Grain D'or

Richmond (District) Coffeehouses; 
nummer/numéro enogtyve/vingt et un

http://usa.andersenbakery.com/index.html


Place: Grain D'or[1]
Location: 236 Clement Street (between 3rd and 4th Avenues)
Hours: open at 7:00am daily
Meal: Jalapeño Cheese Bread ~ roll with three cheeses and creamy jalapeño sauce; Cream Cheese Walnut ~ honey walnut brioche with sweet cream cheese topping; Mango-Coconut[2] Danish[3] ~ mango and coconut filling in a Danish; and a large cuppa Peerless Coffee & Tea® Italian Roast Classic

http://www.peerlesscoffee.com/product/all-coffee/italian-roast-classic/

Next up along Clement Street (still heading eastward) for a Richmond (District) Coffeehouses series visit was Grain D'or. This bakery is now part of the ever-growing Danish-owned Andersen Bakery/Group chain of bakeries/restaurants. I think it originally was a smaller locally-owned/Bay Area chain of French bakeries. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against chains (just as long as they aren't attached to shackles and tethered to slaves); 'merica has been built on chains. Well, at least it ain't part of St*rbucks... yet.

I was originally planning on going to Blue Danube Coffee House/Café (see previous 'blog-entry mentions from January 21st, 2012 and September 5th, 2011) this morning, but they have been closed now for a little over eight months (since mid-May 2015) due to "plumbing problems" (seems to me, someone needs to see a good café-proctologist). It does not look like they are about to reopen again any time soon (if at all) either. This just leaves Toy Boat Dessert Café (where you can expect more pictures of cool toys than my actual breakfast) and Cumaica Coffee remaining on Clement Street to visit.

This particular location of Grain D'or is very spacious and has eleven tables for two. They offer about fifteen different types of fresh-baked breads for sale as whole- or half-loaves, and they will slice the bread for you if asked; I saw a few people getting whole loaves sliced to take home with them (well, I suppose eating a whole loaf of bread in a bakery is a bit much).

There were only a few other possible breakfastary ideas: Pesto Cheese Bread (roll with basil pesto and Pizza cheese mix [I can only assume that "Pizza cheese mix" is Danish for "Mozzarella and/or Provolone"]) or International Cheese Bread (roll with Gruyère, Fontinella, Mozzarella, and Provolone cheeses [So it seems that "International" in Danish means "Swiss and Italian"]). They also offer a few different vegetarian sandwiches (if you happen to be "that type") that would be great for breakfast (along with one of their fresh-baked pastries or two, too): Vegetarian Feast (lettuce, sprouts, tomato, cucumber, fresh avocado, Provolone cheese, Dijon/mayonnaise) and Roasted Tomato Caprese & Avo (without looking at the menu, I bet that it has roasted tomatoes, Mozzarella, and possibly something called "avo"; however, I could not find a good Danish-to-English translation for that word).

All of these baked-goods items were very good and fresh. The Jalapeño Cheese Bread was even still warm (the counter-guy told me it was recently out of the oven and offered to toast it up a bit for me, but that was not necessary). I especially liked the Mango-Coconut Danish; it had loads of fresh, cubed mango on top (easily half a mango) ~ plus, there was one small sprig of fresh rosemary[4] on top that really added something a bit extra, but I can't quite put my finger (or tongue on it)[5].

Not that I really expected to be using any sort of condimentary supplementation on any of these fresh-baked items, but I did notice that Grain D'or has bottles of Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce if needed.

This may have seemed like a lot of bread/baked-products this morning, but you know what they say: "Man does not live on omelettes and potato side dishes alone."


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Jalapeño Cheese Bread ~ 6.5; Cream Cheese Walnut ~ 6.4; Mango-Coconut Danish ~ 7.4

___________________

1. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, nummer et/numéro un:

Unlike what some people may think (Okay, how was I to know that "Grain D'or" was not an opening to a silo. There was absolutely no reason for the guy at the cash register to laugh at me for asking. And it really didn't help any when I also asked "Grain or what, then?"), "Grain D'or" is simply French for "grain of gold".

"Grain of gold" in Danish is "korn af guld".

(I have no idea what "John Stewart" or "Stevie Nicks" translates as into either French or Danish, though.)

2. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, nummer to/nombre deux:

a) "Mango" = "mango" in Danish and "mangue" in French.
(Sometimes this linguistic stuff ain't Raketvidenskab.)

b) "Coconut" = "kokosnød" in Danish and "la noix de coco" in French.
(And sometimes it ain't even Opération du Cerveau.)

