Bread and Cocoa

Man does not live on bread alone... sometimes he needs a good bit o' Chocolate with it, too.

http://www.breadandcocoa.com/


Place: Bread and Cocoa
Location: 199 Sutter Street (on the corner of Kearny Street)
Hours: open Monday - Friday at 6:30am; and Saturday - Sunday at 8:00am
Meal: Haight[1] Sandwich (which would cover the "Bread" part of their name) ~ two eggs, sautéed mushrooms, spinach, & white Cheddar, served on toasted focaccia[1] or multigrain bread; and a large (16oz.) cuppa (more like a small bowla) Rich Hot Chocolate ~ prepared using our signature dark Chocolate ganache[1] (which covered the other part of their name) 

(There were really only a few good choices that I could come up with for the first part of the restaurant's name for a EweToobular juxtaselection. As for the second part of the name, does anyone really need to hear Tay Zonday[1] ever again?)


When you can hear your stomach wamble[1] over the normal cacophony of a noisy, crowded municipal bus, it's always best to head straight to your dining destination. My wambling destination (via the normal cacophonous din of MUNI Line 38) this morning happened to be Bread and Cocoa. It was a pretty busy little place first thing on a Saturday morning (mostly because there really isn't much else in the area that opens that early for any sort of breakfast stuff ~ St*rbucks and the like don't really count). There was lots of indoor seating; plus, there were three round tables on the Sutter Street sidewalk that could accommodate two to three people (two much more comfortably).

The breakfast fare that is offered on their menu is really pretty decent for "A Natural Café" (the actual wording on their signage). Some of the other "natural" ideas that I was looking at: Sonoma Sandwich (two eggs, slow roasted tomato, applewood[1] smoked bacon, Tillamook Cheddar; which I would have ordered without the dead, decaying porky bits, of course); Toscana Sandwich (two eggs, Italian sausage, roasted tomato, caramelized onions, Provolone cheese; ditto on the putrid porcine stuff); or Breakfast Frittata (egg, Fontina[1] cheese, asparagus, leeks, and shiitake mushrooms; served with fresh fruit or Cajun Potatoes and toast; I would have gone with this choice normally, but I wanted to keep to the "Bread" and "Cocoa" theme as best as possible).

(I think they were attempting one of those fancy-schmancy foamed milk designs there.)


This had to be much larger than the 16oz cuppa they say it was supposed to be. It was all very tasty, too.

I also happened to notice that the Coffee brand that they serve was Mr. Esppresso®, which I have had many times before and know to be a decent local roastery.

I liked my choice of multigrain bread for this sandwich. I probably would have gone with Focaccia as my preference if I had ordered either the Sonoma Sandwich or Toscana Sandwich, as that probably would have paired much better with those ingredients. This was much better than any pedestrian breakfastary sandwich that you might get at Ronald's Rainbow Room. It wasn't an awful lot of food, though, and I probably shoulda ordered a side of the Cajun Potatoes, too (besides, potatoes are always great with every breakfast).

For condimentary supplementation, Bread and Cocoa offered Tabasco® Brand Hot Sauce (both Original Red Sauce and Green Jalapeño Sauce). I used some of my own Lucky Dog Medium Fire-Roasted Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) on the sandwich. I figured the hot Chocolate was fine on its own (but, maybe, if I had just had some chipotle hot sauce with me…)

I will have to get back there again one of these days for the Breakfast Frittata. Plus, this place deserves checking out for lunch some day, too.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Haight Sandwich ~ 6.3; Rich Hot Chocolate ~ 6.6


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1. All of these are common, everyday words that are seemingly unrecognized by Wild Bill Gates and his troupe of Braunhemden Spell-checkering Nazi-boys at Microsoft.