Café ENCHANTE

Richmond (District) Coffeehouses ~ Deuxième Partie

(et aussi Breakfast on Geary [redux], Vingtième Partie)

(No official web-site.)


Place: Café ENCHANTE[1]
Location: 6157 Geary Boulevard (on the corner of 26th Avenue); phonicular contact: (415) 500-3345
Hours: open Monday through Friday at 6:00am, Saturday and Sunday at 7:00am
Meal: Hummus Veggie Bagel ~ hummus, cucumbers, and sprouts; for breakfastary dessert, three (drei) mini-strudel (Mini-Strudel): Chocolate (Schokolade), Apple (Apfel), and (und) Raspberry (Himbeere); and a cuppa La Colombe Torrefaction Pacific Blend, Dark Roast

http://www.lacolombe.com/

(What other EweToobular juxtaselection would you expect to go avec un café français 'blog-entry?)


Today seemed like another good excuse to add to the Richmond (District) Coffeehouses Series, as I have some friends in town from Chania (the one in Crete, not the more famous one in Arkansas) and didn't have a lot of time to waste on breakfast this morning, because we had a full day of tourista activities planned. (Hey, Ed and Janan!) The next closest coffeehouse to my apartment happens to be Café ENCHANTE (at only six blocks away ~ downhill, but which seems more like ten blocks away back uphill) and I figured I should check them out for breakfast and not just their Coffee (see previous 'blog-entry from May 7th, 2012) for a change.

This place is pretty large(-ish) for just a nebby coffeehouse, and it is about one-and-a half times the size of one of your normal St*rbucks dives. There are lots of tables at which to sit and several couches and comfy chairs in which to lounge (and steal free Wi-Fi if you want, too).

There are French/Paris street scenes painted on some of the walls (and that is a working clock, by the way; at first, I just thought it was part of the wall painting, but then I noticed that it was keeping the correct time). Plus, there is an actual working fountain (well, it wasn't turned on yet for the morning) indoors.

There is a (newer) sister coffeehouse (which is also in my neighborhood) called La Promenade Café (which does have its own official web-site) that I will be 'blog-entering about in the future (tomorrow, perhaps).

http://www.lapromenadecafe.com/

There were several other bagel-type ideas from which to choose: Le Mediterranean Bagel (cream cheese, tomato, and avocado; however, if you ask me, none of those ingredients are remotely of "Mediterranean" origin in the least); Veggie Breakfast Bagel (egg, cheese, and tomato); Le Jardin[2] Bagel (cream cheese, onion, tomato, sprouts, and garlic); Enchante Bagel (cream cheese, turkey, green apple, and cranberry sauce; which I would have ordered sans les galliformes morts en décompostition).

(Do not adjust your computer sets; this photo is not out of focus. I just used the French Impressionist setting on my camera to get the whole frenchified atmosphere experience.)


I went with a sesame (sésame) bagel for the basis of the sandwich; they had several other types from which to choose, but I figured hummus and sesame are always a good combination. There really isn't much to say about this one, it was a sesame bagel sandwich with hummus, cucumber slices, and sprouts in it ~ so it was pretty much what I had expected. I don't know if their hummus was homemade (coffeehouse-made, whatever), but it wasn't nearly as good as the stuff at Simple Pleasures Cafe (see previous 'blog-entry from March 15th, 2010), which I know is homemade (coffeehouse-made, whatever). I don't know why they don't just call it "Hummus-Cucumber-Sprouts Bagel"; this whole "Veggie" moniker has always bugged me.

Of the three mini-strudels, I liked the Raspberry best. I think that if they had been heated, it would have been a little better, too. 

Once again, I really didn't bother to ask what Café ENCHANTE had to offer in the way of condimentary supplementation. I just went with some of my own 
Hot Licks Serrano Hot Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) on one half of the bagel sandwich thing.

For their Coffee selection, they also offer a Light Roast, a Medium Roast, a Hazelnut, and a French Vanilla (and a decaf, but we don't really need to speak about that), which they have ready to dispense at several large thermos things in the front. They don't offer free refillas, but at only 85¢ a refilla, that is still a pretty good deal (and I really didn't need a refilla this morning, anyway). If I hadn't just bought a new bag of Coffee last weekend already at the last coffeehouse joint, I might have picked up one of the bags (12oz?) that they sell at the front counter.

♪ "I can't get no… Torrefaction!" ♪


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Hummus Veggie Bagel ~ 6.0; Strudel (cumulatively) ~ 6.4; La Colombe Torrefaction Pacific Blend, Dark Roast ~ 6.7


________________

1. As was pointed out in the previous 'blog-entry, for some reason they have no problem avec cet accent aigu on "Café", but they don't want to acknowledge it on "ENCHANTÉ".

2. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day:

This is not named after one of the founding members of the Beach Boys. "Jardin" in French simply means "garden", Al.