http://www.bakerstreetbistro.com/
I went to the most excellent Baker Street Bistro* again (see April 17th, 2010 and September 25th, 2010 entries). I know that "serendipity"** is not a French word, but it did describe my finding a parking space directly in front of the restaurant for a change. If it weren't for a slight (but steady) rain and a bit of a chill, I would have eaten outside on their sidewalk patio; they do have a retractable awning that covers the tables and also overhead gas heaters if you feel like eating out there.
The second photo above I have titled "A Self-portrait of the Artist as an Old Fool" (with all due respects to Jimmy Joyce).
I did not see any Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill this morning (it was pretty cloudy and overcast), but I did hear several of them somewhere in the neighborhood.
This place is another of those establishments that has a bathroom that is decorated nicer than my apartment. I like the touch of the old rotary phone (it's not hooked up, I checked) on the side table.
I did not "find" it necessary to go with the Pain Perdu (nor the Oeufs Baker Street Bistro, either) today. I wanted to try something different for a change (plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose?). So I had the Oeufs Florentine*** ~ Spinach, poached eggs, English Muffins, Hollandaise*** sauce; served with home fries and mixed greens. This is your basic Eggs Florentine (which is just Eggs Benedict sans jambon, mais avec des épinards); they make a very decent and creamy Hollandaise sauce. Now don't get me wrong, this was a great breakfast, but I can get Eggs Florentine at a lot of places. If I had never had their excellent Pain Perdu or Oeufs Baker Street Bistro, I would probably order this dish again; I will highly recommend it, though.
Once again, their home fries were very good, roasted with a nice mixture of (what I only assume was) herbes de Provence.**** The side of mixed greens was ~ yawn! ~ just a buncha fancy lettuces; which is fine, I am sure, if you are some kinda stupid vegetarian or something. ("Salads? We don' need no stinkin' salads!")
I had a very good, strong cuppa their house coffee (well, several refills, actually), which is from Moschetti, Inc. and despite the name, they are not an imported Italiano brand; they are actually a local company out of Vallejo. It took me a while to glean the name of the coffee company from the more-than friendly staff ("There are no dumb questions, just dumb questioners."):
Me: What kinda coffee do you serve?
Mexican busboy*****: Something French, I think.
(Sorry, Diane, I did not get his name.)
http://www.moschetti.com/
Not that it needed it, but I went with a little Roland® Piri-Piri with Lemon hot sauce on the home fries. I also brought with me the newest addition to my répertoire des condiments ~ McCormick® Black Peppercorn Grinder. This little portable pepper grinder has three settings; I went with the largest/coarsest setting for the best effect. (Thanks for the great idea, Dave!)
Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Oeufs Florentine ~ 7.0; Moschetti Coffee ~ 6.8
*(Useless cunning linguist pointer of the day #1:
As I had mentioned in my original post about Baker Street Bistro, the word "bistro" is of obscure origin and may either have come from the Russian word "быстро" ~ pronounced "BEE-stra" ~ meaning "quickly"; or it may have come from the word "bistraud", "a little shepherd", a word of the Poitou dialect, from "biste" meaning "goat"; or another version is that it is an abbreviation of "bistrouille", a French term for Brandy mixed with coffee.
However, why not go with the one that sounds the most fun? So it is the impatient Cossacks version for me.
"When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I have never tried before." ~ Mae West)
**(Useless cunning linguist pointer of the day #2:
"Serendipity" is actually an English word, coined by Horace Walpole in 1754 to describe the heroes of the Persian fairytale The Three Princes of Serendip, who "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.")
***(A veritable International egg dish, but do Firenze and Nederland even get along? What does the EEC think about all this? Will the profits from all sales of this dish go to help bail out Ireland, Greece, and Spain? And what about Naomi?)
****(The standard mixture of herbes de Provence typically contains savory, fennel, basil, and thyme flowers and other dried herbs.)
*****(Busboy? Or is it more PC to say "Municipal Transportation Person" now-a-days?)
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