Bayside Cafe

Another breakfastary mini-roadtrip[1]:
Sausalito, Marin County, CA

http://www.baysidecafe-sausalito.com/


Place: Bayside Cafe and Juice Bar

Location: 1 Gate 6 Road, Sausalito, CA 
(by the Kappas Marina, in the Harbor Center)

Hours: open seven days a week at 6:30am 
(closed every other day of the week)

Meal: the Spinach Poacher ~ poached eggs on top of sautéed (I added the "é" there; please note: no 
G£êñ Bäçòń §čåłē points are ever deducted due to spelling/accentuation preferences) spinach, topped with pico de gallo and Feta, served with tortillas or toast; and a cuppa (with two refillas ~ it was a smallish cuppa) of whatever their house (café, whatever) Coffee might have been (I forgot to ask; the Coffee pots had Peerless Coffee & Tea® on them, but those may just have been promotional leftovers from when they might have served that specific brand of Coffee)

(This EweToobular video/song is just a reminder that we should all make an effort to get to and to see the World outside our window once in a while.)


I really don't know why it has taken me over two years to make a return trip to Bayside Cafe and Juice Bar (see previous 'blog-entry from Sunday, March 22nd, 2015). I remember that I really liked my first visit there. I love that they open up at 6:30am... every day... and for breakfast (minusculed and un-italicized, thank you; I hope they never learn of that odious word "Brunch" here). Plus, breakfast (minusculed and un-italicized still, thank you) is served all day long (it even says so right on their web-site thing: "where breakfast is served all day" ~ of course, there it is italicized, but it's still in the minuscule, at least). And with a very extensive breakfast menu, this place is certainly Breakfastary Starting Rotation-worthy... if only they were a bit more local.

This morning, I sat at one of the seats at the long diner-style counter. However, I probably shoulda sat outside at one of the tables in their covered/screened patio seating area (overlooking the marina/houseboats). The weather was perfect for it. Plus, no other idiots were even out there yet that early in the morning, I woulda had the entire space to myself.

As I mentioned above, Bayside Cafe has a lot of other great-sounding breakfast entries, such-as: 

the Heart Breaker (omelette) ~ artichoke hearts, mushrooms, spinach & cheese;

the Veggie Volt (if we can overlook the dreaded "Veggie" moniker) ~ scrambled eggs, zucchini, tomatoes, spinach, & Swiss cheese;

Munga, Munga! (yeah, I have no idea what that means; I wonder if it was simply a misinterpretation of the Italian "Mangia, Mangia!" ~ "Eat, Eat!") ~ scrambled eggs, Italian sausage (which I would have omitted), mushrooms, Feta cheese, & salsa;

Mediterranean (omelette) ~ spinach, tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, avocado, & Feta;

or

(off their weekend specials board)
Breakfast Quesadilla ~ with eggs, bacon (No gracias.), cheese, and spinach, served with sour cream and salsa.

I really did have a hard time deciding on which meal to go with this morning. There are way too many good choices; hence, I need to make more return trips oftener.

I knew that I was going to like this meal from the description, but I enjoyed it even more in conception. Feta and spinach?! Needless to say (but I am needlessly keyboarding it, anyway), I enjoyed this dish immensely. This ended up being sorta Eggs Benedict-estilo mexicano for the gluten-free crowd (those people really don't want to pay for their gluten) with a bit of an ελληνικός-twist to it, too.

I like that they  offer a choice of (corn or flour) tortillas or toast. I opted for the corn tortillas option, as I thought (correctly so) that it was the best way to go. I bet this dish would have been interesting with the tortillas under the spinach and poached eggs, too. It may have been a bit too soupy-wet, but I would liked to have tried it that way, anyway.

For condimentary supplementation, Bayside Cafe
had just Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (both Original Red Sauce and Green Jalapeño Sauce). I used some of my own Punch Drunk™ Chocolate Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce (Thanks, Sean!) on top of one of the poached eggs for some extra flavour, but their fresh pico de gallo was pretty tasty all on its ownsome, anyway.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
the Spinach Poacher ~ 6.8;
Golden Gate Bridge and Bay views ~ 8.5

___________________

1. The round-trip time there and back (including a forty-five minutes to one hour side-trip to the Golden Gate Bridge in an [unsuccessful] attempt to spot ol' Humphrey and friends) was exactly two hours. H*ck, I spend more time than that most times driving to a location just on the other side of town.

