Ashley's Cafe

Richmond (District) Coffeehouses ~ Part 12

http://www.ashleyscafe.com/


Place: ASHLEY'S CAFE
Location: 4454 California Street (on the corner of 7th Avenue)
Hours: open Monday - Friday at 6:00am, Saturday & Sunday at 7:00am
Meal: (the simply-enough named) Scramble ~ spinach/Pepper Jack/red onion/mushrooms w/ herb roasted potato medley; and a medium (which was actually rather large) cuppa America's Best Coffee Roasting Company, which was some kinda (ASHLEY'S CAFE) House Blend French Roast organic and fair trade stuff

http://www.ambestcoffee.com/


My original plan this morning was to go back to California Street and ratiocinatively work my way 
ever-westward through the neighborhood coffeehouses to continue with the Richmond (District) Coffeehouses series. The next coffeehouse along the way (after ★ The ★ Richfield; see 'blog-entry from two weeks prior) was to be 
Caffé [ sic ] del Sole; however, despite a sign in the door that stated "Open Every Day at 7:00am" (and it was well after 8:30am already when I got there), they were not open this morning. I simply skipped that one (for now) and instead went one more block down California Street to ASHLEY'S CAFE.

ASHLEY'S CAFE has ample seating with ten round tables for two; two (larger) square tables for two; two large tables for six; plus, outside (along both the California Street and 7th Avenue sidewalks), seven more tables for two-to-three people.

For a little neighborhood coffeehouse, ASHLEY'S CAFE has a pretty decent breakfast menu (other than just the usual bagels and pastries offerings). Some other ideas that I was looking at: (the also simply-enough named) Omelet (red onion/mushrooms/bell pepper/arugula/cream [ sic ] fraiche [ (aussi) sic ] on top w/ herb roasted potato medley); Robert's (sushi rice over two cage-free eggs/bacon or ham on the side; I would probably have asked for their herb roasted potato medley in place of the dead, decaying porcine bits); and they also offer three different (Breakfast) Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (but only one of which would make sense for stupid vegetarians: Classic Breakfast [Sharp Cheddar/Jack/cage-free egg]).

Pluses: It is not that often that a coffeehouse does a full breakfast menu (most of these places do not even have a real kitchen to them), so that they offer a few different egg dishes (with breakfast potatoes) is pretty interesting. This scramble-dish was made with fresh spinach and fresh mushrooms (impressively, of the Shiitake variety, not your plain ol' canned button mushroom type); and it was served in a mini cast iron skillet.

minor minuses: This did not include any red onions and if there was any Pepper Jack cheese in it, I could not discern it. Hopefully this was just a one-time oversight; but it was still two ingredients out of four (and that's almost half, Yogi) that were left out.

Major Minus: The "herb roasted potato medley" was extremely sparse (it was more of an "herb roasted potato two bar chord" if you ask me). There had to be just one small potato's worth (and from what I could tell, it was just one kind of potato). You can cheat me outta red onions and Pepper Jack cheese all you want, but please don't skimp on my potato breakfastary side.

The Coffee was very strong and pretty good (I have found that just because it's called "America's Best", doesn't always mean it is). My Coffee mug had a large "G" monogram on it, which led me to wondering whose Coffee I might be drinking by mistake.

For condimentary supplementation, ASHLEY'S CAFE offers both Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (Original Red Sauce) and Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce. I used some of my own Hot Licks Serrano Hot Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) on (what little there was of) the potatoes and some Marie Sharp's Grapefruit Pulp Habanero Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on the scrambled stuff.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Scramble ~ 6.1 
(I am giving this an extra 0.1 points for the mini cast iron skillet presentation and the addition of Shiitake, but I am deducting 0.2 for the missing ingredients and [especially] the paucity[1] of potatoes)

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1. This is not named after the town where the 
Boston Red Sox AAA affiliate plays.