3. I can't seem to find a stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer on how to say "Danish" in either French or Danish, though.

4. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, nummer tree/numéro trois:

"Rosemary" = "rosmarin" in Danish and "romarin" in French.

5. Does anyone know how do you say: "Je ne sais quoi!" in Danish or French?

LaLe

Happy Raccoon Island Discovery Day!!!

http://www.lalesf.com/home.html


Place: LaLe[1]
Location: 731 Irving Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues)
Hours: Breakfast is served everyday [ sic ] between 8am and 3pm!
Meal: Athens (Egg Scrambler) ~ bell peppers, zucchini, mushrooms, & Feta cheese (I would just like to point out that they actually utilise the Oxford comma after mushrooms on their menu; well, I suppose, in this case, it is more of an Hellenic comma, but still), served with home style (restaurant-style, whatever) potatoes and homemade (restaurant-made, again, whatever) English muffin; a large(-ish) glassa fresh squeezed orange juice; and, afterward, a cuppa (pourover-style) Snowbird Coffee Myanmar Pyin Oo Lwin[2]

http://snowbirdcoffee.com/

(Their web-site really does need an update/upgrade, though.)

(Sorry, there are only just so many good The The videos to link.[3]

And, yes, that is [a much thinner] John Goodman [pre-Roseanne days] in the Talking Heads  video. I am not sure if that is the real Meatloaf or just a hamburger-helper look-alike, though.)


If ever I needed another Sixth Starter in my Breakfastary Starting Rotation, there is always LaLe (see previous 'blog-entry from February 1st, 2015 ~ almost exactly a year ago). Not only is it pretty easy to get to ("pretty easy in which to get..."?) because it is just across Golden Gate Park (where there are many free parking spots to be found still that early in the morning on weekends) in the Sunset, but the breakfast selections that they offer are many return trips-worthy. Plus, you really couldn't get more international than a Persian-named/Turkish-owned restaurant that serves a Greek-named scrambled egg dish prepared by Mexican cook-staff.

Return trips-worthy other ideas for breakfast: Toronto (Benediction; ham, grilled tomato, spinach; which I would have ordered without the dead, decaying pork bits, ya hoser); Mexico City (Scrambler; chorizo, green onions, mushrooms, guacamole, sour cream, cheese; again, I would have ochenta-y-seis-ed the descomposición salchicha de cerdo muerto); Napa (Scrambler; goat cheese, mushrooms, bacon [again with porcine stuff?!], bell peppers); or Istanbul (Scrambler; onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, cheese). 

Additionally, they had a "Brunch" special this weekend called Dutch Baby w/ caramelized apples, which was described to me as a large, single Dutch pancake. Now if I had seen this one before I had already placed my order, I may have gone with it (but I would also have had to order a side of house [restaurant, whatever] potatoes). I was also told that this dish takes about half-an-hour to prepare... so, maybe not.

I liked this scrambled egg dish a lot; however, if I were to have named it, I don't think that I would have named it "Athens". When I think of Athens (the original one in Greece, not the one in Georgia ~ I have never been to that city, but I kinda like the music), I think more along the lines of Feta, spinach, and Kalamata olives. (And even their Istanbul Scrambler is much more along the lines of μια αυθεντική χωριάτικη σαλάτα.)

Now I am not usually one to comment on (or commend) any of the plain ol' bready/toasty sides, but their homemade (restaurant-made, whatever) English muffin was truly exceptional (Mr. Thomas, please take note), too. I didn't really notice their homemade (restaurant-made, whatever) English muffin on my previous visit because I liked the beets, mushrooms, and lentil patty so much that it overshadowed (well, literally covered up) the English muffin base.

The only thing that I saw on all the tables in the way of (bottled/commercial) supplementary condimentation at LaLe was Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce. This was okay with me as I still have a few more bottles of my newest hot sauces to try (Thanks, Mom!) and used some Emperor's Revenge Teriyaki Hot Sauce on half of the potatoes and some Great Wall Wasabi Hot Sauce on the other half of the potatoes. ("Great Wall" and "Wasabi"?! Methinks someone has their Asian cultures mixed-up.)

