STRAW ~ Carnival Fare

"Welcome back, my friends, to the 'Brunch' that never ends..."

http://www.strawsf.com/


Place: STRAW ~ Carnival Fare
Location: 203 Octavia Boulevard (near the corner of Page Street)
Hours: "Brunch" is featured under the Big Top Saturday & Sunday at 10:00am
Meal: Huevos Rancheros ~ two fried eggs, chili-tomato ranchero sauce, refried beans, flour tortillas with melted Cheddar & Jack cheeses, cilantro-avocado mousse, and home fries; a glassa Strawberry-Basil Lemonade; and, beforehand, a cuppa Ritual Coffee ~ Kochere-Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia 

https://www.ritualroasters.com/

(Just be glad that I didn't feel like linking the entire 29:37 version of the first song.)


Seeing as it has been well over a year since I last checked out STRAW ~ Carnival Fare (see last 
'blog-entry from Saturday, July 11th, 2015), I figured a return engagement was in order. Other than opening kinda late-ish for my tastes (and for what they call "Brunch"), I really like this place.

There really isn't a lot of stuff on their menu for stupid vegetarians and I think that I have now had all the breakfastary ("Brunch-ary", whatever) dishes that I can have there. I suppose that I can always re-try some of the dishes that I have had in the past (some of these stretch back to over five years ago, anyway). Otherwise, they do have two salads on the "Brunch" menu that sound pretty good if you are in the mood for that sorta thing: Kale Caesar (dino kale, shaved Parmesan, garlic croutons, house Caesar; I would have to make sure that their version of Caesar dressing does not include any small, dead, decaying piscine junk) or 
Beet (roasted beets, mixed greens, goat cheese crumbles, candied walnuts, honey Dijon vinaigrette, garlic crostini; if you lay [or place] a poached egg on toppa this one that might just be perfect).

It seems that they no longer offer either Spinach Benedict or Spinach Omelette like they used to. They are always tweaking/changing the menu. Of course, by the next time I visit (probably sometime in 2017?), they may be offering these once again.

This is exactly how I like my Huevos Rancheros: with a fried egg on top of two corn tortillas that have frijoles refritos and cheese between them and it is all smothered in a nice ranchero salsa... and their version of salsa ranchera was muy buena ~ I would rate it a 7.5 on the Glen Bacon Scale on its own merits (but there really isn't much "merit" in eating just ranchero salsa for desayuno now is there?). The avocado mousse thing was pretty tasty, too.

The Strawberry-Basil Lemonade was a bit too sweet for me at first this morning; so as soon as I had room in the (Mason jar) glass, I cut it with some water and kept doing so until I got it to where I liked it (it was probably a 50-50 mixture by then). There was an entire basil leaf floating on top of the glass/jar and I made sure to mull it up good, Martin.

STRAW ~ Carnival Fare only has Crystal® 
Louisiana's Pure Hot Sauce on the tables for condimentary supplementation. I used some of my own Hot Links Serrano Hot Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) on the potatoes. No way was I going to mess with their excellent ranchero salsa in any way.

Just as a point of contention, I made sure to enjoy some of my Coffee in front of the coffeehouse that had sponsored the stupid (3-car length) parklet (which is also half-way in front of the restaurant) while waiting for STRAW ~ Carnival Fare to open for the morning.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: 
Huevos Rancheros ~ 7.0;
Strawberry-Basil Lemonade ~ 6.9 (once I had adjusted the sweetness level);
Ritual Coffee ~ Kochere-Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia ~ 6.6