LaLe

"I just had a Berliner[1]... 
and now I am stuffed!"[2]

http://www.lalesf.com/


Place: LaLe

Location:  731 Irving Street 
(between 8th and 9th Avenues)

Hours: breakfast and/or "Brunch" are served daily at 8:00am

Meal: (off their weekend "Brunch" specials board) Polenta w/ Mixed Veggies (uggh! [I added that exclamation; it is not part of the actual meal name.]) 
& 2 Poached Eggs; and a glassa (very re)fresh(ing) lemonade with mint; and (afterward, as a breakfastary dessert) a Black Forest Berliner (from 
a German bakery booth at the Sunday morning 
Inner Sunset Farmers' Market) with a cuppa Snowbird Coffee Zatarra 

http://www.pcfma.org/

http://snowbirdcoffee.com/

(There really are never any excuses needed for any EweToobular juxtaselections when it comes to 
Lady Ella, but this first song just happened to be playing while I was enjoying my cuppa and doughnut at the coffeeshop, so I figured I'd play the second song[3] to go along with the doughnut, too.)


As a last-minute September Call-up to my Breakfastary Starting Rotation, I headed back to LaLe (see last 'blog-entry from Sunday, January 29th, 2017) this morning for kahvaltı/Frühstück. 

The reason for this emergency addition is that, sadly, it seems that Cafe GoLo has closed their Lombard Street restaurant ~ I am moving them to the 40-Day DL until I know better. Their phone has been disconnected and without an official-type web-site, I can not determine if/when they may re-open at the new location in the Tenderloin (which they have been attempting to open now for the past four years). Hopefully this is just a temporary closure. So, until I know for sure, LaLe will be the Fifth Starter starting today. (Hmmm?! I wonder if someday in the future Cafe GoLo will show up on a Japanese breakfastary 'blog-entry.)

One of the main reasons that I have no problem with adding LaLe to my Breakfastary Starting Rotation is that, in addition to all the great meals that I have had there already, there are still several other good ideas from which to choose: 

Dutch Pancakes (this is also off their weekend "Brunch" specials board, but it has been available for most of my past visits; they state that this has a 20-minute wait-time to prepare, so I will have do try it some other time when I feel like waiting that long);

Mexico City (Egg Scrambler) ~ chorizo, green onions, mushrooms, guacamole, sour cream, cheese (I am sure I can always order this sin salchicha);

Napa (Egg Scrambler) ~ goat cheese, mushrooms, bacon, bell peppers (which I would also order without any of the dead, decaying, crispy pork-butt stuff);

Toronto (Benediction) ~ ham, grilled tomato, spinach (this is another one from which I would have the back-bacon omitted, ya hoser);

or

Ricotta Stuffed Almond French Toast.


(Ooops! Unfortunately, there are no corresponding photos of the actual meal or subsequent German jelly-stuffed pastry and Coffee. The batteries seemed to have died on my camera after I had taken the photo of the restaurant sign above.)


Oh, my! (to be read in your best George Takei-an voice)

It is exactly stuff like this why I like coming back to this place (and another reason why I have absolutely no qualms with placing them on my Breakfastary Starting Rotation). Now if you could see a photo of this dish (someone needs to remember to check their battery-power before leaving the house), you would see that this was a big bowl of polenta as the base, then lots of grilled "veggies" (uggh!), and topped with two poached eggs (themselves topped with some Hollandaise sauce). The "veggies" (uggh!) included: zucchini, tomato, (red and green) bell peppers; (white) onions, and mushrooms (there might have been another "veggie" [uggh!] or two, but those were the ones that I immediately recognized). And all of this was atop really good, creamy, cheesy polenta! In my opinion, this dish didn't even need any Hollandaise sauce on top of the two poached eggs (and I bet it would have been even better still with a nice Marinara sauce [à la Dottie's True blue café Zucchini Cakes]). This also came with one of their warm, fresh homemade (restaurant-made, whatever) English muffins on the side of the bowl.

LaLe only has Tapatío®  Salsa Picante Hot Sauce on all the tables in way of condimentary supplements. I used some of my own Punch Drunk™ Chocolate Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce (Thanks, Sean!) on top of one of the poached eggs and some Dat'l Do-it® Spicy Jalapeno Hot Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on top of the other egg. Additionally, LaLe does have their own homemade (restaurant-made, whatever) jams and preserves on all the tables; today's choices were strawberry[4] and orange[5] marmalade ~ I used some of each on each half of their homemade (restaurant-made, whatever) English muffin.

Whenever I am in the neighborhood (and that would be the Inner Sunset in this case), I like to head over to Snowbird Coffee (which is just around the block from LaLe, anyway) for a very decent cuppa after breakfast. On my way over to the coffeehouse, I stopped in at the regular Sunday morning Farmers' Market (which I had to pass by on my way). I really wasn't planning on getting anything more to eat while there, but I saw one booth that was selling German pastries and really couldn't pass up buying a few ~ especially when I saw they offered both a Mango, Passionfruit, and Orange and a Black Forest (which I was told was filled with cherries, a cherry liqueur/brandy [Kirshwasser auf Deutsch], and a cream filling) Berliner. The really funny thing is that the two Berliners may very well have been "frei"-bies, too; I got to talking to the guy selling the products and walked away without paying. I remembered right off and went back straight away to pay for the two pastries, but the guy told me that I had already paid him. I am pretty sure that I had not, but he was nice enough to not worry about it. The Black Forest Berliner really went well with the Zatarra (which is one of my favourite local Coffees, too).


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Polenta w/ Mixed Veggies & 2 Poached Eggs ~ 7.3;
homemade  jams and preserves ~ 7.2;
Black Forest Berliner ~ 7.3 (especially at the price);
Snowbird Coffee Zatarra ~ 7.4

___________________

1. Okay, this has been mentioned before by me on this here 'blog-thang as a stupid, useless cunning linguist (and urban legend-debunker) pointer of the day. When President John F. Kennedy said "Ich bin ein Berliner.", he was not stating that he wanted to be thought of as a German jelly-doughnut. He was correct in his translation. Plus, in Berlin-town, I was informed by a native Berliner that they actually call jelly-doughnuts "Französisch" ("French-style" doughnuts).

The owner-lady of the German pastry booth was from Germany and told me that people in Berlin call "Berliners" ~ "Krapfen" (which is a standard name for a doughnut/pastry in German). However, the lady that I spoke with was not from Berlin herself, so I am sticking with the information that I obtained from an actual Berliner (who was also not a jelly-doughnut in any way).

2. For a change, do not blame me for this completely awful corn-bally joke. I am just paraphrasing one from Greg Kipe. If you have any complaints or groans, please direct them to/at him.

3. Coincidentally enough, Leonard Cohen's (in memoriam) birthday happens to be upcoming on September 21st.

4. Unlike both the ghost pepper and jalapeño pepper, strawberries are not botanically a berry. 

5. However, strangely enough, oranges are actually a kind of modified berry (called a hesperidium). Crazy stuff like this is why I would never cut it as a botanist.