Scala’s Bistro

"Show me a woman who's tan all over ~ and I'll show you a woman who's done everything under the Sun." 
~ Anne Onymous

http://www.scalasbistro.com/


Place: Scala's[1] Bistro[2]
Location: 432 Powell Street (between Post and  Sutter Streets, just a half block up from scenic Union Square)
Hours: open for Breakfast Monday-Friday at 7:00am, Saturday and Sunday at 8:00am; open for "Brunch" Saturday and Sunday at 10:30am
Meal: (the simply enough named) Omelette ~ asparagus, forest mushrooms, and Gruyère, served with pan fried potatoes and toast; and a cuppa (well, actually, a Thermosa®) Mr. Espresso® Italian Roast (naturalmente)

http://mrespresso.com/

(No real reason for today's EweToobular juxtaselection. I just couldn't think of a good "fishy" or "reptile" song.)


I wanted to check out a new (for me, not to San Francisco) place for breakfast; so I headed on over to Scala's Bistro. This is a large, swanky kinda place with real cloth napkins on the tables (a place that I would not normally let the likes of myself enter if I was running the joint). It is located right on Powell Street (where one of the main Cable Car lines is always clanging by) in the same building as the Sir Francis Drake (and I mainly know this as the restrooms for the restaurant are located inside the hotel; I actually got a bit lost while trying to find them, but at least I didn't end up on the 21st floor and at the Starlight Room).

Even though I had arrived about forty-five minutes before they had even started serving the snooty-ass "Brunch" crowd (and you just know them pretentious bastages always expect "real cloth napkins", too), for some reason they were already serving stuff off their "Brunch" menu. This turned out to be good because their standard breakfast menu really doesn't have that many items from which to choose. Here are some other good choices off the "Brunch" menu: Eggs Al Forno (2 eggs, roasted potatoes, coppa picante, Swiss chard, fresh Mozzarella, toast; of course, I would have ordered this senza la carne maiale morto e in decomposizione; I am not quite sure who this Al Forno guy is, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he is related to that Al Fresco guy); Chilaquiles (Gravemente?!? At an Italian bistro?); Brioche French Toast (pears, huckleberries, Chantilly); or (the appropriately named) Drake's Cakes (buttermilk pancakes, maple syrup, whipped butter, bananas, or seasonal fruit).

This was a very decent Omelette and all of the ingredients really seemed to work well together. I was very pleased to see that the Omelette was made with lots of fresh, tender asparagus and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms[3]; a lot of times when a place has asparagus as an ingredient they really go cheapo with it. I asked the waiter-server guy if they changed the ingredients seasonally, and he confirmed this. So, I can always go back again and get a different Omelette in the future (it would be very difficult to get a different Omelette in the past, of course).

Their version of pan-fried potatoes was made with lots of julienne red bell peppers and bits of scallions. The potatoes were not charred and crispy like I normally like 'em, but they were very nice all the same. The type of potato they used were small white ones and were nice and creamy (I didn't bother bothering the waiter-server guy exactly what kind they were, though).

I went with sourdough for my toast choice.

I really liked that they leave an actual Thermos® of Coffee on the table for you so that you can help yourself to as much Coffee as you would like ~ and I liked about a cuppa and two and a half refillas. This is kinda like they do at IHOP®, but just with a lot better quality blend/roast of Coffee.

I didn't really ask what they offered for condimentary supplementation, but I noticed that they had bottles of Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (Original Red Sauce) on some tables. I just went with some of my own (mainly because I really need to use these up soon) of The Wiltshire Chilli Farm Hell Mouth on the Omelette and some Mango hot chilli sauce on the potatoes (Thanks for both, Cindy & Greg!).

the Wild Parrots of San Francisco Interlude

I didn't see any of the fine-feathered little noise-makers this morning, but while on the bus over to the restaurant, I heard a small pandemonium of them overhead at the O'Farrell-Van Ness bus stop. I would guess there were anywhere from six to ten of them, but they chatter so much, it could easily have been just two or three.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Omelette ~ 6.8


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

"(la) Scala" in Italian can mean either "scale (as in fish or reptiles)", "stairs/stairway/staircase", or "ladder". I don’t know which meaning they meant to mean for the name of the restaurant, though.

Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, parte b:

The word in Italian for a "balancing/weighing scale" would be "bilancia" or "libra" (like the Zodiac sign).

2. I think they went with "Bistro" in their name to avoid the whole "Caffè"/"Café"/"Caffé" obfuscation.

3. I wasn't sure exactly which "forest mushrooms" they meant (Aren't most mushrooms from the forest?), so I asked the waiter-server guy again.

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