Bisou Bistronomy

"Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents." ~ Marilyn Monroe

http://www.bisousf.com/


Place: Bisou[1] Bistronomy
Location: 2367 Market Street (between 16th and Castro Streets)
Hours: open at 10:00am Saturday and Sunday for "Brunch"
Meal: Gnocchi Scrambled ~ house made (well, restaurant made) potato gnocchi, scrambled egg (noted in the singular), Dungeness crab (which I skipped, of course; even when I wasn't of the stupid vegetarian ilk, I was never much of a fan of dead, decaying aquatic insects, anyway), Espelette pepper[2], garbanzo bean (also noted in its singularity), salsa verde, green and red oak[3], Comté cheese[4]; a side of sautéed potatoes; a glassa orange juice; and, beforehand, a cuppa Castro Coffee Company Sea Smoke Blend

http://www.castro-coffee.com/product-p/73.htm

(Why a EweToobular juxtaselection by the Pogues[5], you ask? If you bother to read the notes footed below, you will understand. Maybe.)


I am never very ebulliently impressed about having to eat at a place that opens at 10:00am, and especially if it is for an early morning meal called "Brunch", but I am running out of new places to try for breakfast so I headed over to Bisou Bistronomy this morning. It’s a medium-sized place with seating of: five front window/counter seats facing Market Street (which is where I chose to sit to be out of the way, but I ended up being the only person there the entire time I was eating, anyway); about sixteen tables for between two and four people downstairs; ten bar seats; and ten to twelve tables for two to four people upstairs in a cool balcony area (if they were actually busy or crowded this morning, I would have opted for that section).

According to the cute Spanish hostess-person (Maîtresse d'? ¿Ama de?) at the front door of the restaurant, there is a sister (ou sœur, o hermana) restaurant of theirs located just a few blocks around the corner on 18th Street called Beso[6] Bistronomia, which is a Spanish tapas kind of place.

http://www.besosf.com/

Like a lot of "Brunch" joints, there is a very limited amount of other ideas from which to choose for stupid vegetarian-types. Two of the other choices that I was looking at were: Omelette Garden (egg white omelette, asparagus, caramelized onion [they really seem to like the singular here], chickpea [see?], Romesco sauce[7], salad, goddess dressing [they don't specify which deity, though], shaved Parmesan; it was a tough toss-up between asparagus and gnocchi for me this morning) or Tartine NKG (toasted country bread, carrots [which they have no problem in the plural], cauliflower, corn, red onion, heirloom tomato [singular again], grapes [plural seems to be okay for these, too], barbecue seasoning, served with sautéed potatoes and salad; apparently, "NKG" stands for "Napa Kitchen Gardens", whoever they are supposed to be).

Although they had both "egg" and "garbanzo bean" in the singular on the menu, I am pretty sure that there were at least a few of each in the scrambled mess. This was an interesting dish, and I always like it when potatoes are the main focus (as opposed to "the minor focus"?) of a dish. However, the gnocchi ended up breaking down into a mushy, polenta-like consistency when mixed with the scrambled eggs (or egg). I was hoping for some kinda chunky texture to the gnocchi bits. I bet if they had pan-fried the gnocchi first (with lots of butter and olive oil), then added those to the scrambled eggs (egg) mess, it would have been even better. I did like that there was a huge pile o' shredded Comté cheese on top of the whole thing, too.

I mainly got the side of sautéed potatoes because I didn't think that the scrambled thing would be enough food (I thought correctly), and you can never have enough potatoes in your breakfast ("Brunch", whatever).

I really have no idea what Bisou Bistronomy had to offer for condimentary supplementation as I didn't bother to ask. It really didn't matter, as I had come prepared with a few of my own hot sauces once again. I went with some Fat Cat® Surprisingly Mild Guajillo Ghost (Thanks, Greg & Cindy! I probably have just one dose left in that bottle now.) on the pile of scrambled stuff and some Shing Kee® Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce (I had stolen a few small packets from a Vietnamese sandwich shop that I had eaten lunch at last weekend) on the potatoes. I actually like this Sriracha sauce better than the more popular Huy Fong Foods, Inc. version (which is so ubiquitous these days, you see it just about everywhere, Yogi…).

the Wild Parrots of San Francisco Interlude

I had parked over on Beaver Street (even though I know it's pretty sophomoric [not to be confused with Sapphomoric], I always get a chuckle about parking on that particular street whenever I am in the Castro) and saw a few of the Wild Parrots of San Francisco flying overhead after breakfast ("Brunch", whatever).


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Gnocchi Scrambled ~ 6.5; Castro Coffee Company Sea Smoke Blend ~ 6.8; 
the Wild Parrots of San Francisco ~ 8.5


________________

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

"Bisou" simply means a "kiss" in French.

2. ¿Qué?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espelette

3. It took me a few seconds to figure out that this meant "oak leaf lettuce" and not the actual leaves from some kinda acorny tree. Like I can really tell the difference between "oak leaf lettuce" and any other rabbit food-type greens, anyway.

4. Qu’est-ce que c’est?!

http://www.cheese.com/comte/

(I particularly love that there is an actual web-site named "Cheese.com".)

5. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, uimhir dhá:

"Pogue" or "póg" is Irish for a "kiss", too. 

The original name of the Celtic Punk Band fronted by Shane MacGowan (no relation, by the way) was "Pogue Mahone", which was just the Anglicisation of the phrase "Póg mo thóin!", which means "Kiss my arse!" in Irish.

6. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, número tres:

"Beso" simply means "kiss" in Spanish, too.

7. Of course, it is no surprise that Wild Bill Gates and his band of brown-shirted Nazi Spell-checkering fools at Microsoft have no idea what this sauce is.

http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/romesco_sauce.aspx