Another great find about LaLe is that they have jars of their own homemade (restaurant-made, whatever) jams/preserves on the tables. Today they had an orange[4a] marmalade, quince[4b] preserves, and strawberry[4c] jam. I tried some of the orange 
marmalade on one half of the English muffin and some (well, a lot) of the quince preserves on the other half. When I first saw the quince preserves, I just assumed that it was a chunky apple-butter, but the very friendly and informative waitress/server-lady person told me that it was actually quince. Both of the ones that I tried were awesome. I liked the orange 
marmalade a bit more than the quince preserves, but I would highly recommend both to any and all. (And, strangely enough, there were no Coffee undertones to the orange marmalade.)

I had purposely (and purposefully) forewent any Coffee with breakfast because I had it in mind to head around the corner to Snowbird Coffee after breakfast. This is a great little neighborhoody (well, some would say "hipster" ~ just check out some of the yelp*-ified reviews) coffeehouse. They offer a few different roasts of their own in addition to a few other Coffees from around the country. The Coffee 
that I had today was done pourover-style and has this stated on the bags (which can be purchased for home use) at the counter: "A very earthy and herbal Coffee 
from the Shan State; toffee, orange, brown sugar". I don't know about any toffee or orange notes to it (and I never add sugar ~ white or brown ~ to my Coffee, anyway), but it was a very good cuppa. It was easily one of the better ones that I have had this year (well, even if this weren't only the month of January, I would probably still say that).

Raccoon Island Discovery Day Anniversary Strange Interlude

Some day I expect this date to go down in history along the lines of October 12th, 1492 (and, unlike Columbus Day, no indigenous Raccoons were harmed or kidnapped during the filming of this 'blog) and other great discoveries. Some day...

It was exactly two years ago today that I had first stumbled across Raccoon Island (well, not really "stumbled across the island", but I did stumble a bit on one of the tree branches sticking up on the other side of the shore).

At first I thought that I was going to have to celebrate this great occasion with just the fluffly-tailed rats and Steller's Jays in the surrounding trees, but, luckily, Rocky and a few of his brethren and sistren showed up to enjoy some (fresh/raw and already shelled ~ not roasted or salted) peanuts that someone was illegally feeding them.

By the way, both (that b*tch) Magill/Lil/Nancy and (that bastage) Dan were personae non gratae this morning (I am not sure of the whereabouts of Doc or Mr. Gideon either)...


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Athens (Scrambler) ~ 6.8 (I am giving this an extra 0.2 GBS points due to the homemade [restaurant-made, whatever] English muffins); orange marmalade and quince preserves ~ 7.5 and 7.3 (respectably); Snowbird Coffee Myanmar Pyin Oo Lwin ~ 7.7; Raccoon Island ~ 8.5

___________________

1. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, شماره یک - بهترین/bir numara:

As stated in the 'blog-entry of my initial visit to LaLe, the name of the restaurant comes from the Persian word for "tulip", which is "گل لاله" (pronounced something like "la-lay"). I was also informed by my waitress/server-lady person (who stated that she was from Turkey) that the Turkish word for "tulip" is also "lâle" (also pronounced something like "la-lay").

And at no extra charge:

"Tulip" in Greek is "τουλίπα" (pronounced: "tou-LEE-pa").
"Tulip" in Spanish is "tulipán" (pronounced: "la-lay").

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyin_Oo_Lwin

3. See last year's 'blog-entry to get any inkling to that joke.

4. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, شماره دو/iki numara/νούμερο δύο/número dos:

a) the words for "orange":
Persian = "پرتقال" (sorry, I have no pronunciations for any of these other Persian words because Google Translate does not have an audio translation for Persian for some reason)
Turkish = "portakal" (which is similar to the same word for "orange" in Arabic; I can only assume that the Persian word is somewhat similar in sound, too)
Greek = "πορτοκάλι" (pronounced" "porto-KAL-ee")
Spanish = "naranja" 

b) the words for "quince":
Persian = "درخت به"
Turkish = "ayva"
Greek = "κυδώνι" (pronounced: "key-THON-ee")
Spanish = "membrillo"

c) the words for "strawberry":
Persian = "توت فرنگی"
Turkish = "çilek" (pronounced: "CHIL-ek")
Greek = "φράουλα" (pronounced "FRA-oo-la")
Spanish = "fresa"

Cafe la Flore

Richmond (District) Coffeehouses; #20

What could be better?
Today is Haiku Day, plus...
Peanut Butter Day![1]

http://cafelaflore.com/


Place: Cafe la Flore 
Location: 1032 Clement Street (between 11th and 12th Avenues)
Hours: open Monday through Friday at 7:15am, Saturday and Sunday at 7:45am
Meal:  Veggie Breakfast Sandwich ~ egg, spinach, Provolone cheese, English muffin; a (grand) Chocolate croissant; and a cuppa (aussi, grande) 
Mr. Espresso® Neapolitan Espresso

http://mrespresso.com/

(Today's EweToobular juxtaselection is twofold [everyone knows that if you try folding a video three times, you end up with real mess of sound]: 1) they were playing a bunch of Spanish/Mexican songs this morning on the (Coffee)house stereo; and 2) in French "(la) flore" means "flora", hence, some kinda floral song in Spanish.)


