Matching Half (Café)

Madness takes its toll... please have exact change!

https://www.matchinghalfcafe.com/


Place: Matching Half (Café)

Location: 1799 McAllister Street
(on the corner of Baker Street... no sh*t, Sherlock!)

Hours: open Monday-Friday at 7:00am, Saturday & Sunday at 7:30am

Meal: Breakfast Sandwich ~ scrambled eggs & Cheddar on brioche (bun), bagel, or bed of greens (which would be a silly choice and not even a "Sandwich" ~ "Breakfast" or "otherwise") w/ avocado; 
a homemade (well, bakery-made) Blackberry "Pop-tart" from Black Jet Baking Company; 
and another mighty-fine cuppa (pour-over style) Andytown Coffee Roasters Ethiopia Bedhatu Jibicho 

https://www.blackjetbakingco.com/

http://www.andytownsf.com/purchase/ethiopia-bedhatu-jibicho

(Luckily, we will not have to do any unnecessarily 
imposed time-warping again until Sunday, November 4th.)


I came across Matching Half (Café) last weekend after breakfast as this little corner neighborhood coffeehouse is located just across the street from green chile kitchen. I suppose you could say "... it's just a jump to the left... and then a step to the riiiiiiight!"... (Well, you could say that if you happened upon a creepy Frankenstein-place late one night.)

Because of the evil "time-warp" inflicted upon us this morning, I was able to find a decent parking spot right in front of the joint. There really wasn't much customer-activity the entire time I was there (from 7:45am-ish to 8:30am-ish), anyway. (Conclusion: Just because our time-pieces [both wall-adorned and wrist-wearing] state "7:30am", our bodies are still clinging hopelessly to the fact that it is actually "6:30am".)

My main reason for heading back that-a-way so soon again is that I noticed that Matching Half served 
Andytown Coffee Roasters as their house Coffee! Any food-stuff that they might provide thereafter would just be icing on the cake (or "Pop-tart"). Not only did I like that they offer Andytown Coffee Roasters, but they also give you several of their Coffee options (blends/roasts) from which to choose, too.

Me (to barista-dude handing me my cuppa): "So, what does 'Matching Half' mean/stand for?"
Barista-dude: "I think it is some kinda Greek mythology reference."
(Okay. Whatever that means. I left it at that.)

I really have to give kudos to both the barista-dude and the counter person-lady that took my order, they put up with a lot of inane questions (and by "a lot", I mean I bored the h*ck outta them with A LOT of stupid questions) from me about everything Coffee-related (from my unbridled exuberance for Andytown Coffee Roasters [in my opinion (and my opinion is all I care about, anyway), these guys are easily the Best Local Coffee Roasters ~ and I do not mean just "local" as in "San Francisco-local", but "local" as in "Northern California-local", and quite possibly the entire "Golden State-local"]... to Ethiopian Coffee [especially Andytown Coffee Roasters Ethiopia Natural Banko Fuafuate ~ which is truly exceptional, and currently my favourite local blend/roast]... to Snowbird Coffee [the barista-dude told me that one of their other workers also works at ★ the ★ Richfield part-time]... to Contraband Coffee... etcoffee) and baked goods-related (from Bakers of Paris for most of their bread/sandwich items... to House of Bagels™, which is where they get all their bagels [it truly is one of the better New York-style bagelries in town; even though I have actually only been to New York City just a handful of times, to me, this is what a New York bagel should taste like]).

For my sandwich, I went with the brioche bun choice 
(a wise choice, as it turned out to be ~ why the h-*-c-k would I choose the d*mn rabbit-food option?). This was a very nice bun, too. Aside from the fact that these scrambled eggs were made nookular-style in a microwavable cooking unit, this was a pretty decent sandwich (and those clowns at Mickey-D's could take a pointer or two here). It included an entire half (because the term "a whole half" is as confusing as trying to "save an hour" of sunlight) of an avocado in the sandwich.

The Blackberry "Pop-tart" was made with puff pastry from what I could discern. They offered several other flavours: Brown Sugar (which would have been a very good choice with today's meal, too), Jalapeño (let's just see Kellogg's® try and market that flavour to kids), Strawberry, nutella®, and even a PB&J one.