La PROMENADE Café

(Sunday, August 2nd, 2015)

Richmond (District) Coffeehouses ~ Troisième Partie

(et aussi) 

Nibs Bakery & Café (redux)

http://www.lapromenadecafe.com/

(No official web-site. 3717 Balboa Street ~ between 38th and 39th Avenues; phonicular contact: 415-379-6468)


Place: La PROMENADE Café
Location: 3634 Balboa Street (between 37th and 38th Avenues)
Hours: open Monday to Friday at 7:00am, Saturday and Sunday at 7:30am
Meal: Tuscany Bagel ~ sun dried tomato and cream cheese; a medium cuppa allegro® COFFEE Blend No. 4; and for breakfastary dessert, Bob's Lemon-Blueberry Scone from Nibs Bakery & Café 

http://www.allegrocoffee.com/


Today was Day Two of the 50¢ Tour of San Francisco for Ed and Janan (and I would just like to point out that neither of the two have ponied-up the two bits yet; heck, they haven’t even donkeyed-down any coins). Today's itinerary ended up being: Sausalito for Lunch (Scoma's) and Ice Cream (Lappert's), and then Golden Gate Park (to include: Raccoon Island, the Bison Paddock, and Stow Lake) in the afternoon; however, we never got around to checking out either Japantown, nor Haight-Ashbury. As such, this was a good opportunity to do another 'blog-entry for the Richmond (District) Coffeehouses Series in the morning, before I had to meet up with them.

La PROMENADE Café is even larger than it's older sister Café ENCHANTE (see Saturday's 'blog-entry; if you are too lazy to look it up, I am too lazy to provide a hyperlink-thing), and probably twice as large as any stupid St*rbucks dive. It is located in the old Zephyr Café location (and this came in handy as I needed to catch up on some laundry this weekend and there is a decent wash-o-mat just in the next block of Balboa Street). I think they have been (re)open for just over a year now. I like some of the new interactive activities that they have added. Tuesday night is Game Night (featuring many of the old board games we all loved to play when we were growing up to waste our spare time; of course, that was long before the advent of video games or defacedbook) and (sometimes) Friday night has a Jazz Night with live music.

Like Café ENCHANTE, they also have Paris (the lesser-known one in France, not the much more popular city in Texas) street scenes painted on a few of the walls.

They even have a bookshelf that covers the entire back wall. So, even if you don't drink Coffee, you can always peruse the shelves while other normal people do enjoy their cuppas. All of the used (there may have been some new ones, too) books are for sale at $5.00 (so, basically, the cost of an over-priced, fancy-schmancy kinda Coffee at that St*rbucks joint), which is really quite reasonable.

I went with an onion bagel as the base for this sandwich, which I felt was a good pairing/choice. The bagel-sandwich had a nice amount of sliced up sundried tomatoes in it, which is always a good thing. Other than that, it wasn't really anything extraordinary that I couldn't have prepared at home myself (well, if I ever had bagels… or cream cheese… or sundried tomatoes in my kitchen, that is).

The same as yesterday, I really didn't bother to ask what kind of condimentary supplements they might have had to offer. I used a little of my own El Yucateco®
XXXtra Hot Sauce Salsa Kutbil-ik® de Chile Habanero (Thanks, Brian!) on just one half of the bagel sandwich.


(There is no photo of the scone. It was a triangular baked-good looking thing. Just use your imaginations.)

This morning ended up being a breakfastary two-fer. While finishing up my laundry detail, I figured I would pop-in next door to Nibs Bakery & Café (see last 'blog-entry from April 18th, 2010). The scone was great as always; it was still warm outta the oven, with lots of plump, fresh (and, as I was informed, in-season) blueberries and a nice lemon sugar-glaze on top. The key to the perfect scone is not to make it as hard as a rock and as dry as dirt; and these guys make them correctly. The outer shell is crunchy, but the inside remains nice and moist and fluffy (just as they are supposed to be made in that Ol' Blighty[1] place).


"Wash Day tomorrow. Nothing clean, right?!"
"Nothing clean, right… Your scones, give them to me… now!"


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Tuscany Bagel ~ 6.0; allegro® COFFEE Blend No. 4 ~ 6.5; Bob's Lemon-Blueberry Scone ~ 7.2


________________

1. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day (that I bet not many Ol' Blighters are even aware of  its origin):

"Blighty" derives from the Hindi word "bilāyati", which means "foreign land" (and, in this case, specifically Eng-foreign-land). 

Bayside Cafe

A breakfastary mini-roadtrip[1]:
Sausalito, Marin County, CA

http://www.baysidecafe-sausalito.com/


Place: Bayside Cafe and Juice Bar
Location: 1 Gate 6 Road, Sausalito, CA (located by the Kappas Marina, in the Harbor Center)
Hours: open seven days a week at 6:30am (closed every other day of the week)
Meal: the Veggie[2] Storm ~ scrambled eggs, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, spinach, & Jack cheese, all egg dishes served with choice of hashbrowns (which they have as two words, but I prefer the compound noun) or homefries (which they also have as two words, but I like to compound this word, too) and choice of toast; and something from their Juice Bar ~ Dole Express: pineapple juice, fresh-juiced apples, and fresh-juiced ginger

(I'll bet that you didn't know that the word "Sambade" in Spanish means "roadtrip". Would Carlos lie to you?)