Continuing along with my Richmond (District) Coffeehouses series, next up heading back eastward along Clement Street is Cafe la Flore (see previous 'blog-entry from December 22nd, 2012). If my calculations are correct, there are only about two to three more coffeehouses left to visit on Clement Street. Of course, this is not including any of the Chinese bakeries/doughnut shops/dim sum joints along Clement Street (of which there are easily ten to fifteen within the next ten blocks); maybe some day I will do a separate series on those.

At the coffeehouse this morning, I happened to run into a fellow New England Patriots fan (I was wearing my old-school baseball cap; you know, the one with the Patriots guy in the three-point stance) and he happened to notice it and mentioned it to me. He was also wearing a Boston Bruins tuque. He said he was from Vermont, but he had a strong (Olde) English accent (and I saw him eating his breakfast sandwich with a knife and fork).

Cafe la Flore is also now offering what they are calling Special "Fin De Semana[2] Breakfast" with three different choices: French Toast (with fruit melange, nube [ sic ][3] and crusted walnuts); Frittata "egg-cake" (beaten eggs, spinach, roasted red pepper, Black Forest ham, bacon, salsa la flore, avocado, goat cheese and toasted bread); and Vegetarian Frittata (beaten eggs, spinach, zucchini, squash, roasted red pepper, salsa la flore, avocado, goat cheese and toasted bread; for those that don't partake of the dead, decaying porcine bits). Without a "real" kitchen, I wonder how these items are actually prepared; you would normally need at least a salamander to prepare frittatas correctly.

The Chocolate croissant was extra large, even so, I finished eating it much before they had brought out the sandwich.

This was a decent breakfast sandwich. It had lots of fresh baby spinach under the scrambled (well, like most coffeehouses, there is no real oven/stove with which to cook food, so these were actually "nuked") eggs. The Provolone cheese was a nice change of pace from most Eggamuffin™-style sandwiches where they use either Cheddar cheese or that fake 'merican cheese-stuff. (For the record, I was also given a knife and fork with which to eat this, but I just ate it like a normal person would with my bare hands.)

I am not sure if there has been a change in ownership since my last visit (the guy working the front counter/register was definitely mexicano and not la dame française that had been there in the past), but the Coffee today was mucho/beaucoup better than my past few visits there. This could be due to a few factors: they may have changed the brand of Coffee they now serve (I have found that Mr. Espresso® can be pretty good when prepared correctly, or not if not); and the single cuppas are now all made via Méthode de Presse Française (this could be the major reason the cuppa was very strong and exceptionally good this morning).

For condimentary supplements, Cafe la Flore had both Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce and Montecito® Hot Sauce. I wanted to use another of my newest hot sauces and went with some 
Fan The Flames Sriracha Hot Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on top of the sandwich. This just leaves me with four more of the new ones to try out ("out which to try"?) over the next few weekends.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Veggie Breakfast Sandwich ~ 6.0; Chocolate croissant ~ 6.5; 
Mr. Espresso® Neapolitan Espresso ~ 7.2

___________________

1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/national-peanut-butter-day/

I suppose I could have gotten a bagel with peanut butter for breakfast this morning, but even I can "cook" that at home on my own.

Once again, I am little upset that another Peanut Butter Day has come and gone and I did not receive a single holiday card (or a Butterfinger®, at least).

2. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, número uno/numéro un:

"Fin de (la) semana" is simply Spanish for "end of the week". En français this would be: "fin de la semaine". 

This is another indicator to me that the place may no longer be owned by un expatrié français, and now may be owned by una familia mexicana.

3. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, número dos/nombre deux:

Yeah. I have absolutely no idea what that might mean in a culinaristic sense, but en español "(la) nube" means "cloud". 

Just for the heck of it, en français the word for "cloud" is "(le) nuage".