Now the cuppa was another truly fine output from Andytown Coffee Roasters. While this might not have been as stellar a find as their Ethiopia Natural Banko Fuafuate, it was definitely recommendation-worthy and better'n a lotta the tasteless brown-swill that is being served now-a-days at many purveyors of Coffee-joints.

For being just a neighborhood corner coffeehouse, Matching Half actually had a decent array of condimentary supplements. They had bottles of Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (Original Red Sauce), Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce, Huy Fong Foods, Inc. Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, Valentina® Salsa Picante, and the Pepper Plant® 
(Original California Style Hot Pepper Sauce). I did not notice all of those hot sauces until after I had finished eating and had bused my plates, though. So, I just used some more of my own Palo Alto Fire Fighters 
XXX Ghost Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) on half of the sandwich and some Dancing Dragon Cayenne Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on the other half.

You don't have to be a sweet Transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania to know that any place that serves Andytown Coffee Roasters is andy with me, Jake!


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Breakfast Sandwich ~ 6.4;
Blackberry "Pop-tart" ~ 6.6;
Andytown Coffee Roasters Ethiopia Bedhatu Jibicho ~ 7.3 
(keeping in mind that Andytown Coffee Roasters Ethiopia Natural Banko Fuafuate comes in rocking the GBS at about 8.0-8.2)

Han's Coffee Shop

Does anyone know how to say "Wookiee" 
in Korean?!

(No official web-site.)

Place: Han's Coffee Shop

Location: 900 Sutter Street 
(on the corner of Leavenworth Street); 
phonicular contact: (415) 800-8792

Hours: open for breakfast every day of the week at 7:00am

Meal: Popeye's Omelette ~ 3 eggs, spinach, tomato, onion, mushroom, & cheese (it did not state if this was made with Olive Oyl or not, though), served with 
hash-brown[ sic ; hyphenated-and-singular ] and toast; and a large glassa orange juice to drink

(I am not exactly sure when Popeye became a corporate shill for the Spinach Growers of America, but this EweToobular video states that it is from 1934.)[1]


I was originally planning on going back to café bean this morning for another decent ontbijt, but when I arrived there just a little after 7:00am, they were not open yet. So I just walked around the immediate neighborhood to kill some time until they may finally open up about fifteen minutes later. Well, just a block west, I came across an interesting little corner diner/café-looking joint and made a mental note (I think it was an insane C-flat) to check it out some day in the future. When I arrived back to café bean about 7:15am, they were still not open and it did not look like they would be opening any time soon... so... the future is here(!) and I walked back up the block to Han's Coffee Shop. (Just as a point, when I had finished breakfast about a half-hour later, I walked back by café bean, but they still did not look like they would be opening any time soon.)

Han's Coffee Shop turned out to be a great, friendly, little neighborhoody place. The whole time I was there I saw shiny, happy people (but neither Michael Stipe nor Peter Buck was among them) coming and going and many seemed to be return-regulars as the two workers there (one griller/cook-guy and one waiter/server person-guy) greeted them as if they knew them well. It is located in that DMZ area bordering the southern end of Snob Hill's upscalety (which some feel fit to classify as "Lower Nob Hill") and the scary, run-down part of the Tenderloin (so, maybe they can classify this area as "Upper Tenderloin", too). There are only eleven tables (which seat from two to four people) and two diner/counter-stools overlooking the kitchen-grill 
(but those seemed to be mostly used by people ordering "to-go" food and sitting there chatting while waiting for their pick-up orders).

(This cool-looking mural takes up the entire back wall, so you can picture just how small the place really is.)

I am not sure when I might get back there again (if café bean is again closed on my next attempt perhaps), but I did see a few other interesting ideas for breakfast:

Kimchi Omelette ~ kimchi, bell pepper, onion, cheese, ham (which I was planning on 여든 여섯-ing), & rice (this was actually my first choice, but, unfortunately for me, I was informed that their kimchi is made with fish-sauce in it);

Vegetarian (and they get extra points for not calling this a "Veggie" [uggh!]) Omelette ~ avocado, bell pepper, mushroom, onion, tomato, & cheese;

or maybe even

Bi-Bim-Bob[ sic ][2] ~ mixed vegetables, beef (아니요 괜찮습니다!) over rice & hot sauce (they have this dish listed under their "Korean Special Menu"; I am not sure if it is available for breakfast, but I bet it would be great as it normally is served with either a raw egg [which will get "cooked" from the heat of the hot rice] or an over-medium egg on top).

