http://www.dottiestruebluesf.com/ Place: Dottie's True blue café Location: 26 6th Street (on the corner of Stevenson Street) Hours: open Thursday through Monday at 7:30am Meal: Kalamata Olive-Roasted Garlic-Feta Three Egg Omelet ~ with homefries (which they have as two words on their menu, but I prefer the oneword spelling) and toast (Warning: Explicit language ensues.)
(There is no EweToobular juxtaselection between Dottie's and Vampire Weekend or Cape Cod [well, none of which I can think]. It is just that this weekend brings to a close another Cape Cod Baseball League[1] season. This year's ultimate winner was the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox[2], taking the Championship Series in 2-1 Games over the FalmouthCommodores[3]. This is the third consecutive championship for the Red Sox. [If they didn't sport that honorific name, I would start to think that these guys were the Y*nkees of the CCBL.] Congratulations to each and all of the other CCBL teams this season, too.) I arrived at Dottie's True blue café (see last 'blog-entry from June 12th, 2016) just a little after 7:05am and knew that I would have close to a half (an half?) hour to wait before they would open. This morning was still pretty chilly and foggy, and I figured that most of the stupid touristas would not arrive until much later. So, of course, I was the first idiot to arrive; the next person in line did not show up until about five minutes after I did. By the time they did open up, the line was already around the corner (that would be around the corner of Stevenson Street). For a change, I bypassed their BlackboardSpecials and actually ordered off their printed menu. (I have eaten at Dottie's True blue café at least 150-200 times in the past 20+ years, and I have probably only ordered off the printed menu less than ten times now. Their Specials are just usually that good.) Anyway, how it works with their Three Egg Omelets is that you choose from a list of ingredients to have in it. It's a pretty decent list, too (for both stupid vegetarian-types and dead, decaying meatetarians alike); there are about five to six different cheeses from which to choose and that is always a good basis for an omelette. Some of the other combination ideas that I was a-pondering on: Spinach-Corn-Bleu Cheese (I have no idea if these ingredients even go well together, but they sounded interesting to me); Jalapeño-Avocado-Goat Cheese; or Tomato-Basil-Provolone (I am pretty sure that they just use plain ol' fresh-cut tomatoes, but I bet this would be great with roasted tomatoes [and made with the Roma varietal would be even greater yet]).
(Sorry. The lighting is terrible in this photo. I promise that it tasted much better than this looks. You will have to forgive my photographer, he only gets paid with whatever is left over on my plate... so, today, he went hungry... again.) This was a very good omelette. The genius that thought up this combination of ingredients is a genius! (Okay, so maybe not all of us can be members of Mensa. I tried joining their high(IQ)falutin' club one time, but they laughed me out the door when I asked them why they named their organization after a woman's monthly cycle.) There was a very good amount of all three ingredients in this. Many places will normally go all "cheapo" (no relation to either Groucho or Chico) with either the Kalamata olives or Feta cheese. Pffft! You'd think they were imported or something. Additionally, there was a ton of the roasted garlic in it, too. This added a nice sweet-savoury flavour to it. (Hmmmm?! Can it be considered Kashrut to have a meal with so much garlic in it and a Vampire Weekend song linked in the same 'blog-entry?) When you order most of their egg dishes, you get your choice of either house-made (restaurant-made, whatever) buttermilk dill or whole wheat toast; you can also upgrade (for a minimal $1.00 charge) to their grilled chili-Cheddar corn bread (which I have done many times before and know it is totally worth it). I went with the buttermilk dill this morning. This fresh-baked bread would make for a good sandwich base, too, I bet. For condimentary supplementation, Dottie's True blue café offers a pretty decent choice, so I don't bother bringing any of my own hot sauces with me. This morning I used some (well, about the amount a normal person would use ketchup) Tabasco®Brand Pepper Sauce (Chipotle Sauce) on the pile o' potatoes. I left the omelette unscathed by any additional heated influences as I felt there was enough flavour in it already with the three tasty ingredients of my choosing. Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Kalamata Olive-Roasted Garlic-Feta Three Egg Omelet ~ 6.7 ___________________ 1. http://www.capecodbaseball.org/ 2. http://ydredsox.pointstreaksites.com/view/ydredsox 3. http://www.falmouthcommodores.com/
