Eats

I wonder if Thomas Pynchon is a kale fan, too.

(No official website, still.)

50 Clement Street

Phonicular contact: (415) 751-8000

(The first EweToob video/song is pretty self-explanatory; it's not my favourite Blondie tune, but you try finding a song with "Eat" in the title, Mr. Yankovic. The second video/song is just because I heard this on the radio on my way home after breakfast, and I like the duet between Mark Knopfler/Geordie Dixon[1] and James Taylor/Charlie Mason.)


Ate at Eats again this morning (see last 'blog-entry from January 14th, 2012). It's early in the Baseball-y Season and I am working my way through my Starting Line-up still.

I have already tried many of the breakfastary dishes on their menu, but I will not be averse in retrying some of them again. There are still a few of the "sweet" variety that I may have to check out (Ms. Gannon, please take note.): Waffle Berries & Cream and Cream Cheese Stuffed Apple-Cinnamon-Walnut French Toast, which is not on the printed menu yet, just on their specials board. I settled on Spicy Tomato Skillet ~ kale, sautéed onions, potatoes, bell peppers, sunny up eggs (their cutesy term, not mine ~ I would never submit to the use any vernacular; I ain't an idjit, after all), Parmesan, and grilled bread (that is basically "toast" for you illiterati). I also had to order a side o' Excellent! Roasted Home Potatoes (I don't care that there were already potatoes in the main dish, have you ever heard me rave about this side dish?!). I also had a cuppa coffee and a large glass of Refresher ~ cucumber, pineapple, romaine[2], lime.

Now this was not exactly what I was expecting from what I read on the menu; it was served in a mini cast iron skillet with the eggs laid on top (they placed the eggs on top of the mess, they didn't have actual poultry sitting on the skillet atop the stove; that would just be foolish) and it was all a kind of a vegetable stew with croutons[3] on top also. The sauce seemed to be a tomato-based one, and it wasn't really that "spicy", but it did have a nice enough flavour. It was made with lots of kale (which I was very happy to see was one of the more prevalent ingredients), two colours of bell peppers: red and green, and lots of layers of red potatoes.

Today there were only 6-7 cloves of garlic in the Excellent! Roasted Home Potatoes, which I made sure to put to good use on my grilled bread.

Eats has brand new coffee mugs; they are red with white lettering (the old ones were white with red lettering), same logo and style.

Eats has a pretty decent variety of condimentary supplements from which to choose: Tabasco® (standard red); Cholula®; and Tapatío®. I was well aware of this, but had brought a few of my own anyway, and used some Cherry Republic® KaBob's Kick'en Hot Sauce (Thanks, Cindy!) on the skillet and a little Oaxacan Hot Sauce (Thanks, me!) on the Excellent! Roasted Home Potatoes. I like that they have fresh pepper grinders on each table, which makes taking my McCormick® Peppercorn Grinder with me a bit superfluous (Thanks for the idea anyway, Flukwheat!).

If you are a kale fan like me (and I think they should rename the dish Spicy Kale with some tomato and other junk in it Skillet), this is a great starter to any day; plus, it never hurts to have the extra carbohydrates from the Excellent! Roasted Home Potatoes.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:  Spicy Kale with some tomato and other junk in it Skillet ~ 7.0; Excellent! Roasted Home Potatoes ~ 7.5; Refresher ~ 6.9


[1] This isn't a stupid useless cunning linguist pointer, it's more of a stupid, useless historical/personal/shameless friend promotion pointer:

Did you know that the Mason-Dixon Line is actually a right angle? I guess it just sounds better than the Mason-Dixon Orthogonal.

Now, I brought that point up mainly to reference the name "Dixon". I have a very old friend (well, I have known him for a very long time, and he is also almost as old as I am) named Jack Dixon that has just had his second historical novel published: Jerusalem Falls.

http://jack-dixon.blogspot.com/

It is currently only available as an e-book (and only through Amazon on their Kindle, I believe), but should be out soon in paperback form. I am holding out for the printed version (and hopefully a hardcover one), as I really hate e-readers. Books are a tactile pleasure for me. Until they can make a paper e-reader where you can actually feel and smell the pages, I will stick with my current habits, thank you very much.

Just to let you know, I am not a Luddite or Amish or anything; however, both of my parents were Shakers.

Also, coincidentally enough, Jack happens to be from Philadelphia, Mr. Mason (he may or may not be of Geordie descent, though).

[2] Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-epicurean pointer of the day, numéro un:
 
"Romaine" simply comes from French, it is the feminine form of "Romain", which is French for "Roman". It is not named after John Stamos' ex-wife.

[3] Stupid, useless cunning linguist/pseudo-epicurean pointer of the day, numéro deux:

The word "crouton" is derived from the French "croûton", which is the diminutive of  "croûte", meaning "crust".