This was your basic "no frills-but nicely made" corner-diner omelette. It was much better than I can ever make and still pretty tasty. It was made with lots of fresh ~ not frozen or canned ~ (and, yes, this really does make a difference) sautéed spinach. I was not aware of Popeye being such a fungophile, though. If I were to quibble about one minor point, the "cheese" that they used in and on top of it was that tasteless, faux, processed-sliced junk (which is best used for caulking an old kitchen sink in a condemned building and not for human consumption).

From what I saw on the tables, Han's Coffee Shop offered for condimentary supplementation both Frank's® RedHot® (Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce) and Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce. I did see a large bottle of Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce 
(Original Red Sauce) back on a shelf in the kitchen area, though. Once again, I just used some of my own Palo Alto Fire Fighters XXX Ghost Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) all over the hashbrowns and some Hot Licks® Serrano Hot Sauce (Thanks again, Brian!) on top of the omelette. 

Strange Gochujang Interlude

I asked my friendly waiter/server-guy if they had any gochujang, because I would probably have used some of that on my hashbrowns instead. He told me they didn't have any. What?! No gochujang?! This made no sense as I am sure that they must have some that they serve with most of their Korean specialty dishes (it just ain't bibimbap, Bob, without some d*rn gochujang!). I didn't push the issue and I am putting it down to him probably not understanding my dawg-awful pronunciation of "gochujang".


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Popeye's Omelette ~ 6.1 
(now if this had been made with real Swiss cheese, I probably would have given it another 0.2-0.3 GBS points);
the whole friendly atmosphere-vibe ~ 7.5

___________________

1. Hmmm?! I wonder if Popeye had been a big br*ccoli fan instead if I might actually like "the vile weed" myself today.

2. Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-culinaristic pointer of the day:

As best as I can tell, the Korean dish "bibimbap" (a more standard spelling) translates simply as "mixed rice". The word for "(cooked) rice" in Korean is "밥" (pronounced/transliterated as either "bab" or "bap"; however, I am not sure if Robert's nickname is ever invoked).

green chile kitchen

Tamales ta-day!

Mr. XV Pay-It-Forward 
Memorial Weekend #8 (continued)

http://www.greenchilekitchen.com/


Place: green chile kitchen

Location: 1801 McAllister Street
(on the corner of Baker Street)

Hours: open for breakfast Monday - Friday at 10:00am; "Brunch" available Saturday & Sunday at 9:00am 
(now why they call the early morning meal that they serve during the week "breakfast" when they open an hour later than on the weekends is beyond me)

Meal: Migas ~ eggs, crispy tortilla strips, green chile, tomatillo avocado salsa & cotija w/ black beans; one Cheese Tamal (see, the correct singular form of this word en español is actually "tamal"; consider that a freebie stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day); and a large glassa Horchata[1]

(Okay, sorry, but the completely un-PC-ocity of the 
first song notwithstanding, it did fit nicely into the whole EweToobular[2] juxtaselection of "tamales"/"tomorrow" for me. 
[Are Mexican Liberals that are easily b*tt-hurt called "Copos de Nieve"?])


Because I wanted to "wrap it all up" (corn husks or not) nicely this weekend with "tamales", etc. (see yesterday's silly li'l 'blog-entry-thing for that explanation), I made a purposeful decision to go back to green chile kitchen (see last 'blog-entry from Saturday, March 18th, 2017 ~ almost exactly a year ago... well, if "almost exactly" means give-or-take a week or two). This is such a great place for desayuno ("Brunch"-ayuno, whatever)! (Why did it take me nine years to "discover" it, though?!) If I lived in the Haight (or Lower Haight or Western Addition), this place would easily be in my Breakfastary Starting Rotation; it is just that good and tasty.

