Bazaar Café

Richmond (District) Coffeehouses ~ 
Part the Fourth

http://www.bazaarcafe.com/


Place: Bazaar Café
Location: 5927 California Street (between 21st and 22nd Avenues)
Hours: open every day at 9:00am
Meal: Bagel w/ Hummus & Tomato ~ (Do I really need to go into the specifics for this one?); for breakfastary dessert, a slice of peach pie; and a medium cuppa whatever the (coffee)house Coffee was

(I couldn't think of a more "bazaar" EweToobular duo than these two. [They just also happened to be playing this old song and other coffeehouse standards on the (coffee)house stereo this morning.])


If I had any actual ratiocinative sense, I probably shoulda started this whole Richmond District Coffeehouses Series by going from East (that would be Arguello Boulevard) to West (that would be the Pacific Ocean, or the Great Highway) and from North (basically Lake Street) to South (Fulton Street, along Golden Gate Park). I really don't think that there are any coffeehouses along Lake Street (and no dives[1], either). I do know that there are several coffeehouses along California Street and probably twice that amount (is twice "several" ~ "fourteeral"?) on Clement Street. As it is, I am just going willy-nilly (basically wherever my imagination will-nill take me) hither and thither (Hither Avenue is just west of Arguello Boulevard and Thither Street is just a few blocks north of Fulton Street). 

Luckily, Bazaar Café is located within walkable distance (well, about thirteen or double-several streets away from my place), so there wasn't too much willy-nilly, hithering-thithering going on. It is a normal-enough-sized coffeehouse place. There are several tables and chairs and a couch or two; plus, they have a backyard garden-patio area (for days ~ unlike this morning ~ when it ain't quite so foggy and overcast). They also have live music performing there a few nights a week.

I sat at a cool table with a Triceratops lamp. This was also just below a shelf of toys for kids to play with. (Okay, I did take down one of the Killer Whales and one of the Porpoises(?) and made them battle for the last bite of peach pie: Porpoise - 1, Killer Whale - 0. Ha!) And like La Promenade Café last week, they also have a bookshelf in one corner where there are books for sale at $5.00 each. This is also the same corner where they have shelves with several more toys for kids to play with and several board games for older-type kids to play with, too.

Their bathroom (W.C., loo, das Klo, etc.) door was a cunning linguist smörgåsbord (if cunning linguists ate buffets off bathroom doors, that is [which is pretty gross if you ask me, but I know many old 208's that are fond of saying that they "eat their dead"; so, there is that]) of information. I recognized several of the languages: "Toilettes" (Français); "Zu Den Toiletten" (Deutsch); "Caballeros" y "Damas" (Español); "Homens" e "Senhoras" (Português); and "Женски/(Zhenski)" и "Mушки/(Mushki)" (Српски, which they have on there twice). There are few others at which I can make an educated (well, Defense Language Institute-educated) guess for the specific languages: Arabic, Hebrew, Korean, and Thai. 

Like a lot of smaller coffeehouses, they have a minimal breakfast menu (my criteria for any of these places in this series is that they must have something to eat on their menus, be it just bagels or pastries), but there were a few other ideas that I could have chosen: Egg 'n' Bagel with Cheese (which, I assume, is just what it sounds like); Veggie Bagel (I didn't ask what that one included, but there is that odious "Veggie" moniker once again); and three different types of Vegetarian (which is how they specify them on the menu-board, not "Veggie", thankfully) Quiches: Artichoke Greek, Mushroom Chard, or "the Vile Weed" Cheddar (the first two of which sounded good, at least; what did poor ol' Cheddar ever do to be paired up with that one?!).

I chose a sesame bagel once again, because sesame and hummus are a great duo (much like little Robbie Zimmerman and J.R. Cash above); however, I forgot to ask from where they procured their bagels. This was a very good hummus. It had specks of green-stuff all throughout it; so, I had to ask if it was homemade (coffeehouse-made, whatever). The counter-lady person told me they get it from some place called Aunt Nettie's[2]. She told me that the verdancy was probably due to parsley and green onions in it. The hummus came in a small paper cup on the side so that you can put as much or as little (I went with "as much" and used the entire thing up, of course) as you like on the bagel halves. The peach pie was okay (good, but I've had better), and I really shoulda went with a piece of the cherry pie in the display counter; cherry pie is always the best, and I will almost invariably choose that one over most other pies.

When I asked what brand of Coffee they served, the counter-lady person said she didn't know exactly, but it was some kinda special blend of dark roast that the owner had come up with. So, for the sake of clarity, I am calling it Bazaar Café Dark Roast Blend. It was good and strong, and the best part of the breakfast, too.

Once again, I really didn't bother to ask what they may have had to offer for condimentary supplementation. So I just went with some of my own Fat Cat® Chairman Meow's Revenge (Scorpion Pepper Sauce) (Thanks, Greg & Cindy!) on one half of the bagel on top of some hummus.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Bagel w/ Hummus & Tomato  ~ 6.2 (I am giving them an extra 0.2 GBS points for the good hummus); peach pie ~ 6.3; Bazaar Café Dark Roast Blend ~ 6.9


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1. Which was really just a quick plug for this new-ish band that I enjoy:

2. A quick Google-search showed they are some kinda bakery place out of Santa Cruz (the city along the California Pacific Coast, not the more popular municipality in the archipelago of Cabo Verde in the Atlantic Ocean). I can only assume the peach pie was also from the same place.