I headed way up North for breakfast at
Bayside Cafe and Juice Bar this morning. I really like that they open up bright (well, the Sun was still not quite fully up yet when I pulled into the parking lot, but still) and early every day. This place was the complete opposite of the swanky dive that I ate at yesterday morning. This is more of a family-owned, nebby diner-ish joint. It is located in the Sausalito marina/harbour area just off Highway 101/Highway 1. 

Bayside Cafe is a medium-sized place and has seating of: six chairs (not stools) at the diner-counter; six tables for four; two tables for two; and ten extra-large booths for four (but I am sure these could accommodate a family of six if there were two small children in tow ~ if not, you can always leave the little rugrats outside to play in the low-tide mud ~ see following photo taken just around the back of the restaurant). Plus, there is a nice, large, covered patio area with an additional six tables for four and two tables for two.

The breakfast menu (which is served all day long, too) is really pretty extensive and offered lots of great choices; there were twenty different omelettes alone (well, twenty of the same omelette would not be alone, but together, I guess). Here are just a few of the dishes I was a-figurin'-on: (off their ?weekend/daily? Specials board as you walk in) Swedish Pancakes (with raspberry-blueberry butter and fresh fruit; I was really tempted by that one; maybe next time, if they have it offered again); the Heart Breaker (an omelette made with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, spinach, & cheese; which is not very different from what I ended up getting); the Veggie Volt (scrambled eggs, zucchini, tomatoes, spinach, & Swiss cheese; this was another one that I was really debating on; another time, too); the Spinach Poacher (poached eggs on top of sautéed spinach, topped with pico de gallo and Feta; served with tortillas or toast; as if there weren't enough reasons for a return trip already).

And just so those of you that aren't stupid vegetarians don't feel left out, there were a few really interesting meatetarian choices, too: the Wannabe Reuben (an omelette made with Pastrami, Swiss cheese, tomatoes, & grilled onions; if they had offered that one with sauerkraut in it, I may have even ordered it, less the dead, decaying, brined bovine product, of course); Mexican Mambo (an omelette made with Louisiana sausage, jalapeños, sour cream, salsa, & cheese); or Munga, Munga! (scrambled eggs, Italian sausage, mushrooms, Feta cheese, & salsa; I can't be sure, but I think that "Munga, Munga" translates from Italian as "internationally confusing as Hell" ~ Italian sausage, Greek cheese, and Mexican salsa?).

This was a very good scramble mess. The artichoke hearts were of the brined variety (not the kind that are marinated in an oil and vinegar base; I like those in salads, but they usually tend to make a scramble or an omelette a bit messy). Artichokes and spinach have always been two of my favourite "veggies" (Ugh!) since I was a kid.

I really like that they offer a choice of potato sides, that gets extra points for that right there. I went with the hashbrowns this morning and was glad that I did as they were prepared in a very interesting manner. These also get extra bonus points as they were made with (red and green) bell peppers and (white) onions mixed in with the shredded potatoes; I have never seen that done before and really liked that idea.

For my choice of toast, I went with a country biscuit. This seemed to just be one of those that are ready-made (as opposed to fresh homemade), but it still beats what Mr. Thomas may have to offer with his faux crumpets (nooks and crannies be damned).

The Dole Express was excellent. The juiced apples make a nice frothy head on the drink and the fresh ginger adds a nice bite to it all. I am not really much of a fan of straight pineapple juice, it's usually way too sweet for my taste (however, I really do love fresh pineapple), but the apples and ginger really tempered the overt sweetness. (The only minus that I can think of was that it came with a plain ol' straight/non-bendy straw. Bendy straws are the best!)

For condimentary supplements, Bayside Cafe has on all the tables Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (bottles of both Original Red Sauce and Green Jalapeño Sauce). I just used some of my own The Wiltshire Chilli Farm Winter chilli sauce on the scrambled mess and smoked Chipotle chilli sauce on the potatoes (Thanks again for both, Greg & Cindy!).

This turned out to be one of the safest places for breakfast that I have eaten at in a long while as there were four Sausalito City Police officers and three California Highway Patrolmen all eating there while I was there. I would just liked to have seen Pumpkin and Honey Bunny try any of their foolish shenanigans there this morning (Vincent and Jules wouldn't even have been needed)!


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: the Veggie Storm ~ 6.5; Dole Express ~ 7.2


1. I am calling this a "mini-roadtrip" mainly because it took me less time getting there this morning (about fifteen minutes ~ it is a straight shot for me north across the ol' Golden Gate Bridge) than it normally takes me to drive to most places right here in the city. 

