heartbaker

http://www.theheartbaker.com/


Place: heartbaker

Location: 1408 Clement Street (at 15th Avenue)

Hours: open Tuesday through Friday at 8:00am, Saturday and Sunday at 9:00am for "Brunch"

Meal: Vegetarian Eggs Benedict ~ mushroom, leeks, butternut squash, & rosemary cumin Hollandaise, w- your choice of kale salad or potatoes (I went with the potatoes); a slice-a Pear-Almond Skillet Cake; and a cuppa Sightglass Coffee Dark Roast

https://www.sightglasscoffee.com/


In an effort to keep it kinda "local" ("Football/Wash-day, right?!") and be able to finish breakfast ("Brunch"... whatever) and get home before 10:30am, 
I simply went back to heartbaker (see last 'blog-entry from Sunday, December 4th, 2016). Although this place is close enough to walk to (well, about eighteen blocks both ways), I hopped on the bus, Gus (don't need to discuss much), to get there and back even quicker. 
Once again, I scored one of the two two-seater front window-alcove table tables (well, seeing as I was only the third person/group/customer of the morning, it wasn't really that hard).

Between Marla Bakery Restaurant, Butter Love Bakeshop, and this place, I am very happy to see that the Richmond has a pretty decent coverage of "New-Age" (read: "old school") bakery-restaurants. 

Not only do these guys (gals, etc.) do a great job with their bakery-goods-stuff, they really do offer some very nice breakfastary ("Brunchary", whatever) dishes. I still need to get back again to try some of their other dishes, such-as:

Omelette du Jour ~ (this is a seasonal-changing item on their weekend "Brunch" specials board) roasted green & yellow zucchini, leeks, tomatoes, arugula, white Cheddar cheese;

Huevos Rancheros ~ two eggs your way ("my way" is usually "cooked"), black beans, tortilla strips, blistered Pepperjack, guacamole, & crema;

or

Chilequiles[ sic ] ~ tortilla chips, tomatilla salsa, crema, avocado, scallions, & two eggs your way (even though they mispelded "Chilaquiles", I am sure it would still taste just as good).

This baked-good/pastry item ended up being both a starter and dessert for me. I ate about two thirds of it before the main meal was served and then finished it up/enjoyed the rest of it with the last of my cuppa. I knew I was going to like it right away from the looks and with the ingredients of pears and almonds in it. However (in a good sorta way), I was not informed that it also had dried cranberries in it: pears + almonds + cranberries always = a great flavour combination (even if you use Common Core Cooking).

This has been a very good year for me for "discovering" new Eggs Benedict dishes. I really liked that this was made with their own homemade (bakery-made, whatever) herbed buttermilk biscuits as the base in place of Mr. Thomas' boring old faux crumpets (for which I am giving this an additional 0.1 Glen Bacon Scale points). I also was pleased to see that they called this a "Vegetarian", not "Veggie" (uggh!), Benedict. Plus, grilled leeks and roasted slices of butternut squash?! Oh, h*ck yeah!

heartbaker only has Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce for use as a condimentary supplement. Being aware of this from previous visits, I came prepared with a few of my own hot sauces and used a little 
Dat'l Do-it® Spicy Jalapeno[ sic ] Hot Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on top of both poached eggs (don't worry, I first taste-tested their Hollandaise sauce to determine if it would go well with any extra flavour) and some 
Old St. Augustine Datil Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Cindy & Greg!) all over their very good roasted potatoes.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Pear-Almond Skillet Cake ~ 7.3;
Vegetarian Eggs Benedict ~ 7.2 (no extra GBS points were added due to the nomenclature of this dish, but I did think about it);
Sightglass Coffee Dark Roast ~ 7.0