"A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is a reality." ~ John Winston Lennon (And "A doughnut with no hole is a Danish." ~ Ty Webb)
http://dotties.biz/ Place: Dottie's True blue café Location: 28th Sixth Street (on the corner of Stevenson Street; halfway between Market and Mission Streets) Hours: open for breakfast Thursday through Monday at 7:30am Meal: Three Egg Omelet with Roasted Garlic, Fresh Basil, and Jack Cheese ~ all egg dishes come with homefries and your choice of English muffin, house-made buttermilk dill or whole wheat toast; and a cuppa (and a few refillas) Coffee
(I am just continuing the juxtaselection theme from yesterday with more Playing For Change EweToobular songs. Please ignore that unidentified singer that pops in at 3:04 of the first video, I am sure he won't ever amount to much. The same goes for the homeless-looking guy singing at 2:27 of the second video; he really looks like he could use a good shampoo and haircut, too.) http://playingforchange.com/ No workout of my Breakfastary Rotation would be complete without going back to Dottie's True blue café (see last 'blog-entry from July 6th, 2014). I arrived there this morning about 7:20am and was still about the tenth person in line. Don't any of these touristas have anything better to do than get up for breakfast (and in a pretty sketchy neighborhood at that) so early on a Sunday morning?! As always, there were several more very good ideas off the Weekend Specials chalkboard: Zucchini Cakes (topped with poached eggs & spicy Marinara sauce, with fruit & potatoes ~ this is probably my favourite of their specials, but I had that dish earlier this year on another visit and wanted to try something different); Sweet Potato, Caramelized Red Onion & Gruyere Tart (with eggs any style & fruit); Spinach-Provolone Strata (served with Italian sausage, roasted tomatoes, & fruit ~ I would have 86-ed the dead, decaying, ground-up porky offal, though); or Brie & Apricot Preserve Stuffed French Toast (with pure maple syrup ~ if I hadn't just had the World’s Best Pain Perdu yesterday for "Brunch", I probably would have gone with that one). I also thought about going with a much more simple meal of just an egg (or two) over medium with a side of homefries and one of their awesome fresh-baked pastries.
This omelette had lots of tasty roasted garlic in it; it would not be for the faint of garlic. It also had a lot of fresh chiffonade basil in it, too; however, the garlic really overpowered everything else. (Who chose these stupid ingredients?) I probably should have gone with a different flavour combination (there are about twenty-five different ingredients from which to choose): Kalamata olive, roasted garlic, and Feta would have worked nicely, I bet. Corn, spinach, and Bleu cheese may have been interesting, too. It's all good, though, as I love a lot of garlic, and roasting the garlic always makes them a lot more tender and sweeter. And the extra good news is that all that garlic really must have worked, as I haven't been bothered by a single Vampire all morning long, Mr. Blaskó. For my toast/bread choice, I went with the optional option of Grilled Chili-Cheddar Cornbread. Home-made cornbread beats toast (or Mr. Thomas' baked goods) any day. I like that Dottie's has a pretty decent selection of condimentary supplements: Tabasco®Brand Pepper Sauce (three types: the standard red, green jalapeño, or Chipotle); Frank's®RedHot Original; and Tapatío®. This way I don't have to schlep any of my own bottles of hot sauce with me for a change. I used some of the Tabasco®Chipotle all over the potatoes. the Wild Parrots of San Francisco Interlude On the drive back home, I heard a lot of the noisy little two-toned birds somewhere along Turk Street, between Laguna and Webster Streets. However, as I was driving, I really didn't get a chance to stop and look for any of them. I can only assume there is a small company of parrots in the trees around that neighborhood now, too. Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Three Egg Omelet with Roasted Garlic, Fresh Basil, and Jack Cheese ~ 6.7; Home-made Grilled Chili-Cheddar Cornbread ~ 7.1
Eat at Eats (see last 'blog-entry from January 8, 2011), Bela?