I have not had one bad meal there yet (granted, it has only been four visits thus far, but even in Baseballese, that is still batting, like, .400 or such, right?!) and there are still a few more dishes that I want to try; ferexample:

Eggs & Greens (¡Pero no jamón, Sam, yo soy!) ~ scrambled eggs, sautéed greens, brown rice, avocado, & pico de gallo (add chicken / pork 2, add steak 3... ¡No, gracias! to all of those for me);

Healthy Breakfast Bowl ~ scrambled eggs, beans, chile, lettuce, guacamole & pico de gallo (add chicken / pork 2, add steak 3... again, ¡No, gracias! to all of those for me);

Huevos Rancheros ~ corn tortilla, 2 fried eggs, chile, cheese & crema, served w/ refried beans;

Flat Enchilada Plate ~ housemade (well, kitchen-made) corn tortillas, eggs, meat, chile, cheese & sour cream served w/ posole & beans (this one intrigues me the most, and if it can be made vegetarian-friendly 
[I am sure they can always omit any dead, decaying animal flesh, but I am not sure how they make their posole], I will most likely order this on my next visit... hopefully not in a year [or fifty weeks] from now).

I like that their tamales (which is the pluralization of "tamal") are made with blue corn and this one had a nice surprise of a New Mexico green chile in the middle, kinda like a New Mexican version of Twinkies® 
(well, if Twinkies® were made with corn and cheese and not some kinda plastic with silicon filling)... I would normally go with a side order of potatoes, but wanted to make sure and order some kinda tamales side-dish for this specific weekend.

This was also made with blue corn tortilla strips. While this is not exactly the same dish as Chilaquiles, it is close enough for this gringo (See? My b*tt never aches when someone calls me a "Gringo!"... besides, I have to laugh and tell them I am not of Greek ancestry.[3]) and I liked it mucho. Surprisingly, even with the addition of the tamal, this was just about the right amount of food for me. I had thought of also ordering another one of their Vegan Sweet Potato Tamal (which I had on a previous visit and really enjoyed), but that probably would have "exceeded the limit, sir!" for my appetite.

For condimentary supplements, green chile kitchen offers just Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (Original Red Sauce) and Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce. Not that it really needed it (and I did not know ahead of time that it had the surprise filling of a green chile in it already), but I used some of my own Palo Alto Fire Fighters XXX Ghost Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) on top of the tamal. Additionally, I used the last amount of their tomatillo avocado salsa on it, too. I left the rest of the meal unencumbered (Have you ever heard of anyone "encumbering" something?) with superfluous additions as their standard green chile salsa on the Migas was plenty tasty enough without me m*cking-it-up in any way with unnecessary modifications.

Mr. XV Pay-It-Forward Memorial Weekend #8 (continued) Interlude

For today's paying-it-forward activity, I gave away two boxes of Girl Scouts Cookies. They were still selling them in front of a local Safeway and I decided to buy two more for myself. While I was inside, I had the great idea to use these as my "random acts of kindness" for the day. (Well, knowing that I still had about 6-1/2 boxes left over from the nine boxes that I had already purchased over the past three weekends. Sure, it is illegal to sell drugs in a school-zone, but how do Girl Scouts get away with selling these addictive treats in front of stores to unwitting dupes like me?!) Anyway, after doing my weekly grocery shopping, while at the check-out counter I asked the cashier-lady if she would like a box of cookies and she accepted one (I gave her the choice of either s'mores or do-si-dos, she wisely went with the s'mores). I then asked the bagger-guy if he would like the other box, but he politely declined. (Who passes up on free Girl Scouts cookies?!!!) No worries, I figured I would just have to "suffer" and bring them home to eat myself. As I was leaving, I could not resist picking up yet still another box (for anyone keeping count, this made my twelfth box of cookies from these street-side baked-goods pushers!) of s'mores for myself. Then I saw a homeless guy on the sidewalk in front of the store and asked if he would like one of the boxes of cookies. He wisely (for me, at least) chose the box of do-si-dos (leaving me with another box of s'mores all to my ownsome! Yay!).

