Toast Eatery

http://toasteateryonpolk.com/

(Sorry. You can basically ignore this web-site. It's not really functional. I am just linking it for the address and phonicular information.)


Place: Toast Eatery
Location: 160 West Portal Avenue (between Vicente Street and 14th Avenue)
Hours: open at 7:00am every day of the week
Meal: Hash Brown Hill ~ mound of hash browns (which they have as two words, but I like as oneword) topped with melted Cheddar, sour cream, avocado, and green onions, with one over-medium egg added; and a cuppa (and one refilla) Carville Coffee Co. Bernie's Blend

http://www.carvillecoffeesf.com/

(Yeah, don't bother checking out this web-site none neither. It's about as useless as the one for the restaurant above.)

http://www.nakedbarbies.com/mp3/Everybody.mp3 

(There is no EweToobular juxtaselection [That I am aware of ("Of which I am aware...", whatever)] between today's destination and Naked [or clothed] Barbies[1] or Vagabond Lovers[2]. I just was thinking about this local 90's-early 2000's San Francisco/Oakland-based band and wanted to share some of their songs. 

There really was not a large amount of songs on the Intro-Net from which to choose and I hope these will suffice.[3] Please be sure to click on the third link there; it's not a video, just an MP3 link to a cool cover of an old R.E.M. song.

I do not know why these guys never made it bigger. Patty Spiglanin had/has an awesome voice. I can only assume their management/promotion team might have been a little crummy.)


I wanted to check out the newest Toast Eatery 
location (see last 'blog-entry from Thursday, November 11th, 2015) and it's always fun going over to West Portal for the mornings. (Well, normally it is, when it is not raining, because I can walk up and down the street window-shopping and such.) This is the newest of the four locations that they have in San Francisco; I think this spot has only been open since May 2015. It is in the location that used to house The Village Grill (see previous 'blog-entry from Saturday, October 30th, 2010). There always seems to be open space along West Portal Avenue for new and good breakfast joints.

I checked with (read: "bugged the heck outta") my friendly waitress/server lady-person, and she informed me that this restaurant is owned by the same people (two brothers, apparently) that operate the other three locations in San Francisco. This newest location was just designed to be a bit more on the upscaley side. However, one minus is that there is no Sirron Norris artwork to be found anywhere. (What-the-fork, over?! His artwork is displayed prominently in all three of the other locations. I mean, without Sirron Norris, there is no "Toasty" mascot!) And, for some reason, the two Noe Valley locations have a separate (and operational) web-site from this restaurant and the Polk Street restaurant.

Seating/space-wise it is about medium: there are twelve tables for two; four tables for four; and six stools at the old diner-counter area.

Their breakfast menu is pretty decent with several good choices for stupid vegetarians and meatetarians alike. Some of the other ideas that I was looking at were: Wet Veggie Burrito (flour tortilla filled with scrambled eggs, grilled veggies [Uggh!], black beans, Cheddar cheese, and sour cream, topped with salsa ranchera and avocado, served with hash browns); California Scrambler (egg whites, tomato, fresh basil, avocado, and Cheddar); Chilaquiles (house made [well, restaurant-made] tortilla chips in tomatillo sauce with 2 eggs any style, topped with sour cream; the guy sitting next to me had ordered this dish and it looked pretty tasty, too); Huevos Rancheros (2 eggs any style on corn tortillas with black beans, sour cream, salsa ranchera, and a side of chipotle cole slaw; that chipotle cole slaw might need a trying of its own); Veggie [Uggh! ~ again] Omelette (mushrooms, spinach, tomato, and Provolone); or the completely artery-clogging-sounding Four Cheese Omelette (your choice of four cheeses: Swiss, Cheddar, Feta, Provolone, Pepper Jack, or 'merican; I would probably gone with the choice of four Fetas). 

If I had been in the mood for a sweeter breakfast, I might have gone with either the nutella® Madness with Bananas Pancakes or nutella® & Banana Belgian Waffle.

Do not fret, for those of you that do partake of the dead, decaying animal flesh, they have several of that kind of dish, too. Particularly of note is the overly meat-laden Irish Breakfast ~ 2 eggs any style, Irish bacon, sausage, pudding (kids, this is not the kind of "pudding" that Bill Cosby used to tempt his victims with), beans, and grilled tomato.

Being the normal jerk that I am, I happened to notice on their menu that they stated "substitute fruit for hash browns 2.75", so I asked my friendly waitress/server lady-person if I could do that with my meal; she almost bought it, too. While there was not really a lot of variety to this dish, I still liked it a lot. Potatoes as the main focus for a breakfastary meal is always a major plus with me. When it was placed in front of me, it didn't look like a lot of food; however, after digging into the "hill", it proved to be plenty enough food for my appetite. I also was impressed by the amount of nice gooey, melty Cheddar cheese all over the top of the "hill".

I didn't order any side of "toast" with my meal. I have stated this before, the choices that they actually have to offer in the way of "toast" do not really live up to the eponymic title of the restaurant, anyway. They really should offer "toast" made from fresh-baked (or at least locally-baked) breads.

As for the Coffee this morning, it was very, very good. It comes from Carville Coffee Co., which seems to be owned by the folks at Java Beach Cafe[4]. Once again, per my extra-friendly, extremely knowledgeable, and increasingly patient waitress/server lady-person, they only offer this brand of Coffee at this specific location; she thought that the other locations possibly serve 
Mr. Espresso®, which is a decent-enough Coffee on its own, but I liked today's offering much better. Because today's Coffee with breakfast was very good, I did not feel the need to head down the next block to Peet's Coffee®, which is what I normally do when in this neighborhood and looking for a decent cuppa (or two). I was also happy to see that there was neither a "Donald" nor "Hillary" blend offered.

For condimentary supplementation, Toast Eatery 
only had Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (Original Red Sauce) and Cholula® Hot Sauce (Original). I used some of my own Hot Licks® Serrano Hot Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) on half of the "hill" and some Dragon's Lair Extra Hot Cayenne & Habanero Hot Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on the other half of the "hill".


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: 
Hash Brown Hill ~ 6.5;
Carville Coffee Co. Bernie's Blend ~ 7.3

___________________

1. http://www.nakedbarbies.com/ 

2. There was a short period of time back in the 90's when the Naked Barbies were forced to change their name temporarily when they were being sued by the money-grubbing bastages at Mattel for using the moniker "Barbies". 

Pffft! The last time I heard, Babs Streisand never sued that stupid toy company for the same reason.

3. *shivers* 

Yikes!

Believe you me, you DO NOT EVER want to do a EweToob  search with the topic "naked barbies" ~ you will not like the video results found. The level of creepocity is truly unspeakable.

4. http://www.javabeachcafe.com/