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"