As for yesterday's paying-it-forward activity, I simply gave $10.00 to the barista/counter-person-lady at one of the Andytown Coffee Roasters shops and told her that the next two or three drinks were on me. ("$10.00, Brian? But wouldn't that pay for more like four to five Coffee drinks?" Trust me, that may barely pay for two or three drinks there. I love Andytown Coffee Roasters drinks, but they are NOT cheap.)

http://www.andytownsf.com/


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Migas ~ 6.6 (this is factoring in the side of black beans and their really tasty tomatillo avocado salsa);
Cheese Tamal ~ 7.3;
Horchata ~ 7.0

___________________

1. ¿Qué?

Now here is where I could go into a long, boring "stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day", but that would probably take several days and cost thousands of lives. So, instead, I am just "borrowing" this explanation from from the friendly folks at WikipediA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horchata

In most Mexican restaurants (well, at least most of the ones here in San Francisco that I have frequented), Horchata is generally made of rice, water, sugar, and cinnamon. 

(Sideways-note, to anyone suffering from Spring-Summer cravings: Horchata makes for a very tasty hot beverage on a bitterly cold Nor'eastery kinda night.)

2. Okay, so just exactly when did EweToob change the looks of their logo? 

Also from the friendly folks at WikipediA:
"On August 29, 2017, EweToob launched a new logo, typeface, color scheme and other changes to the appearance of its desktop and mobile app."

Well, I don't care, I am sticking with the older version as it looks cooler to me.

3. I wonder if people in Greece say, "It's all Spanish to me!"

(Look it up yerd*mnself to get that stupid joke[?]!)

(Hmmmm?! On second thought, maybe I shouldn't oughtta have used a "b*tt-ache" reference in the same sentence as "Greek" above.)

Kate's Kitchen

"¡Hoy tú, tamales yo!"

or 

Mr. XV Pay-It-Forward 
Memorial Weekend #8[1]

http://kateskitchensfca.com/14685

(This is not really that much of an "official"-type 
web-site, but it was all that was currently available.)


Place: Kate's Kitchen

Location: 471 Haight Street 
(between Fillmore and Webster Streets)

Hours: open Monday at 9:00am, Tuesday - Friday at 8:00am, and Saturday & Sunday at 8:30am

Meal: Orange Spice French Toast ~ French bread sipped[ sic; it actually is misprinted that way on their menus and it also appears that way on-line; go digure ] in orange-spiced batter, then baked and sauteed with butter; a side of homefries; and a large glassa Ruby Red grapefruit juice

(Today's 'blog-entry thing just happens to be my 
Nine Hundred and Tenth such item... or maybe them mop-topped Scousers just happened to be big fans of French toast and homefries, too.)[2]


I returned to Kate's Kitchen (see last 'blog-entry from Sunday, February 5th, 2017) for a milk, bread, and eggs breakfast this morning. (Coincidentally enough, I did eat at Kate's Kitchen on the very first Mr. XV Pay-It-Forward Memorial Weekend back in 2011, too.) I specifically planned on ordering a French toast dish if they had a good choice from which to choose (and they had several good choices from which to choose today) as an homage to my friends and family weathering another beastly Nor'easter up in Massachusetts and New England.

There were still other good ideas this morning:

French Toast Orgy ~ orange spice French toast (they don't specify whether or not this one is "sipped") topped with fresh fruit, yogurt, granola, and honey (if I had ordered this, I probably wouldn't have had room for the side o' potatoes, too);

French Toast (simply enough named) ~ whole wheat Texas bread w/ strawberries & bananas;

Pumpkin French Toast w/ Chocolate chips & whip cream (I have had this disgusting[ly good] version of French toast before on a past visit and would not mind retrying it again);

Cranberry & Chocolate French Toast ~ w/ strawberrys[ sic; they did not seem to have a problem spelling strawberry in the plural in the French Toast description above, though ] & Chocolate butter (this one also sounds about as disgusting[ly good] as their Pumpkin French Toast and is definitely gonna be on my short-list next time I visit if it is still available);

Veggie (ugggh!) Scramble ~ avocado, Cajun cauliflower (I was told that this is much like standard cauliflower, but just with more of an Acadian attitude and pronounced to sound funny), spicy onion, roasted tomato, cilantro, pepper Jack, topped with chipotle aoli, eggs (this last ingredient seemed to be added as an afterthought, though);

or

Flanched Farney Garney ~ the original flipped egg and cheese sandwich with home fries (which I really need to try one of these days; I am not sure if I have ever tried it in the twenty-plus years that I have been eating at this restaurant).

