Home Plate

"Don't burn your bridges until you come to them." ~ General Legendary

http://www.homeplatesf.com/


Place: Home Plate
Location: 2274 Lombard Street (between Pierce and Steiner Streets)
Hours: open everyday (they actually have this spelled as one word, not two, but their food is anything but ordinary or commonplace) at 7:00am
Meal: Fried Polenta ~ (2) homemade fried polenta (mushroom, pine nuts, and Parmesan cheese) and two eggs any style, served with toast; and a medium-size glass of fresh honeydew juice

(Today's EweToobular juxtaselections can simply be explained that the whole "Home-y" theme fits well with the first song ~ and, yes, the Talking Heads live version is always a much better choice, but I think that I have already used that once before [and more than likely with a previous 'blog-entry of this specific place]; the second song is because I noticed that I linked a couple other Daniel Norgren songs with my last 'blog-entry at this place. This is one of his newer songs. 

I am pretty impressed how the 'merican Blues and Folk scene is being carried on in Sweden and other areas of Scandinavialand.)


Because Spring Training started earlier this week, I felt it necessary to report back to Home Plate (see last 'blog-entry from March 16th, 2014) for breakfast myself (well, with most of the Pitchers and Catchers having already reported; the rest of those lazy bums will be having their own breakfasts in Floridia and Arizonia in a few more days still).

This place is rather small and normally handles the Lombard Street tourista crowd (from all the many nearby hotels and motels along the way; two tables over there were three German touristas that I heard, and many customers were wearing shorts... in San Francisco... in the wintertime, which is usually a dead give-away tourista-mode). It has just six tables for two and six tables for four (all singles and menage-à -trois type people need not apply).

I really like their standard menu selections. The menu is very extensive, and there are always several other good ideas from which to choose: Marco Polo (two poached eggs, tomatoes, avocado, turkey, Hollandaise sauce on an English muffin; served with two potato-carrot pancakes or hashbrowns; of course, I would have nixed the dead, decaying poultry bits, Stevie) or Triple Play French Toast (one slice each of Egg Bread, Whole Wheat Bread, and Raisin-pecan Bread dipped in orange-cinnamon batter, served with maple syrup, butter, and powder sugar [sic]). Off the printed Specials insert to the menu: Dulce de Leche Pancakes (two pancakes filled with Dulce de Leche and topped with caramel, sliced almond [noted in the singular] and whipped cream). And off the weekend Specials dry-erase board: Almond French Toast (topped with toasted almond [noted once again in the singular; these must be some very large or very expensive almonds to only have included just the one], powder sugar [sic], & butter).

Worry not my fine-feathered eating friends (as well as my fine-porcine eating friends and my fine-aquatic insects eating friends), they do also have a decent amount of meatetarian items, too. Off the printed Specials insert: Spanish Scramble (three eggs scrambled with andouille sausage, caramelised onions, tomato, green onions, and Jack cheese, served with two potato-carrot pancakes or hashbrowns and toast) or Bangkok Fritata [sic] (shrimps, mushroom, tomato, green onion, cilantro, jalapeños, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lime juice, served with two potato-carrot pancakes or hashbrowns and toast). Additionally, off the weekend Specials dry-erase board (well, off the menu on the board, I don't think anyone wants to actually eat off a dirty, old dry-erase board): Angry Benedict (two poached eggs, shrimps [sic], spinach [but, thankfully, not "spinaches"], jalapeños, with Cajun Hollandaise sauce, served with two potato-carrot pancakes or hashbrowns), Crab Omelette, or Crab Cakes Benedict.

It may seem like I am making undue fun of all these spelling and grammar errors, but that really was not intended at all. (Well, okay, maybe that was my intent just a littles.) I think the family that owns and runs the joint are all Thai, so they are doing a pretty decent job with the confusing English language. 555!

I always like how every meal starts with a complimentary (or complementary) mini-scone (raisin) and two kinds of jams. These are always their own homemade jams, and today's were apple and strawberry.

We have another winner! These came as two huge (easily 2"-thick each) chunks of polenta. I really liked that the pinoli added a nice flavour to these, too. I just went with eggs over-medium and sourdough toast as my supplemental choices. I suppose that the polenta all by itself may not have been enough, but they could easily have been a nice side dish all on their own, or, better yet, as the basis for some kinda Eggs Benedicty dish.

I probably mighta shoulda gotten a side order of their potato-carrot pancakes because they are really very good. However, they only offer these as a side of four each, and that may have been a bit too much food (or foods) for me to finish.

Home Plate offers the Standard San Francisco Triumvirate of Hot Sauces: Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard red), Cholula® Hot Sauce, or Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce on all the tables, but I also remember from my last visit that they have Huy Fong Foods, Inc. Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce. I just used some of my own The Wiltshire Chilli Farm Mango hot chilli sauce (Thanks, Cindy & Greg!) on top of the eggs and some Fat Cat® Chairman Meow's Revenge (Scorpion Pepper Sauce) (Thanks, Greg & Cindy!) on the polenta chunks. I was initially going to mess with just one of the chunks (as this stuff is pretty potent and picante), but I poured wayyyy too much out on top of one and decided it best to spread it out amongst its buddy.

I have always liked this little joint. The people there are always super friendly, and the food is always interesting, top-notch, and tasty. They are definitely "Rotation-Worthy", Ms. Benes, if ever need be.

the Wild Parrots of San Francisco Interlude

Once again, I parked over by the Lombard Street gate of the Presidio (it's always just much easier to park there and walk the three or four blocks down Lombard Street than to try and find closer parking) and, because of which, I was rewarded by seeing (after first hearing) about twenty of the chattering rascals in their normal roost way at the top of the tall eucalyptus trees in the small dog park in that part of the Presidio.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Fried Polenta ~ 6.5; mini-scone (with homemade jams) ~ 7.3; the Wild Parrots of San Francisco ~ 8.5