/story of the day:

My first Christmas in Greece, I decided I wanted to send some Poinsettias to a few people back in the United States. I had (only) been in Greece for about five and a half months at that point and my Greek was generally limited to ordering food items (or swearing at drunks and crazy taxi drivers). So, I had to look up the word for Poinsettia in my Divry's English-Greek and Greek-English Dictionary. You'd think it would be simple enough, right? I mean it had to be something similar enough to the actual English (named for an American) word. Well, like me, you would be wrong. 

It turns out the word for Poinsettia in Greek is more of a phrase ~ "φυτών τον θερμών τόπων με κόκκινα φύλλα", which basically translates as "plants from warm climates with red leaves". So, instead of having to learn just one new word in Greek, I had to learn seven new words in Greek.

Oh, and it turned out that the florist shop in downtown Athens where I bought the plants was owned by a guy that spoke perfect English.

How do you say "D'oh!" in Greek?

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

2. The "Old Bay" here doesn't have anything to do with San Francisco Bay, but refers to "the Old Bay Line", a passenger ship line that used to operate from Bal'mo', Maryland (on Chesapeake Bay) to Norfolk, Virginia (also along the Chesapeake Bay ~ funny how that worked, huh?), in the early 1900's.

http://www.oldbay.com/OLD-BAY-Story.aspx