"Here's your extra-large helping of carbs for the day!", as said to me by my waiter/server-person-guy when he placed my plates in front of me. I told him that you can never have too many carbohydrates. Besides, they make some really good homefries, anyway; they are made with lots of green bell peppers and white onions, and all are nicely caramelized and charred to crispy-crunchy perfection.

This was served as five slices of French toast. That is always a good start. I liked it a lot (probably not as much as their disgusting[ly good] Pumpkin French Toast, but it is definitely worthy of a recommendation and a return taste all on its ownsome). It was just about as much food as I could eat comfortably along with the side of homefries.

From what I could see on all the tables, Kate's Kitchen now offers only Tapatío® Salsa Picante 
Hot Sauce for use in condimentary supplementation. I used some of my own homesweet homegrown® Punch Drunk™ Chocolate Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce (Thanks, Sean!) somewhat light-handedly on the potatoes, and just because I had brought it with me (and because I could), I used just a little H*ll's Kitchen® 
Smoky Bourbon Hot Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on one of the slices of French toast (Don't hate me because I have beautiful tastes! ~ it actually wasn't half-bad in tastaposition with some of the maple syrup also on it).


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Orange Spice French Toast ~ 7.0;
homefries ~ 7.3

___________________

1. Right before I headed out for breakfast seven years ago on Saturday morning, March 5th, 2011, a friend on defacedbook had posted a very heart-warming story. (Thanks, Gene!) I am relaying it again here for anyone wanting a good, happy cry:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/magazine/06lives-t.html?_r=1

Now, this story had put me in such a good mood  that I had to make sure to do at least one thing nice for someone else that day. I think I may have just paid for a few people's Coffees that were behind me in line or something simple enough like that.

I explained it thusly on that particular 'blog-post:

"I usually like to inflict 'random acts of kindness' on people, anyway; it serves two purposes: 

1) as I am normally a fargin' bastage in person 95% of the time, I figure it can't hurt karmicly to pretend to be nice the other 5% of the time; 

and most of all

2) it totally messes with people when you are nice to them for no reason whatsoever… well, I guess I may lose karma points for that, but it's still fun."

I highly doubt that I would have ever made "Pay It Forward Weekend… or bugger off!" an annual event (or even continued it on to the next day, Sunday), but for one other defacedbook encounter that very same day. I was still in such a good mood after breakfast and all day long; however, when I checked in to the funny pages of defacedbook later that afternoon, I received some very sad news that a friend (whom I had never actually met personally, but had known via the Intro-Net virtually for several years from both defacedbook-land and MLB.com(   's Fan Forums Message Boards ~ specifically those of the Boston Red Sox and some other team from da Bronx) had died suddenly. 

His real name was Scott Pearson Haviland, but he was known fondly as "1523202"* (which was his sign-on moniker with the MLB.com(    sites), or "Numbers" to others, or as I liked to call him "Mr. XV". Sure, I had never "met" him before, but I had "spoken" with him daily for several years running (even though he was one of those Y*nkees-type fans) and the shock of hearing that he had passed away suddenly really struck me (and we are the same age, too). (C'mon, how many of you cried when Old Yeller died? And he was just a Dog in a Disneylandia movie.) 

Thus, every year around this time in memoriam and remembrance of Mr. XV, I try to carry on the tradition of inflicting random acts of kindness on complete strangers (Have you ever met a "partial stranger"?).

So, don't be a tire iron, be a tamale (just like Mr. XV would have wanted you to be)... and this weekend (or whenever the feeling takes you) pay-it-forward... 
or bugger off!