Olympic Flame Cafe

Breakfast on Geary (έφερε πίσω), Part 7B

(No official web-site.)


Place: Olympic Flame Cafe
Location: 555 Geary Street (on the corner of Allée Shannon/Shannon Alley/Shannon Street[1], take your pick); phonicular contact: (415) 885-0984
Hours: open daily at 6:00am
Meal: Spinach & Feta Cheese Omelette ~ 3 eggs, served with country potatoes or tomatoes & toast; and a cuppa (and one refilla) whatever the house (diner, whatever) Coffee was


This is the kinda local neighborhoody place that doesn't really serve any fancy-shmancy food, but people will always come back to it because it's just downright good food. Well, that was my reason for returning to Olympic Flame Cafe (see previous 'blog-entry from March 25th, 2012). It appeared that there were many regulars that frequent the joint as well as some touristas that have discovered it (it is only two blocks down the street from Union Square and most of the downtown hotel-district) and have made a return visit, too. I also like the fact that they open up bright and early every day.

As best as I can tell, the Head Cook and Bottle Washer (and possibly the owner?) is an old Greek guy named Louie. (Is "Λουιέ" even a Greek name?!). My waitress/server-lady person today was Sasha (I didn't ask where she was from, though). The way those two communicated with each other was like "The Louie and Sasha Comedy Hour". At one point while Sasha was taking an order from one of the other diners at the counter, Louie kept interrupting her and asking what the order was; Sasha replied to him: "I'm not psychic!" (which sounded to me almost like "I'm not sidekick!"). "Ποιος είναι στην Πρώτη;"?!

As its name would suggest, this omelette was made with lots of spinach and Feta. (My mantra is always: "Everything's betta with Feta!") As much as I like spinach, I wonder what this omelette might taste like made with χόρτα (Greek for "greens"; usually dandelion greens or such) instead. I went with sourdough for my toast choice. 

It looked like Olympic Flame Cafe only had Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce on all the tables for condimentary supplementation. That didn't really matter because I had received just yesterday (which, coincidentally enough, happened to be the birthday of Wilbur Lincoln Scoville[2]) a seven-bottle Fiery Fury Hot Sauce Set from my mother in Florida. I used a little Dragon's Lair Extra Hot Cayenne & Habanero Hot Sauce on the omelette and a bit more 
Dragon Breath Garlic Hot Sauce on the potatoes (Thanks, Mom, for both!). I liked the flavour of both of these. However, neither one of these were uncomfortably picante (maybe a bit more than Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce, Original Red Sauce); the Dragon's Lair being the hotter of the two due to the habanero chillies.

the Wild Parrots of San Francisco Interlude

After breakfast, I saw one pair of Wild Parrots flying overhead while walking down Geary Street towards Union Square. Of course, I heard them cackling long before I looked up and saw them.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Spinach & Feta Cheese Omelette ~ 6.0; the Wild Parrots of San Francisco ~ 8.5

___________________

1. I like to tell my niece, Shannon, that this street is named after her. I also like to tell my nephew, Cameron, that he also has a street named after him in San Francisco: "Dumas Street".

2. http://www.nndb.com/people/218/000101912/

Market & Rye

Do civil rights-minded Vegans have to celebrate Almond-MLK Day?

http://marketandrye.net/


Place: Market & Rye
Location: 300 De Haro[1] Street (on the corner of 16th Street)
Hours: open daily at 8:00am
Meal: Baked Eggs ~ charred tomato sauce, crispy polenta, kale, goat cheese, and basil pesto; a side of Breakfast Potatoes (homefries); and a cuppa (but just one refilla ~ I didn't wanna be up all day) Mr. Espresso® (don't know/didn't ask which blend/roast)

http://mrespresso.com/


It's not often that I get to do a three-fer breakfast weekend, but thanks to having today off (Thanks, Marty!), I had the chance to get back to Market & Rye (see previous 'blog-entry from February 16th, 2014). This is a great spot (if not a bit on "the other side of town"-ish; unfortunately, their West Portal location has been closed for about a year or so now; that was much easier to get to for me) in which to break one's fast. 

There are still a few more interesting-sounding dishes (for both those that partake of the dead, decaying animal flesh and stupid vegetarians ~ or civil rights-minded Vegans, too) that I do want to get back and try one of these days (of course, that probably means in another two years or so). If I had been in a "Sweet"-er mood this morning, this would have definitely been my choice: Custard Battered French Toast ~ house-made sweet dough bread, caramel pears, pomegranates, and spiced pear butter. Otherwise, my "Savoury" back-up plan was going to be Fall Veggie Benedict ~ poached eggs, roasted tomato, kale, roasted delicata squash[2], Hollandaise, pesto, Parmesan, and house-made English muffin.

