the Grind Cafe

http://www.thegrindcafe.com/


Place: the Grind Cafe
Location: 783 Haight Street (near the corner of Scott Street)
Hours: open 7:00am every day of the week
Meal: Breakfast Burrito ~ flour tortilla filled with scrambled eggs, Cheddar, avocado, salsa, sour cream, & choice of ham, bacon, or sausage (substitute for vegetarian sausage), comes with a choice of hash browns or home fries (they have both "hashbrowns" and "homefries" as two words, I prefer the compounded-words); and a 16 oz cuppa the house Coffee (they don't offer free refillas, but you can get a refilla for only another 50¢; I didn't feel the need for any additional Coffee this morning, though)

(What do Tom Russell EweToobular songs have to do with either "Grind", "Cafe", or "burritos"? Well, nuthin', really. You will need to read along to the bottom and see footnote "[3]" and judge for yerdammself.

"But why also three songs this morning, Brian?" ~ because, dammit! 

[Actually, I added the third video because it has two of my favourite Western/Folk singers dueting together.])


I went back to the Grind Cafe (see last 'blog-entry from August 30th, 2014) again for breakfast this morning. I like that they open up early every morning. I sat inside this morning. It was actually nice enough to sit outside on their sidewalk patio café area again; however, there was a swarm of those pesty gnats/black flies (you know, the kind that just seem to like to fly around aimlessly in circles).

I also like that they offer a pretty nice breakfastary menu from which to choose. Some of the other ideas that I was thinking on: Acropolis (Omelet) (artichoke, tomato, olives, spinach, & Feta); Lower Haight (Omelet) (chicken apple sausage [which I am sure I could have had substituted for the vegetarian sausage], spinach, sun-dried tomato, & Feta); or Hash Brown Hill (a mound of home fries or hash browns covered with melted Cheddar & topped with sour cream, black olives, avocado & green onion).

I thought it was pretty funny that the counter-server-guy was actually drinking a cuppa that St*rbucks swill. That would be like working at that fine dining establishment Chipotle Mexican Grill[1] and bringing a Taco Bell burrito for your lunch. When one of his co-workers arrived a few minutes later, she also called him out on it. Their own Coffee is really much better, anyway.

I liked that the burrito was grilled and it had lots of fresh, sliced avocado (at least half of an avocado) and possibly two full vegetarian sausage patties inside, too. If I am any judge of horseflesh (well, vegetarian-horseflesh), I am pretty sure that they use MorningStar Farms®-brand sausage patties.

https://www.morningstarfarms.com/products/morningstar-farms-original-sausage-patties-product.html

Luckily, they went lightly with the sour cream. I like it well enough, but many places go way overboard with its usage. Besides, I like crema[2] mexicana better with my burritos.

I really like a place that gives you a choice of side potatoes. I went with the homefries this morning. Their version of homefries are very good: made with green onions, green and yellow bell peppers, spices, and fresh herbs (I know that there was rosemary in there, but I think there may have also been some cilantro ~ or some other kinda green leaf herb thing). Now if they just offered this with the potatoes already inside the flour tortilla along with all of the other ingredients, that would truly have made it "the whole enchilada" (well, "whole burrito", but "whole burrito" isn't a real saying); plus, that way, I could have ordered this with a side of hashbrowns, too!

For condimentary supplementation, the Grind Cafe has Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (Original Red Sauce), Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce, and Huy Fong Foods, Inc. Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce[3]. Once again in an effort to try to use up the oldest of my hot sauce collection first, I used some of my own 
Fat Cat Chairman Meow's Revenge (Scorpion Pepper Sauce) (Thanks, Greg & Cindy!) on the potatoes and some Florida Gold Premium Habanero Hot Sauce (Thanks, Kerry!) on top of the burrito (which came in handy as they had gone kinda lightly with their own salsa inside the burrito). 


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: 
Breakfast Burrito ~ 6.5 (I probably would have rated this 6.9 or higher with the homefries already incorporated inside); 
home fries (or homefries) ~ 6.8

___________________

1. There is no truth to the rumour that Chipotle Mexican Grill is changing their corporate motto to "We serve killer burritos... literally!".

2. Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-culinaristic pointer of the day:

"Crema" in Spanish simply means "cream". However, when they reference it used in burritos, tacos, nachos, etceteros, it is a form of sour cream, similar to crème fraîche. Mexican crema is much better than plain ol' 'merican sour cream if you ask me (even if you don't ask me: my 'blog ~ my 'rules).

For a better explanation, let's check out what one of my favourite food resources, Cheese.com, has to say:

http://www.cheese.com/crema-agria/

3. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Say it ain't so, Joe (Tom, whatever)!

I can not confirm that this jingle-berry anthem is actually sung by the great Texas troubadour (by way of Los Ångeles), Tom Russell, but it sounds a lot like him. (Hopefully) it is probably just a sound-alike* wannabe, and if it is, ol' Tom should do a little suing, boy!

*(You know what they say: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flatulence.")