★ the ★ Richfield

Richmond (District) Coffeehouses (redux)
~ Round 9b


"Cup of Coffee in the kitchen,
Fire up a little danger to my health..." 
~ Leonard Cohen, Feels So Good

(No official [or unofficial, even] web-site. Good luck trying to locate even a phonicular contact on the Intro-Net.)


Place: ★ the ★ Richfield
Location: 195 5th Avenue (on the triangulated corner at California and Cornwall Streets)
Hours: open Tuesday through Friday at 7:00am, Saturday and Sunday at 8:00am; closed Monday (or as best as I can figger from the available information on these here Intro-Nets)
Meal: Brekkie Sandwich ~ folded omelette, melted Cheddar cheese, crispy bacon (of course, I nixed this in deference to the memory of ol' Leo Normie Cohenberg), special house sauce, on King's Hawai'ian toast; a Maple Pecan[1] Scone (which they get from Devil's Teeth Baking Company); and a cuppa pourover-style Snowbird Coffee, Southpaw (a delicious blend of heirloom Burundi and Yirgaceffe)

http://www.devilsteethbakingcompany.com/

http://snowbirdcoffee.com/

(In Memoriam[2]: 
Leonard Norman Cohen, CC GOQ; 
21 September 1934 – 7 November 2016.

The second song provides a EweToobular two-fer. It is a cover of another ol' Lenny Cohen song and it reminds us of the ultimate demise and fall of the Berlin Wall from way back on November 9th, 1989.)


As it is Veterans[3] Day and, for a change, I actually scored a three-day weekend outta this Federal Holiday (even the Donald wouldn't dare take that away from us Vet'ran-types), I felt like making it a local, quick breakfast this morning and decided to (finally) make a return-trip visit back to ★ the ★ Richfield (which, while technically in my neighborhood, is still about thirty blocks away; see previous 'blog-entry from Saturday, October 17th, 2015). I really like this little (as in what you see in the above photo is about all you get) local coffeehouse. I have stopped by several times since my initial visit, but just for a cuppa (or grounded-up bagga for use at home); this was my first return visit for a meal to enjoy breakfastarily.

They really don't offer that many food items from which to choose (Did I mention how small the place is?), but the next time I go there for breakfast I will surely have to try the Avocado Toast ~ smashed avocado with bits of sweet pickle, spread over sourdough toast, drizzled with olive oil and fresh lemon, topped with shredded radish and seven spice pepper. 

For some reason, I was really expecting this to be served "open-faced" style like my last "Brekkie" (Don't you just hate these completely madeuppery words? Really, how hard it is to just say "Breakfastary"?!)) or like the Avocado Toast that I saw several other customers munching away on ("... on which I saw several other customers munching away"?; "... away on which I saw several other customers munching"?; whatever). However, I was pleasantly surprised that it came as a pickupable (which is a perfectly real word; trust me, I'm a lexicographer... well, I pretend to be one on TeeVee) meal. I also liked that they used thick-cut slices of King's Hawai'ian for the toast base. Their "special sauce" seemed to be okay ~ possibly a bit sweet; however, I really couldn't tell because some idiot had gone a bit heavy-handed with the hot sauce supplementation. It was all a bit messy, but that is not necessarily a bad thing (I ended up having to use six paper napkins in the process). I had to find out, "How do you make an omelette in a small space without a real stove?" The barista/kitchen-worker lady showed me how: in a frying skillet on a hotplate! So, apparently,  in a coffeehouse joint, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs and having a hotplate.

The scone-thing was very good, too. It was about the size of two normal scones, though. I had only ordered it because I expected the sandwich to be smaller.

I only saw bottles of Huy Fong Foods, Inc.® Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce to use as a condimentary supplement in the same spot where there were sugar (no thanks) and cream (no thanks, again) to use. Figuring (correctly) that there wouldn't be much variety (for what they offer on the food menu, it's not really necessary, anyway), I came prepared with a few hot sauces of my own and used some (wellll... a lot apparently) of my own Dixie Crossroads 
Hot Habañero [ sic ] Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) inside the omelette sandwich thing.

the Wild Parrots of San Francisco Interlude

There were no actual sightings, just hearings this morning. I decided to enjoy my "brekkie" outdoors 
("al freskkie"?) at one of the tables that they have set up on the sidewalk along Cornwall Street, and could hear a few (several?) of the colourful, noisy feather-brains somewhere down the street (possibly as far away as Arguello Street).


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: 
Brekkie Sandwich ~ 6.4;
Snowbird Coffee, Southpaw ~ 7.1;
Maple Pecan Scone ~ 6.6;
the Wild Parrots of San Francisco ~ 8.5

___________________

1. Like maple syrup, pecans are a completely 'merican (New World) food.

A pecan is technically the fruit (a drupe) of the tree; it is not botanically a nut. What we know as "nuts" are actually the edible seeds of the fruit.

Not necessarily a stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day:

Word Origin and History for pecan

n.
1712, paccan "the pecan tree," or a related hickory, from French pacane, from an Algonquian word meaning "nut" (cf. Cree pakan "hard-shelled nut," Ojibwa bagaan, Abenaki pagann, Fox /paka:ni/).

So the debate on how to pronounce it correctly in English (Northern 'mericanese, Southern 'mericanese, or Britishlanderese) will have to rage on:

"pee-CAN"; "PICK-an"; "pi-CAHN"; "wal-nut", whatever...

2. As best as I can deduce, Memoriam is a small neighborhood of Westmount, Quebec, Canadialand.

3. No apostrophe for me. I prefer it in its plurality (like the comradeship that it is) and non-possessive (it's not about one singular "Veteran", it's about all of them/us).