la PanotiQ Bakery Café

"Say, was you ever bit by a dead bee?" ~ Eddie the Rummy (Walter Brennan), 
"To Have and Have Not"

(This quote has no bearing what-so-ever on the contents of today's breakfast. I just thought of it yesterday while doing the whole "honey" juxtaselections with that restaurant.)

http://lapanotiq.com/


Place: la PanotiQ[1] Bakery Café
Location: 2234 Chestnut Street (between Pierce and Avila Streets)
Hours: open every day of the week at 8:00am
Meal: Cretan Vegetable Tart, served with a small side salad; a side of Roasted (fingerling[2]) Potatoes; for a breakfastary dessert, Apple Tarte (Tartlette) Tatin[3]; and a cuppa (and one refilla) Bicycle Coffee co Medium Roast Guatemala 

http://bicyclecoffeeco.com/

(Happy 70th Birthday to Miss Linda Ronstadt! 
[Well, it was actually on Friday, but I missed it.]

She is neither French nor a baker, she just had such a great voice.)


I have been meaning to check out this "new" French-inspired bakery café mini-chain for a while now. They have only been open for about two years (?) locally now and the location in San Francisco's Marina District (which was my destination of choice this morning) has only been open since December 2014. I was reminded of this last week when I had mi desayuno over in Noe Valley and saw that there is a brand-new location getting ready to open on 24th Street, too. (The front-counter guy that took my order this morning told me that they were supposed to be opening either this week or next week. However, from what I saw last week, I don't think they'll be opening before August at earliest.)

Chestnut Street is the perfect location for a nice, new, neighborhoody French bakery. (I bet they will be trying to open up another location on Burlingame Avenue in Burlingame some day. I always call that street "Chestnut Street South".) This café is small-to-medium sized and has six tables for two to four persons inside and two sidewalk tables outside that look like they could seat two to three people comfortably... and a large dog or two (it's a well-known fact that if you live in the Marina, you must own either a Labrador Retriever ~ Yellow, Black, or, more commonly, Chocolate ~ or a Golden Retriever, which is what I saw waiting patiently outside while his human bought some pastries).

There aren't that many breakfast (which they unfortunately list as "Brunch" Options on their menu, but they open up plenty early enough for me to forgive that moniker) items from which to choose. However, there are still many great ideas from under their Sarriette (Savoury) section of the menu and from their baked goods/pastries (both savoury and sweet choices). A few other decent choices for stupid vegetarians (even if they are not from Greece or Crete): Mushroom Flan; Risotto Al Formaggio (I think I went to DLI with him); Ratatouille; or Polenta. There were several savoury pastries displayed in the counter-case and I could have made a nice meal out of any combination of these: Mushroom Tart; Vegetable Puff Pastry (they didn't comment as to the IQ of this dish); Onion Tart; or Emmental Bechamel Pastry. Additionally, there were many sweet pastries, too, a few of which that caught my eye this morning were: Apple, Raspberry, & Morello Crumble Tart; Bourdalouse Pear Tart; and something called Kouign-Amann[4] that I might need to check out next time that I visit them.

I think a more PC-term for this tart should be "Mentally-challenged Vegetable Tart", but the stupid vegetables included in it appeared to be red and yellow bell peppers, olives (but these were just the plain ol' black, pitted ones that come from a can; now this was very strange, as the side salad had a few Kalamata olives in it, which would have made for a much better option in the idiotic tart), zucchini, and white onions (there may have been one or two other foolish vegetables in it, but those were the only ones that I could specifically discern). The tart was made with an egg-base and some kinda cheese in it, too (I didn't ask, but I figure it was some sort of white, melty cheese... like Fontina or Emmental, perhaps, Mr. Wensleydale?).

I didn't even mind the side of silly rabbit food (the addition of the above-mentioned Kalamata olives was a big plus) for a change.

As is usual with me, the great find here was their version of roasted potatoes. These turned out to be made with fingerling potatoes and were really very good. (Just my luck, they were probably roasted in some kinda goose-fat or such.) The fingerling potatoes just made for a nice, creamy breakfast potato dish.

(Yeah, so, I took a bite outta this before my meal came. What's it to ya, big-nose?!)


Needless to say (but I am saying it anyway), the Apple Tarte (Tartlette) Tatin was very tasty. 

Whenever I am in the Marina, I would normally stop by Peet's Coffee & Tea® on Chestnut Street for a cuppa whatever is their special of the month or week, but I knew that la PanotiQ Bakery Café served 
Bicycle Coffee co exclusively as their house Coffee, so I waited until I had breakfast to get me a cuppa. Apparently, they rotate between a Light, Medium, or Dark roast as the standard drip version they serve.

As I knew that this joint was basically a bakery, I didn't bother to ask what they may have had to offer in the way of any condimentary supplements. I just used some (well, a good amount) of my own Pope's Whiskey River Hot Sauce (Thanks, Amy and Chef Joe!) on the potatoes and some (just a few drops really) Sunbelt Plantations Vidalia® Onion & Jalapeno[ sic ] Pepper Hot Sauce (Thanks, Greg & Cindy!) on the crazy vegetable thing.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: 
Cretan Vegetable Tart ~ 6.7;
Roasted (fingerling) Potatoes ~ 7.3;
Apple Tarte (Tartlette) Tatin ~ 6.8

___________________

1. I could not locate an actual corresponding word in French for either "panotiq" or "panotique". This may be just a completely made-uppery word that this bakery/café/restaurant mini-chain has come up with ("up with which they have come"?).

2. http://www.potatogoodness.com/all-about-potatoes/potato-types/#fingerling

3. If they are trying to maintain an air of Frenchiness about them, I don't know why they don't call this 
"Tarte (Tartlette) Tatin Pommes".

http://web.archive.org/web/20021121201746/http://www.tarte-tatin.com/

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kouign-amann