Ella's American Kitchen

Never judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes...
but just make sure to sprinkle some Desenex® in them first, you never know where they might have been.

https://www.ellassanfrancisco.com/


Place: Ella's American Kitchen

Location: 500 Presidio Avenue 
(on the corner of California Street)

(new-old) Hours: open for breakfast Monday through Friday at 7:00am; and All Day "Brunch" is available Saturday & Sunday at 8:30am (it seems that they have reverted back to their older/original hours once again)

Meal: Mixed Green Salad ~ cornmeal crouton, cucumber, radish, cherry tomatoes, carrots, champagne vinaigrette, with two poached eggs (to make it a bit more breakfastarily sound); to drink with the meal, a glassa Ginger Orange Juice Punch (with a plastic straw ~ Ha!); and beforehand, a medium (16 oz-er) cuppa Peet's Coffee® - Vanilla Cardamom Latte

https://www.peets.com/menu/seasonal-beverages/vanilla-cardamom-latte

(The first Lady Ella song is because today is the First of September. The second one is because... I don't never need no stinkin' excuses for posting two Lady Ella songs! D*mmit!)


Sadly, September brings with it the last month of Regular Season Baseball, so I am running through my Breakfastary Starting Rotation once again. To start it off, I simply made a return visit to Ella's American Kitchen (see last 'blog-entry from Sunday, April 8th, 2018).

I had initially ordered the Chilaquiles (slow roasted pork [which I requested sin la carne de cerdo muerto, en descomposición-stuff], tomatillo salsa, lime crema, queso fresco, two eggs); however, my waitress/server lady-person came back a few minutes later and told me that I would need to change my order. Apparently,  as reported to me by the Mexican maître d'-guy, their tomatillo salsa is not vegetarian-friendly. (Who makes a tomatillo salsa with meat in it?) He told me that the head chef-lady Veronica wanted their version of chilaquiles to be a little different than the norm (a few visits back, she actually told me herself that this could be ordered vegetarianized; maybe they have since changed their salsa recipe; whatever). I would think that with the pulled pork available in this dish, that might have been a good enough difference from a standard chilaquiles dish. Oh, well, looks like I will not be able to try this dish now.

Which creates a bit of an Oh-oh!-factor for me. With only four-to-five viable stupid vegetarian-friendly dishes from which to choose (since the new ownership/new head chef take-over a few years back, they are no longer offering a seasonal/changing menu), I might have to rethink this place as Breakfastary Starting Rotation-worthy. Which would be a real shame, as it has been ensconced on my list for over eighteen years now.

Luckily, they have just (as in just last month on August 4th) opened a second location (over on Polk Street ~ in the Nob Hill area) and they offer one or two other items which are not found on the original location's menu. This might prove to be a saving grace (for at least another visit or two, anyway). Plus, it is always fun to check out a new place/location.

This had a nice enough dressing (some kinda Balsamic[?]-champagne vinaigrette), but it was still just a buncha rabbit(rabbitrabbit) food with two poached eggs laid (placed) on top. This is nothing that I could not have made at home on my ownsome (... well, if I ever had any eggs [and could learn how to poach 'em successfully]... and cornmeal croutons, cucumbers, radishes, cherry tomatoes, and carrots... and rabbit[rabbitrabbit] food-stuff... in my refrigerator, that is).

I had thought about also ordering a side of their country potatoes (which I knew to be top-rate), but the size of the salad (with the addition of the illegally pilfered unborn poultry offspring) was actually a lot of food to eat, anyway.

For condimentary supplementation, Ella's American Kitchen has Tabasco® Brand Hot Sauce 
(Original Red Sauce) and Tapatío® Salsa Picante 
Hot Sauce. I used some of my own Golden Pagoda Jalapeno Hot Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on top of one poached egg and some Laura Plantation 
Vidalia® Onion & Peach Hot Sauce (Thanks, Greg & Cindy!) on top of the other poached egg... and several (as in my wrists got tired after a while) twist-grinds from my grains-of-paradise grinder all over the salad and eggs.

(not really just another) Strange Coffee Interlude

On the way to breakfast this morning, I stopped at the Peet's Coffee® in Laurel Village Shopping Center (which is just two or three blocks westward [Ho!] along California Street, anyway) for a freebie (well, from a $20.00 gift card compliments of my dentist ~ which would be sorta like your cardiologist giving you a $20.00 gift card to the Cheesecake Factory®) cuppa. I had originally pre-planned on getting a French Press single-cuppa (made-to-order) of one of their better seasonal Coffees (I was hoping to see something in the Ethiopian-fare). However, when entering the coffeeshop, I immediately ran into the above sign at the front door (no, really, I was not watching where I was going and actually bumped into the d*rn thing). I know 'tis the season for all things Pumpkin/
Pumpkin Spice-related, but I could not really pass up the choice of a Vanilla Cardamom Latte instead. This was made with lotsa cardamom in it, too. In my opinion, the vaniller was completely superfluous. 
Peet's Coffee® has the audacity to call cardamom "the Queen of Spices". My *ss! Cardamom is the Emperor of all Spices, at the least!


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Mixed Green Salad ~ 6.0;
Peet's Coffee® - Vanilla Cardamom Latte ~ 7.0