Kitchen Sunnyside

A(nother) breakfastary roadtrip:
Mill Valley, Marin County, CA

http://kitchensunnyside.com/


Place: Kitchen Sunnyside

Location: 31 Sunnyside Avenue, Mill Valley (home of B.J. Hunnicut, for yet another Korean-connection)

Hours: open for breakfast Monday through Sunday at 8:00am

Meal: HOTSTONEPOT ~ sautéed vegetables, egg, smoked chili sauce on rice. Sizzling stone pot!! Mix quickly and Enjoy. (more on that later), choose chicken mango, shrimp (+2) or tofu (Guess which protein I chose?); to drink with the meal, a glassa fresh-squeezed orange juice; and, aforehand, a 16 oz cuppa Equator Coffees Ethiopia Gora Kone

https://www.equatorcoffees.com/collections/single-origin/products/ethiopia-gora-kone

(Idunno. Maybe Shane MacGowan [no relation] likes him some 돌솥 비빔밥[1] and/or Millionaire's Bacon®, too, boyo.)


Continuing along on working my way through all the restaurants that are in the Taylor Street Coffee Shop-family mini-chain, I curtailed it on over (the Golden Gate Bridge) to Marin to check out Kitchen Sunnyside. This was my initial visit to this particular restaurant. This restaurant has been open only since November 2014. I think it is their #5 or #6 in the mini-chain in respect of newness. Only Surisan is newer (opened now since 2016).

What a great little local spot! By little, I mean that there are probably less than fifteen tables (ranging in size from 2-person to 4-persons). The place is bigger than Taylor Street Coffee Shop, but that is not really saying much.

There is also another Marin-based restaurant called Fred's Place, in Sausalito, that was once a part of their mini-chain. However, one of the friendly waiter/server-guy persons told me that it has since been sold to some of the workers at that location, but they maintain a similar menu. Once I have checked out all of the "official" restaurants in their mini-chain, I will probably head back over that-a-way again.

As with all of the other restaurants in their mini-chain, Kitchen Sunnyside offers many dishes that are similar (or exactly the same). Some of the other ideas that I was looking at this morning were:

MEHICO[ sic ] BENNY (there is nothing wrong with your eyesight or my typing; in keeping with their printed menu, I am trying to use the same font-size and dimensions that they had used) ~ chorizo (No way-zo, José-zo!), cherry pepper, cherry tomato (this is basically the same dish as offered yesterday at Sweet Maple, just with the moniker of Southern Benedict);

SUNNYSIDE HASH ~ Hash browns topped with bacon (which would get 86-ed, natch'), red onion, bell pepper, cherry pepper, mushroom, scallion
and mild Cheddar. Served with two eggs (sunnysided-up, I presume), toast;

MORNING TACOS ~ two corn tortillas, lettuce, scrambled egg, bacon (no!), chorizo (no-no, zo-zo!!), tomato, avocado, pickled red onion, chipotle aioli, cilantro, mild Cheddar. Served with Crispy Yukons. Side of roasted salsa and pico de gallo (this one looked interesting, and I do not remember seeing a similar dish at any of their other restaurants);

or

PRIMAVERA (Scramble) ~ egg white, sundried tomato, bell pepper, red onion, spinach, scallion, served w/ Crispy Yukons or Hash browns. A choice of ciabatta, wheat or English muffin (I think that I might have had a version of this previously at one of their other restaurants; I am just too lazy to look 'er up). 

Of course, this is not for the Vegan-feint-of-(artichoke)heart, but what many people really seem to like to order at these places is their Millionaire's Bacon® (and, yes, they actually have it as a ®egistered trademark). They have it offered four ways now: Original (thick, free range bacon, baked with brown sugar, cayenne, red and black pepper); Citron (orange and sea salt goodness); Rosemary (savory rosemary and pepper with mild sweetness); and Cinnamon (hint of chipotle with sweet cinnamon).

Today was not my first Dolsot Bibimbap rodeo. I have had this dish probably a hundred times over the years (at dozens of different Korean restaurants, too). However, I think this was the first time that I ever had it as my early morning/first meal of the day. It seems like a breakfastary no-brainer even to me. This was the exact same dish that I had for dinner at their sister-restaurant (sorry, I am not quite sure of the gender-specificity for restaurants) Surisan three weeks ago.

I was very happy to see a "sunnyside"-up egg already prominently displayed on top. A lot of times, the egg will be placed raw on top of the dish and the idea is to "cook" the egg with the residual heat from both the hot vegetables and especially from the hot stone pot. Now here is where I will comment on the "Mix quickly and Enjoy." mentioned on their menu description of the dish. No, no, no! That is just wrong! Because the "hot stone pot" really is a-sizzlin' hot (do not even think of touching the stone pot... seriously... fool me three times... ) what you need to do is let the bottom layer of rice get nice and extra crispy ~ it will get all deliciously browned and caramelized if you play your cards right. Then you can enjoy that bottom layer as a "rice crunchies" dessert; trust me on this one, Mr. Will Keith Kellogg!

There was one minus for me with this version of Dolsot Bibimbap, it was served with a Thai Sriracha-style hot sauce, not a true Korean Gochujang hot sauce. Both provide about the same amount of heat (a little picante, not a lotta picante), but I prefer the sweeter flavour of Gochujang. One of the waiter/server-guy persons told me that this was part of their American-Thai-Korean-fusion idea. I remember that they did serve us regular Gochujang at Surisan; so , it might just be a particular quirk with a few of their restaurants.

I'll tell ya one thing, this was definitely the first time that I have ever eaten Dolsot Bibimbap with a fork! I actually asked if they had any chopsticks to use, but they do not provide them at this location. I know they do have them at both Surisan and Blackwood, though. If these st*pid waygoogin[2] do not know how to use chopsticks by now, they should refrain from eating at any places that serve "Thai" or "Korean" cuisines.

Kitchen Sunnyside had Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (both Original Red Sauce and Green Jalapeño Sauce) and Tapatío® Salsa Picante Hot Sauce for use as condimentary supplements. I had even brought along a couple of my own hot sauces bottles, but, once again, none were needed/used. I did ask for a second ramekin of the Sriracha hot sauce to pour over the rest of the meal when I was about half-way done.

'cause I got into town about a half-hour before the restaurant was due to open and 'specially 'cause I knew this coffeeshop was located on the town square, I made sure to stop in at the very local Equator Coffees for a mighty fine cuppa. I think the story goes that the founders started roasting their Coffees out of a garage in Mill Valley. They have since moved to a much larger (and real) roastery in San Rafael (which is still very local, all the same, Mr. Peet and Mr. St*rbucks!).


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
HOTSTONEPOT ~ 6.5;
Equator Coffees Ethiopia Gora Kone ~ 7.1;
the "city" (if a population of about 14,000 designates it as a "city") of Mill Valley, Marin County, CA, USA ~ (17)7.6 (That's the Spirit!)

___________________

1. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, part 하나:

"돌솥 비빔밥" (pronounced "Dolsot Bibimbap", or close enough for gubbmint-work) is Korean for "stone pot" ("돌솥" ~ "dolsot") and "mixed rice" ("비빔밥" ~ "bibimbap").

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

That is not the actual/official transliteration of the Korean word for "los gringos" ("외국인"), but it is the best that I could come up with for sound-alike purposes.