2. Oh, sure! Billy-boy and his spell-checkering Gestapo at Microsoft do not even recognise perfectly valid words like "breakfastary" or "condimentary", but they have no problem with such idiotic, made-up words like "veggies". Buncha brown-shirted Nazi bastages!

Taste of Rome

Who knew that Rome tasted like stinky, moldy cheese?

(A mini-roadtrip to Sausalito[1])

http://www.taste-of-rome.com/

I had breakfast this morning at Taste of Rome in Sausalito, right along Bridgeway (and I have no idea how much a bridge weighs, so don't ask me) with some old friends (well, some a lot older than others *cough*Harvey*cough*) that were back in town after moving to Seattle recently: Harvey, Jamie, and their little daughter, Lizzie. That is a picture of Harvey and Lizzie (with her new tiger friend) in front of the restaurant. Like most establishments in town, this place is located just yards from the San Francisco Bay.

Sausalito always reminds me of a Left Coast version of a Cape Cod tourist town ~ lots of souvenir and art shops, but short on good places for breakfast or "Brunch". Harvey, Jamie, and Lizzie are staying at Casa Madrona and the house restaurant there really had nothing much substantial for breakfast (just coffee and pastries, etc.), so it was good that I happened to find Taste of Rome. I actually ran into Harvey, Jamie, and Lizzie a half hour before I was scheduled to meet them for breakfast while I was walking around Sausalito looking for a good place to eat; I had already passed by Taste of Rome and liked the looks of their breakfast menu, and it was just two blocks away from where they are staying.

For a coffee house, Taste of Rome actually has a very decent selection of breakfast dishes. They have several omelettes and scrambles, Eggs Benedicts, and frittatas. I ordered the Frittata col Gorgonzola[2] ~ egg, bacon & Gorgonzola cheese with Potatoes (choice of toast and a cup of fruit). Harvey had the Denver Omelet ~ Ham, Cheddar cheese, bell peppers, and green onion (I am pretty sure that whenever Harvey eats breakfast in Colorado's capital city that he orders the Sausalito Omelette). Jamie had (Traditional) Eggs Benedict ~ with Canadian bacon. Lizzie just had a Toasted Bagel with butter and jam. For drinks, I had a Doppio Espresso; Harvey and Jamie both had non-fat Lattes; and Lizzie had a Strawberry Smoothie.

(I suppose I could have taken a picture of all of the other meals, but in the end I just took a picture of mine only. Harvey and Jamie can start their own Seattle version of a breakfastary 'blog if they want to.)

I skipped the dead, decaying, crispy pork flesh (Sorry, Glen.) and substituted mushrooms instead (Sorry, Skip.). It was nice that they even offered to substitute something else for me (the counter-lady was very nice and helpful… and cute, too). This was not a very large frittata, but it was pretty good with lots of stinky, cheesy goodness.

You can choose from either home fries or hashbrowns as your potato side dish; I love a place where you get to choose from two different types of potatoes. We all went with the home fries. I asked the cute counter-lady which she would recommend, and she agreed with what I always say that "potatoes of any kind really make it a breakfast" (it didn't really make a decision for me, but did I mention she was cute?). We all agreed that these were really good home fries (with whole rosemary sprigs roasted in with them).

I went with sourdough toast this morning (I liked that it was grilled, not toasted; as was Lizzie's bagel). Harvey had English muffins as his toast/bread choice. Jamie didn't really get to make a choice for her English muffins with the Traditional Eggs Benedict, of course. I thought it pretty funny that they actually forgot Lizzie's butter with her bagel, but we had more than enough butter to go around.

Taste of Rome offers for condimentary supplementation just Tabasco® (but they offer two types: the standard red and green Jalapeño), which isn't that bad for an Italian caffee place. It really didn't matter as usual, as I had come prepared and used some of my Palo Alto Fire Fighters Pepper Sauce (Thanks agains, Amys!) on my potatoes; Harvey and Jamie used some, too (Harvey on both his omelette and potatoes and Jamie just on her potatoes); and they both agreed with me that this little, local sauce has some great flavour and just the right amount of heat. Lizzie just had butter and a little strawberry jam on her bagel.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:  Frittata col Gorgonzola ~ 6.5


[1] Sausalito is located in Marin County and is the next town due north of San Francisco directly across the Golden Gate Bridge. It's not really much of a "roadtrip", more like just a "$6.00 bridge trip".
 
Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day:
 
"Sausalito" is not Italiano for "a small amount of gravy", it actually comes from the Spanish "sauzalito", meaning "small willow grove", from "sauce" (meaning "willow") + collective derivative "-al" (meaning "place of abundance") + diminutive suffix "-ito"; with orthographic corruption from z to s.
 
[2] Gorgonzola cheese is one of my favourite of the stinkier, blue cheese varieties.  It is named after the village near Milan, Italy where it was first made.