Ha! It pays to eat locally sometimes (or, at least, it costs 20% less). Because it happened to be a Monday (Thanks again, Marty!), I got their 20% discount LOCAL LOVE. (I had to ask the counter-server guy if it still applied to me because I thought this might have been mislabeled and only applied to low-calorie dishes.) So that saved me about $3.00 right there (because of which, I am claiming the side o' potatoes were a freebie now).

If I did have one minor complaint (well, okay I do have one minor complaint) this morning, it would be that most of their tables are a bit too high (or, perhaps, their chairs are a bit too low). These all seemed about 3-6" too high (or the chairs were 3-6" too low). Maybe that is just 20% higher than non-local tables?!

I liked this dish a lot. So that makes three-for-three now there (and in Baseball terms, I think that is called "Batting .300"... or something like that). I would have rather had the polenta sticks on the side and not already sitting half-submerged in the red gravy; that way I could have used them to better advantage with which to sop up more of the tomato sauce (which was very tasty on its own and even had a little speziatura to it).

Since my visit there two years ago, they have changed their potatoes from fingerling to standard (white or red) potatoes, which is still okay with me, but I liked the originality of the fingerling choice. (Besides, these were a freebie today, anyway.)

After I had already finished eating, I saw that a guy at another table had ordered a side of Crispy Brussels (and coodoes to them as they even had this spelded kerrectly, unlike so many other restorants) Sprouts (lemon, Calabrian chili[3], and Parmesan). Had I known that I could order those as a breakfastary side, it would have been a forgone conclusion that I would have forewent the side of potatoes (as good as they were, I can normally get potato sides at most places for breakfast).

Knowing from my past two visits that Market & Rye has a pretty decent selection for condimentary supplementation, I didn't even bother bringing any of my own hot sauces with me this morning. They had less variety from which to choose than in the past, but there were still probably eight to ten different types. I used some La Victoria® Green Taco Sauce Mild on half of the potatoes and some El Yucateco® Hot Sauce Salsa Picante de Chile Habanero (the red version) on the other half of the potatoes.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Baked Eggs ~ 6.8

___________________

1. In case you were wondering just who the heck some of these streets are named after in San Francisco:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Haro

(I am not sure who 16th Street was named after, though. Maybe Joe Montana?)

2. Yeah, I had no idea what this was and had to look it up, too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delicata_squash

3. Also known as peperoncino (singular) or peperoncini (plural):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peperoncino

Cafe Golo ~ Boutique Cafe

http://cafegolo.com/

(Well, that should be their official web-site thing, but it does not appear to be working right now.)


Place: Cafe Golo ~ Boutique Cafe
Location: 1602 Lombard Street (at Gough Street); phonicular contact: (415) 673-4656
Hours: open daily at 8:00am
Meal: Golo Ranchero ~ corn tortillas topped with eggs, (black) beans, cheese, spicy salsa verde, served with sour cream and avocado (and some of their tasty tomato-corn salsa/relish thing); a side of Country Potatoes; and a cuppa (and two refillas) the house (restaurant-bakery, whatever) Coffee


Concluding the 2016 pre-Spring Training workout of my Breakfastary Starting Rotation, I finished up at 
Cafe Golo ~ Boutique Cafe (see previous 'blog-entry from September 20th, 2015) for breakfast.

There are still a few other ideas that I have yet to try for breakfast: Breakfast Tacos (3) (corn tortillas filled with egg, tomatoes, onions, peppers, and cheese; chicken, bacon, sausage, or ham can be added to this to ruin it; I may have to check this one out next visit... especially if they will allow me to have some of their extra-tasty salsa verde added to the tacos) or Grilled Seasonal Veggies Omelet (or Scramble) (I forgot to copy down what the specific ingredients in this one might be). Additionally, there is always Veggie Taters Scramble (Country Potatoes topped with sautéed onions, peppers, the vile weed [which I would have 86-ed, of course], artichokes, mushrooms, zucchini, and cheese) again; this was one of the first dishes that I had tried there and with which I was very impressed.