*(The specifics of the "1523202" is a Y*nkees-thing, of course:

Number "15" was worn by Thurmon Munson, who was Scott's all-time favourite Y*nkees player;
Number "23" was worn by Little Donnie Baseball;
Number "20" was worn by Jorge Rafael Posada Villeta;
and I am not sure which Y*nkees player may have worn the Number "2", but I bet that he must have been pretty cr*ppy to get saddled with that one.)

2. I have also been doing this silly li'l  'blog-thing for about nine years now (give or take a week or so). Knowing me and my AADHD, I honestly thought that I would have gotten bored of it in less than six months. Of course, I would still always go out for weekend breakfastary fare, but just not bore anyone else with the details here. 

(And if'n any of youse wants to complain about my starting this 'blog in the first place, please forward your concerns to one James Turner [he's only about 6'3" and 240 lbs] who encouraged me to start it. Thanks, JT!)

Buck's of Woodside

A breakfastary/lunch roadtrip:
Woodside, CA[1]

http://buckswoodside.com/


Place: Buck's of Woodside - Flapjacks and Tomfoolery

Location: 3062 Woodside Road, Woodside (imagine that), CA

Hours: open at 7:00 am during the week and 8:00 am on the weekend and 8:00 am most holidays

Meal: (well, mine, there were just too many other people at the table to get everyone else's meals down) Huevos Rancheros ~ with homemade (well, restaurant-made) tortillas

A friend of mine (that would be the "Luke" in the above Stevite) is retiring (at only 62 ~ lucky him) and moving out of state (to Austin, Texas ~ again, lucky him) so a bunch of friends got together for breakfast (because I had skipped any real breakfast this morning, I am claiming this as a very late one for me)/lunch at Buck's of Woodside. There ended up being a total of fourteen of us at breakfast/lunch today. I pointed this out to Luke and mentioned that he was just lucky there were not thirteen at the table, as that would not bode very well for his immediate future (or he might have to plan on a very short retirement and a resurrection-employment in three days or so).

(1st photo, left-to-right: Nigel, Steve, Rich, Markham, Zaria, Jeannette, Carol [whose name I did not actually see on the Stevite, but we let her join us, anyway], Luke, Hiromi's son [yeah, I have met him a few times now, but I still forget his name], Jerry, Pam, and Hiromi)

(2nd photo, left-to-right: basically the same group of usual suspects, but with me in place of Nigel and less Jeannette who went to aid Nigel in photographing the group)

This was an excellent rendition of the classic Mexican breakfast dish (even if it was well after Noon by the time we had ordered and been served ~ "'Brunch'?! We don' need no stinkin' 'Brunch'!"). Their salsa ranchera was muy sabroso; plus, they use both black beans and pinto beans as the side. Of particular note (♪), they serve some mighty good homemade (restaurant-made, whatever) tortillas. A lot of times Huevos Rancheros are served with the tortillas under the pile o' junk, but I was glad that these were served on the side so they were kept hot and fresh and did not sog-up.

I have had this exact same meal before at Buck's 
(probably about nine-ten years ago now), and knew it to be very good. So, unless there happened to be another really interesting breakfast/lunch special, I knew I was going to be getting it again. Of course, I was not the only intelligent person at the table to order the Huevos Rancheros; at least Luke, David, Zaria, and Carol also ordered this same meal.

Markham ~ sitting on my right hand (which really made it difficult to eat with just my left hand) ~ did order their special lunch salad, The Perfect Salad ~ sunflower seed sprouts, chopped kale (okay, so this would be "The Perfect Salad" for anyone not named "Sean"), red and green cabbage, dried cranberries, toasted sesame seeds, almonds and peanuts; raw sunflower seeds tossed with a passionfruit/guava vinaigrette, with melted Gruyère crostini[2]. It looked very good and he seemed to enjoy it. This probably would have been my first choice, too, if I was not set on ordering the Huevos Rancheros; I would probably just have had them add a poached egg on top to qualify it more breakfastarily.

For condimentary supplements, Buck's had both Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (Original Red Sauce) and Cholula® Hot Sauce (Original). However, I really did not want to mess with the original (good) flavour of their salsa ranchera in any way and opted for no extra hot sauces on my dish for a change.

After all was ordered and eaten, I was very sad to see that no one had opted for a side of Tomfoolery with their meal, though...


