"The one with the potato scramble with bluelake[sic][1] beans, roasted beets, grilled carrots, and havarti (and add[ed] eggs)."
Place: Ella's Neo Classical American Cooking
Location: 500 Presidio Avenue (on the corner of California Street)
Hours: open for breakfast Monday through Friday at 7:00am; open for "Brunch" Saturday and Sunday (and apparently on Monday holidays, too) at 8:30am
Meal: potato scramble ~ with Blue Lake beans, roasted beets, grilled carrots, and Havarti, and add(ed) eggs; and a glassa Ginger Orange Juice Punch
(Do I really need to explain today's EweToobular juxtaselection?
Well, fine. It is a well-known fact that Ms. Fitzgerald was a big fan of potato scrambles and roasted beets.)
In continuing with the September Workout of my Breakfastary Starting Rotation, I went back to Ella's Neo Classical American Cooking (see last 'blog-entry from April 12th, 2015) this morning. For some reason, I had it in my mind that they opened at 8:00am (yeah, I have only been going there for fifteen to twenty years now) and I arrived there around 8:15am expecting there to already be a long line around the corner. However, unlike a normal Saturday or Sunday "Brunch" crowd, they weren't that busy when I first got there (read: there were only six other idiots waiting with me when I got there fifteen minutes before they opened).
For stupid vegetarians, there really are only a limited number of other ideas from which to choose. I could have gone with any of the following: open faced omelette (with shredded beef, grilled onion, oven roasted tomatoes, rosemary, and Swiss cheese; of course, skipping the shredded dead, decaying bovine stuff); folded omelette (with grilled prawns, sautéed mushrooms, sun dried tomato, and sharp white Cheddar cheese; again, I would have skipped the grilled dead, decaying marine insects); or possibly, if I felt like going sweet instead of savoury, peach & blueberry oatmeal pancakes (3).
I reckon that I get the weekend special potato scramble about three-out-of-five visits, which is not a bad thing at all. Plus, that they offer a great breakfast ("Brunch", whatever) choice that highlights potatoes is one of the reasons I keep going back all these years, anyway. Because I have had the potato scramble so often, I am pretty sure that I have had a similar (if not the exact) combination of ingredients before. It really didn't matter, though, like Lady Ella, beets are one of my favourite underground fruits, and if it is available in a meal, it will usually be my choice. I thought that grilling the carrots was a nice touch, too.
For a change, as my toast/bread side choice, I went with one of their house baked (restaurant-baked, whatever) buttermilk biscuits. It was very good, too, like all the rest of their fresh-baked goods.
For condimentary supplementation, Ella's only has Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (both Original Red Sauce and Green [Jalapeño] Pepper Sauce). I just went with some of my own Lucky Dog Medium Fire-Roasted Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) on half of the pile and some Fat Cat Strawberry Serrano Hot Sauce (Thanks, Cindy & Greg!) on the other half of the pile. They also have their own homemade (restaurant-made, whatever) jam on all the tables; today's jam was a tasty strawberry one and I put it to good use on both halves of the buttermilk biscuit.
Another Breakfastary Dessert Sojourn to Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park
http://japaneseteagardensf.com/
Having finished breakfast ("Brunch", whatever) early enough, I decided I wanted to go to Golden Gate Park and walk around San Francisco Botanical Garden for a bit. As it was still early enough before all the weekend/holiday crowds hit the streets, I was able to find an available parking space just a block away along Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive. I happened to notice that the Japanese Tea Garden was open already for the morning (and because it was still before 10:00am, it is free to the public, which is always nice), so I headed over there first before going to San Francisco Botanical Garden. I was still a bit peckish (and didn't even need to curtail any of my Walpoing activities), so I figured I would hit the Tea House first for a little breakfastary dessert before walking around. I had me a cuppa their Hojicha[2] ("originated in Kyoto and is distinguished from other Japanese teas because it is roasted in a porcelain pot over charcoal, whereas, others are typically steamed. Bancha, a summer crop tea harvested after sencha, is fired at a high temperature, turning the leaves from green to brown. Hojicha has an earthy, nutty, slightly smoky flavor.") and some Kuzumochi ("House-made sweet rice cakes in assorted flavors"; six pieces, two each of: Green Tea, Strawberry, and Mango).
Glen Bacon Scale Rating: potato scramble ~ 6.9; Hojicha ~ 6.8; Kuzumochi (they were all good, but I liked the Mango the best) ~ 6.7; Japanese Tea Garden ~ 8.0
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1. Yeah, I had no idea what the heck they were supposed to be either. Actually they are called "Blue Lake (two words) beans". I was a little disappointed when they came out and they were just ordinary green beans with some fancy name. There really aren't enough blue
foods.
2. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day:
Surmising (and correctly, I am happy to state) that the "cha" part of "Hojicha" might mean "tea" in Japanese, I asked one of the server-person guys (after making sure he was actually Japanese) if this was the case. He told me that yes, this was the case.
Like yesterday's (à propos o' nuthin') stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer about "opera", the word for "tea" is pretty universal and derives from the Chinese word "茶" (which is pronounced as either "cha" or "tey", depending on the dialect/region). Not only is the word the same in Japanese, they use the exact same Chinese character for it: "茶" (the Japanese also have "お茶", which is pronounced "ocha").
I have even made a separate 'blog-entry specifically on tea (see 'blog-entry from June 18th, 2012).
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