I went with my eggs "over medium" again this morning. I like that they have black beans in place of frijoles refritos típicos (don't get me wrong, I love pinto beans and frijoles refritos, I just like this black bean option even better). I wonder how this dish might taste with black-eyed peas, too. Their salsa verde is a real winner all on its ownsome. It isn't overly picante (well, I suppose it might be considered gringo-espicy), but it has mucho sabor.

There were no pastries/baked goods this morning due to some construction/updates to the bakery area. Jay stated that he wasn't sure that they would even be opening this morning; I was lucky that they did, as I had no back-up plan planned for this neighborhood. (Unfortunateley, I had it all planned in my mind's-eye ~ or eye's-mouth ~ to pick up a few pastries to enjoy later today while watching the NFL Playoffs. The Sweet Potato Tart is one of my favourites.) So I felt it necessary to get a side order of their excellent Country Potatoes. These are made with both standard (white/red/whatever) potatoes and sweet potatoes, which really makes all the difference. Even if they had any baked goods/pastries this morning, I may still have ordered a side dish of these. Of course, as it was, the main dish along with this side dish was quite an awful lot of food (but luckily not quite a lot of awful food), and I barely finished up all the potatoes. I did have to leave the last bite of Golo Ranchero untouched on my plate for the Food Gods. (You're welcome, Rachel and Emeril!)

I didn't bother checking out what they might have today for condimentary supplements. I wouldn't have wanted to mess with the flavour of the salsa verde, anyway. I did use a good amount of my own Palo Alto Firefighters Pepper Sauce (Thanks agains, Amys and Brian!) on the Country Potatoes. I wish that this local hot sauce was offered ubiquitously at more local restaurants. It is just that good, and it pairs well with most every potato dish. (Okay, I have been known to use it on some dessert dishes, too. Hey! Don't knock it until you have tried it on top of some dulche de leche or ginger Ice Cream.)

http://paloaltofirefighters.com/


(Yet still another) Grits update: I spoke with Jay just before leaving and he stated that they should still be on schedule to open this year (finally) in late March or early April.

the Wild Parrots of San Francisco Interlude

While driving home after breakfast south along Gough Street, I happened to hear (even over my car stereo blaring, the caterwauling of these noisy little birds can be heard) a small pandemonium of the Wild Parrots. This was right at Lafeyette Park[1]. I can only assume that they now have an established roost in the treetops of this city park, too.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Golo Ranchero ~ 7.2; Salsa Verde ~ 7.4; Palo Alto Firefighters Pepper Sauce ~ 7.5; the Wild Parrots of San Francisco ~ 8.5

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1. http://sfrecpark.org/destination/lafayette-park/

Eats

(Still no official web-site thing.)


Place: Eats
Location: 50 Clement Street (on the corner of 2nd Avenue); phonicular contact: (415) 751-8000
Hours: open every day of the week at 8:00am
Meal: Divorced Eggs ~ sunny up eggs with half red sauce (salsa roja) and tomatillo sauce (salsa tomatillo), ricotta salata[1], black beans with pepper Jack cheese, grilled tortillas, and roasted potatoes (well, more specifically: Excellent! Roasted Home Potatoes); and a cuppa (with only one refilla this morning ~ they were pretty busy and I didn't want to be "that guy" that lingers around drinking more Coffee while there are many other poor schmucks[2] standing outside in the rain waiting to get inside to eat) House (Blend/Roast) Equator Coffees & Teas™

http://www.equatorcoffees.com/

(There are really no EweToobular juxtaselections [of which I am familiar, at least] between Eats, Annie Lennox, or Casper the Friendly Ghost; I just heard this song on the radio on the way home from the restaurant and decided to share it.

I also went with Annie's version of this song because ever since Procol Harum decided to become an Islamic extremist group based in northeastern Nigeria, and announced their allegiance with them-thar bastages of Da'ish, I have boycotted their music. 

I wonder why Annie borrowed Nastassja Kinski's costume from "The Hotel New Hampshire" for this video.)


Finishing up with the last few restaurants in my Breakfastary Starting Rotation for a 2016 pre-Spring Training workout, I went back to Eats (see previous 'blog-entry from September 13th, 2015) for breakfast.

Since my last visit, they have remodeled a bit inside. Gone are both counter-table areas: the one that was overlooking the kitchen area and the one which was along the window looking onto Clement Street. These have mostly been replaced with regular old table seating. Luckily, they did re-purpose the old large wooden slab that had served as the window-counter into a bench for the tables along the window now. The end-result seems to be that there are fewer (less?) seats now and the wait may be a bit longer for those poor schmucks that hadn't arrived promptly at 8:00am (come rain or shine). Unfortunately, also 86-ed is the cool Coca-Cola® bottles sculpture/hat-hanger thing that was above the kitchen-window.

