Sweet Maple

http://www.sweetmaplesf.com/


Place: Sweet Maple

Location: 2101 Sutter Street (on the corner of Steiner Street)

Hours:  open for breakfast Monday through Friday at 8:00am (however, open for "Brunch" Saturday and Sunday at 8:00am)

Meal: Athenian Omelet ~ mixed mushrooms, olives, arugula, mild goat cheese, served w/ potato medley and ciabatta au levain toast; and to drink a glassa (well, one of those glass mugs made as if it was from a Mason jar) fresh Raspberry Lemonade


I can't believe that it has been almost three and a half years since I last had breakfast ("Brunch", whatever) at Sweet Maple (see last 'blog-entry from Thursday, December 26th, 2013). I had eaten there twice previously and really liked the meals that I had all three times.

Sweet Maple has the same owners (either one Korean guy, or possibly a Korean family) as four other restaurants in San Francisco (all of which I have had breakfast at, too). Sweet Maple was the second restaurant that they opened (back in 2010). Their original/first location is Taylor Street Coffee Shop (a downtown location; see last 'blog-entry from Thursday March 16th, 2017); their third in the "chain" is Blackwood (in the trendy/upscaley area of the Marina; open since June 2012; see previous 'blog-entry from Sunday, October 7th, 2012); their fourth restaurant is Kitchen Story (in the Castro; open since November 2012; see previous 'blog-entry from February 23rd, 2013); and, lastly, number five is their newest restaurant Surisan (in Fisherman's Wharf; which just opened in December 2016; see previous 'blog-entry from Sunday, March 19th, 2017). They are all very good restaurants for breakfast, too. The common factor in each of these restaurants seems to be their signature dead, decaying porcine product "Millionaire's Bacon®" (they actually have the "®" in the dish name; however, I am not exactly sure if it has been registered with a national trademark office; one thing is for sure, it definitely can not also use the symbol "Ⓤ" in it's name) ~ thick, free range bacon, baked with brown sugar, cayenne, red and black pepper. In case you haven't noticed, all of these restaurants are in either trendy/upscaley or tourista-laden locations; so, I doubt that I will be seeing one of their restaurants popping up any time soon in my dumpy, foggy neighborhood in the Outer(most) Richmond.

Wow! I got there just a little after 8:00am (which is their scheduled opening time; and by "a little after 8:00am", I mean it couldn't have been even 8:05am yet) and the joint was already more than half-full (or less than half-empty, if you are not a Doctor of Optometry). This is a medium-to-large sized restaurant, too. (This location is probably the largest of their five restaurants.) It was completely filled up in less than a half-hour (sorry, I am not sure how a pessimist views time) after I sat down, and there was a line waiting outside by the time I had finished eating. 

Sweet Maple (as with most of their other locations) offers a great selection of other breakfastary ideas:
Hass Omelet (avocado, bacon, Monterey Jack, side pico de gallo; which I would have ordered sin el tocino); 
Snowed Spinach Scramble (baby spinach, Vermont Cheddar, Parmesan); 
Hemingway Benedict (smoked salmon, lemon, capers, cucumber wasabi Hollandaise; this sounded intriguing ~ less the dead, decaying smoky piscine junk, of course ~ and was going to be my back-up dish); 
Crunch Flakes (cornflake crusted French toast; this is another dish I want to get back and try); 
or 
Sweet Potato Pancake (cinnamony [ sic ][1] healthy goodness; this is a singular pancake, but a large pancake; I saw when another table nearby had ordered it).

Okay, first off, let me state that I did actually like this omelette... however... goat cheese in place of Feta? That was an automatic 0.1 GBS points deduction for me. Plus, they use plain ol' canned/sliced black olives and arugula when spinach would have made more sense, Κύριε Πoπεγεπολη. Perhaps they should rethink naming this omelette "California Coast Omelet" instead. It did have a good amount of mushrooms in it (possibly portobello and shiitake). (I have eaten so many mushrooms in the past two breakfast meals that I may need to use rovral® brand 4 in place of Preparation H®.)

The minor quibbles in the omelette aside, I absolutely love their potato medley. It consists of seasonal and regional varieties, such as: Chilean Purple, Yukon Gold, Gemstone Red, Russet, and Sweet Yam.

Sweet Maple has Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (both Original Red Sauce and Green Jalapeño Sauce), Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce, and  Traina® Hot Sriracha Sun Dried Tomato Ketchup for condimentary supplements. I used some of their Traina®  on the potato medley and some of my own Old St. Augustine Snake Bite Datil Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Greg & Cindy!) on the omelette.

It was pretty funny, most of the waitstaff had on jerseys with the number "30" and the name "Curry" on the back. I was not aware that "Curry" was such a popular Korean family name...


Up next:

Hmmm?! I am really not sure at this point. It will probably be a return visit to a restaurant that I had been to before (Kitchen Story could even use a return, too).


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
(not really very) Athenian Omelet ~ 6.6 (this might easily have been as high as 6.8 or 6.9 if they had used Feta and authentic Kalamata olives; the arugula instead of spinach is basically a wash in my book);
potato medley ~ 7.3

___________________

1. Don't you just hate it when people use completely madeuppery words?!

(Did you know that the actual adjectival form of cinnamon is "cinnamonic"?)