Baker Street Bistro

"No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself." ~ John Steinbeck, from The Winter of Our Discontent

http://www.bakerstreetbistro.com/


Place: Baker Street Bistro
Location: 2953 Baker Street (between Lombard and Greenwich Streets)
Hours: open for "Brunch" Saturday & Sunday at 9:00am
Meal: Pain Perdu (A brunch favorite!) ~ French toast, fresh fruit, strawberry coulis & crème fraîche; a side of homefries; a large glass of orange juice (which had the extra-added bonus of coming with a bendy-straw, which is always fun); and, afterward, a cuppa Peet's Coffee & Tea® Anniversary Blend

http://www.peets.com/

(Because Earth Day 2015 is coming up later this week, I figured who better to sing about 'merica than a Canadianlander.)


In continuing with my early season workout of my Breakfastary Starting Rotation, I went back to Baker Street Bistro (see last 'blog-entry from January 3rd, 2015). Unfortunately, it was way too chilly (no, really) and overcast to sit outside in their sidewalk patio-café area this morning.

What else can I say about cette version ultime de Pain Perdu that I haven't already said many times over? It's simply the best French toast that I have ever tasted… yada, yada, yada…

So, in lieu of any additional, superfluous laudatory remarks, I just figured that I would include the word(s) for "Pain Perdu" in a few other languages. However, this proved to be a bit more challenging than I figured, as you can't just type in (or "computer in" even) "French Toast" on Google Translate and get the correct phrases. The best that I could come up with, though, was only a few different versions: "Eggy Bread" (Great Britainish; I think it is funny how they have all these different words from us Americans ~ someone really oughtta teach them Brits the Queen's English... and so is the King); "Tostada Frances" (Español); as long as I lived in Greece, I don't think that I ever learned how to say it in Greek; and I am pretty sure that in Deutschland they just refer to it as "Gebratene Verdammt Schweinehund Brot", though.

(You can consider those your stupid, useless cunning linguist pointers of the day.)

I did discover a new taste treat this morning, too. I would normally take the fresh mint leaves/sprig that are/is used as a garnish on top of the Pain Perdu and add them to my cuppa Coffee (it's always fun to freak out Chantal or one of the Mexican busboy-waiter guys when they come by to refill my cuppa), but I had skipped any Coffee with breakfast ("Brunch", whatever) and didn't figure mint and orange would go that great together. Instead, I just added them to my pile of homefries; now this actually worked out rather nicely with all of the other dried herbs and spices that were on them.

Fruits du jour: grapes, oranges, apples, pineapple, watermelon, and cantaloupe.

For condimentary supplements, Baker Street Bistro only has the Original Red Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce. I just used some of my own The Wiltshire Chilli Farm Hell Mouth on the potatoes and a skoshi Winter chilli sauce on just one slice of the Pain Perdu ~ consider this a nod to the "sweet and savoury" trend now-a-days ~ and don't knock it until you have tried it (which I doubt anyone will ever be stupid enough to do, even if they had access to any The Wiltshire Chilli Farm hot sauces). This reminded me of that old the Three Stooges routine where Moe has a huge stack of pancakes in front of him and he states emphatically, "If I only had some ketchup!” (and, for the record, I have also tried ketchup on my pancakes in the past; this discovery of hot sauce and maple syrup on my Pain Perdu was actually a much better flavour combination).

I had skipped any Coffee with breakfast ("Brunch", whatever) because I was planning on heading over to the Peet's Coffe & Tea® on Chestnut Street afterward. This is considered their new "flagship" (Hey, that is their actual term for it, not mine.) coffeeshop in the Marina. This place is a lot nicer inside than many places that I usually go to eat breakfast even. I should probably point out that this place offers four different kinds of Coffee daily; in addition to the one I had (which they list as a Dark Roast), there were: Light Roast ~ Colombia Luminosa; Medium Roast ~ Cafe Domingo®; and Decaf ~ House Blend.

(This is a photo of some kinda vertical horticultural thingy inside the joint, high up on the back wall. "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't keep her horizontal."?!)


the Wild Parrots of San Francisco Interlude

I had parked my car over by the Lombard Gate of the Presidio again and saw (well, mostly heard) a large pandemonium of the Wild Parrots of San Francisco ~ at least twenty to thirty of them (and possibly as many as one hundred; it's very hard to tell when they are all making such a raucous caterwauling ~ somewhat a "Symphony of Squawking, in E Minor") in the tall Eucalyptus ("Eucalypti"?) there.

Just remember that breakfast (or "Brunch" ou petit déjeuner) should never be a Pain (whether it be lost or found)…


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Pain Perdu ~ 8.2; Peet's® Anniversary Blend ~ 6.9; the Wild Parrots of San Francisco ~ 8.5