Along with the structural remodeling, there has been a menu remodeling, too. There are several new items on the menu (meaning several old items have now been omitted or re-named). This might prove to be a good thing because I had pretty much worked my way through the old menu for those items that were suitable for stupid vegetarians. My breakfast choice this morning was one of the new options. Luckily, they do still offer their most Excellent! Roasted Home Potatoes (otherwise, this may be grounds for divorce from my Breakfastary Starting Rotation).

I suppose the best way to describe this would be kinda like a Mexican take on an Eggs Benedict dish (Huevos Benedicto?), where the Hollandaise sauce is replaced by two different salsas (roja y tomatillo), Mr. Thomas' poor excuse for British-style muffins is replaced with corn tortillas, and the poached eggs are now "sunny up eggs" (which I think is mexicano for "sunny-side up eggs"). Okay, on further review, maybe it isn't anything like Eggs Benedict, Arnold. I liked both of the salsas, but I preferred the roja just a bit more than the tomatillo. 

There was just one (large, though) clove of garlic in with the Excellent! Roasted Home Potatoes. This is no reason to panic, though. It was still very good. 

Eats also has updated the choices for their condimentary supplementation. Along with the San Francisco Triumvirate of Hot Sauces (Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce [Original Red Sauce], Cholula® Hot Sauce [Original], and Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce), they now offer three different types of El Yucateco®: Hot Sauce Salsa Picante de Chile Habanero (una roja y una verde) and XXXtra Hot Sauce Salsa Kutbil-ik® de Chile Habanero (which is one that I also currently have in my hot sauce collection). Not really wanting to mess any with the flavour of the salsas already provided on top of the eggs that had legally dissolved their marriage, I just used some of my own Florida Gold Premium Habanero Hot Sauce (Thanks, Kerry!) liberatedly all over the Excellent! Roasted Home Potatoes. However, I did not notice on any of the tables the really tasty ketchup (the "Sun Dried Tomato Ketchup" from Traina™ Foods) from my last visit.

Alas, it's always the kids' stomachs that suffer the most during an egg divorce...


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Huevos Divorciados ~ 6.5; Excellent! Roasted Home Potatoes ~ 7.5

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1. I had already explained this cheesy comestible in my previous visit's 'blog-entry to Eats. So, you can look it up yerdamnself if you don't feel like re-reading my description.

Or, better yet, just check it out at:

http://www.cheese.com/ricotta-salata/

(It tickles me to no end that there is an actual "Cheese.com" on the World Wild Webs.)

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

Once again, whenever I need a Yiddish-to-English explanation/translation, I turn to the paradigmatic lexicon in this genre (Are there really any others?): 
The Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten.

shmuck* 

Rhymes with "stuck". From German, in some way or other, where Schmuck is "an ornament", "jewelry"; shmuck is "neat", "smart", and schmücken means "to decorate". In Yiddish, shmock means an "ornament".

1. (Obscene) Penis.

Never utter shmuck lightly, or in the presence of women and children. Indeed, it was uneasiness about shmuck that led to the truncated euphemism shmo - and any shmo knows what shmo comes from.
Jews tend to be puritanical about public references to the pubic.
I never heard any elders, certainly not my father or mother, use shmuck, which was regarded as so vulgar as to be taboo. But vulgarity has its raison d'être.

2. (Obscene) A dope, a jerk, a boob; a clumsy, bumbling fellow.

In this sense, shmuck, like its English equivalent, is widely used by males, and with gusto; few impolite words express comparable contempt. "What a shmuck I was to believe him!" "That shmuck fell for the stupidest trick you ever saw."

3. (Obscene) A detestable fellow; a son of a bitch.

I suppose that in every language the word for the male organ has been enlisted in the service of the contumelious.
NOTE: There is a Slovene word, šmok, that also means a fool, an innocent, a gullible dolt - but I have it on the authority of Dr. Shlomo Noble of the YIVO Institute that šmok came from shmuck, and not the other way around.

*(Of course, I prefer die deutsche spelling of "Schmuck". The first time I ever saw a large sign hanging over a jewelry store window along the Kurfürstendamm in [what was then still West] Berlin, I automatically assumed it must be a brothel†.)

†(And there is absolutely no truth to the old adage: "Too many hookers spoil the brothel.")