I went back to Eats, in the Richmond (at the beginning of Clement Street), for breakfast this morning. They have new menus, which have incorporated a lot of the more popular dishes from their SpEcIaLsboard, but they still do not have a company web-site. So, I guess it is just me and Yelp! that you can trust to tout this great little place.
I am happy to see that their newest menu now includes the breakfast that I had on my last visit there, Spinach & Roasted Mushroom Benedict (Good job, Shelly!). Another interesting choice was the Caprese Scramble ~ Heirloom tomatoes, pesto, fresh Mozzarella, and Parmesan (next time?). However, I decided on the Farmer's Scrambled Eggs ~ Kale**, mushrooms, leeks, green beans, Goat cheese, and parsley; which comes with their most Excellent! Roasted Home Potatoes and toast (I chose multi-grain toast ~ for optimum garlic absorption). I also had a Power C smoothie ~ grapefruit, orange, and pineapple; and a cuppa Equator coffee (I didn't think to ask what blend/roast it was; it was good and strong, and after 10-15 cloves of garlic, would it really have mattered?).
The scramble was excellent with lots of fresh (sautéed) kale in it (this is not a normal ingredient in most scrambles and was the main reason I chose this today) and lots of shiitake (as in mushrooms; sorry, Skip!). I think the only thing that might have made this even better would have been asparagus instead of the green beans; however, that would probably have unfairly relegated the kale to co-star status.
Now, I don't want to go on and on and on about their most Excellent! Roasted Home Potatoes (Diane, these would be considered the "home fried" variety, not of the "hash brown" ilk), as I had already sung that paean in my first visit there that they started offering these with whole roasted garlic cloves in the dish (see 'blog-entry from November 13th, 2010). And I wouldn't want to dedicate another whole paragraph to just potatoes and garlic… well, I guess I already have (besides that should really have a separate 'blog-entry all on its own). One of the servers (Thanks, Kent!) remembered me from my last visit and had the cooks put even MORE garlic gloves in it for me; there had to have been at least 20+ cloves in with the potatoes (I honestly think there was more garlic than potatoes); it wasn't as if they had ever skimped on the amount of garlic in the past.
The Power C was very good, too. I am not a big fan of canned pineapple juice, as I always find it too sweet (but love fresh pineapples and even the canned ones), but this seemed to have just the right balance of (fresh) pineapples, grapefruit, and orange juices.
Their condimentary supplementation includes Tabasco® (standard red), Cholula®, and Tapatío®, which is a pretty decent selection. However, I went with some Palo Alto Fire Fighters Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Amy!) on the potatoes and some Trees Can't Dance ~ Belizean Habanero Sauce (Thanks, Cindy & Greg!) on the scramble. They also have fresh pepper grinders on every table, but, in my excitement over "buttering" my toast with the roasted garlic, I completely forgot to use any on the meal.
All in all, this was a great breakfast repast. This was a very good idea to bump this place up in my rotation. I really don't know what I would do if they ever dropped the roasted garlic from their potato dish. (Can you say "Hello, AAA!"?)
Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Farmer's Scrambled Eggs ~ 7.0; Power C ~ 6.8; Excellent! Roasted Home Potatoes ~ 7.5
*(Why is it that Vampiri hate garlic so much? I am sure it would greatly improve their undead halitosis.) **(Iron-ically, kale is in the same vegetable family as "the vile weed", but it is one of my favourite leafy greens. It is not normally a green with which most 'mericans are familiar.