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Huevos Rancheros ~ 7.2;
good friends and company ~ 8.5

___________________

1. http://www.woodsidetown.org/

2. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day:

"Crostini" simply means "little crusts" in Italiano. The singular is "crostino".

Mo'z café

https://masonicave.mozcafesanfrancisco.com/


Place: Mo'z café

Location: 5 Masonic Avenue 
(on the corner of Geary Boulevard)

Hours: open every day at 7:00am

Meal: the Corner Crepe ~ Cheddar cheese, onions, tomato, Greek olives, roasted bell peppers, pesto, Feta, and pine nuts, with a choice of sides; and to drink a Peach-Pear-Apricot Smoothie

(If you did not know that Ellas Otha Bates was a big fan of Feta and crêpes, you don't know Diddley!)


It was straight down Geary Boulevard (well, about forty-three blocks or so) to the corner of Masonic Avenue for a return visit to Mo'z café (see last 'blog-entry from Saturday, June 24th, 2017) for me this morning. I really like that there is a place close enough to my apartment (well, again, about forty-three blocks away) that serves very good crêpes.

It was extremely cold this morning (by San Francisco standards, at least; probably just not as "wicked cold" as some people up in New England have had this Winter) when I started out for breakfast. It is not often that you see actual frost on cars in San Francisco. Because of this, I decided to wimp-out (wimp-it good!) and remain inside the café to eat and not sit outside in their large sidewalk café area; even though it is a covered area with windbreaker sides, it was still way too cold to do so.

I spoke to the guy at the counter, who just happened to be named Mo (I do not think that he is any relation to the guy in the restaurant's name), about how this location offers some more/different crêpes than the original 5th Street shop. Mo told me that he is trying to standardize that original menu with more of these new items, too. Apparently the kitchen in this newer location is much better-equipped for more items.

Just a few more of these location-specific items that I will need to get back to try one of these days:

5 Masonic ~ Mozzarella, Cheddar cheese, onion, tomato, mushroom, spinach, walnuts (really?!?? that sounds like a strange enough addition that I would definitely like to try this), cottage cheese (however, this is one ingredient which I would have to have omitted), and Marinara sauce;

Amore Omelette ~ avocado, black bean chili (it does not specify if this is vegetarian-friendly or not, but I would have to ask before ordering this one), salsa, Cheddar cheese, and sour cream;

or 

Romano Omelette ~ spinach, Greek olives, and Feta.

With all of the other good junk stuffed into this crêpe, I don't even remember tasting any pine nuts in it or not. H*ck, I don't think it really even needed any pesto in it either, and I love pesto. It really didn't matter as this included lots of Feta bits (and not any of them crummy crumblies, but actual good-sized 1/4" chunks). And the "Greek olives" in it were not just any ol' απλές ελληνικές ελιές, but (pitted) αυθεντικές ελιές Καλαμών!

For sides (or four sides) they offer a choice of either homefries (house potatoes), hashbrowns, some kinda rabbit-food lettucey stuff, or some boring ol' fruity-cup. I went with the side choice of homefries ~ which was a very smart move because this was a huge pile o' extra crispy, crunchy potatoes, too.

I really enjoyed the smoothie, too. It was made simply with fresh fruits and ice in a blender. I liked this specific combination of fruits in the smoothie. However, because it was already so cold this morning, I probably shoulda gotten a warm/hot drink instead. (I would say that I got a brain-freeze from drinking this too quickly, but anyone that knows me would know that really wouldn't take but a snowflake or two to do so.)

Mo'z café offers Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce 
(both Original Red Sauce and Green Jalapeño Sauce) and Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce for use as condimentary supplementation. I had brought a few of my own hot sauces and used some Old St. Augustine Snake Bite Datil Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Greg & Cindy!) ~ just six to seven dashes ~ on top of the crêpe and some H*ll's Kitchen® Chipotle Chocolate Hot Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) ~ this one I used a lot more liberally, about like a normal liberal (or conservative) person might use ketchup ~ all over the potatoes.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
the Corner Crepe ~ 6.9;
Peach-Pear-Apricot Smoothie ~ 6.8