Town's End restaurant & bakery

http://www.townsendrb.com/


Place: Town's End restaurant & bakery

Location: 2 Townsend Street
(on the Embarcadero across from Pier 38)

Hours: open Tuesday-Friday at 7:30am for breakfast; open Saturday-Sunday at 8:00am for "Brunch"

Meal: Roasted Brussels Sprouts Hash ~ with butternut squash, coarsely diced potatoes, red onion, red peppers, two poached eggs, mustard sauce; to drink with the meal, a glassa Blood Orange Mimosa ~ organic blood orange juice & Brut Cava sparkling wine; and, afterward, at Crossroads Café a Single Pumpkin Spice Latte

http://www.delanceystreetfoundation.org/entercafe.php

(What is the EweToobular juxtaselection here today? Well, like any good Britishlander lad, Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend always eats his Brussels sprouts this time of the year, too.)


Driving "all the way cross-town" over to Town's End restaurant & bakery (see last 'blog-entry from Sunday, December 3rd, 2017) always takes a bit of time, so I will generally only head over there on Sunday mornings (plus, there will usually be plenty of free, legal parking then, too). Because I had arrived there about ten minutes before the restaurant was due to open, 
I went for a brisk little stroll along the Embarcadero. (Of course, I was also able to find a great parking space right across the street from the restaurant at that early hour.) AT&T Park, Home of your San Francisco Giants, is only two blocks down the road. 

As soon as I saw this weekend's (seasonal) "Brunch" menu, I immediately knew which meal I was going to order. Otherwise, there were still a few other good ideas: 

Mary's Special ~ two Swedish oatmeal pancakes (organic pears & almonds in the pancakes), two eggs scrambled with mushrooms, green onions, garlic & sharp White Cheddar;

Almond Cornmeal French Toast ~ ricotta-blueberry cornbread, orange cinnamon batter, served with lemon cream (it's gluten free! [they added that explanation point!]);

Red pepper scrambled eggs ~ with fire roasted red peppers, green onions & Laura Chenel goat cheese; eggs & omelettes are served with a choice of potato-carrot pancakes (with apple compote & sour cream), grilled polenta, or fresh fruit;

or

3 Chile Scramble ~ Anaheim chiles, roasted red peppers & chipotles, grilled red onions, scrambled with 3 eggs, queso fresco, handmade corn tortilla, red & green salsas & guacamole (I had ordered this dish just two visits ago, but it is always a good back-up if needed).

Today's complimentary fresh-baked mini-muffins/mini-scone were a blueberry, a banana-walnut (How come no one ever makes plantain-pecan muffins?), and a raisin scone. They were gone long before the meal was brought out.

Of course, I loved this dish. (It's a Brussels sprouts-thing with me.) There were definitely a lot of Brussels sprouts (and I was very happy to see it correctly spelled as "Brussels" for a change, Monsieur/Meneer Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg) in this and they were all charred/roasted very nicely. The waiter-server person explained to me that the mustard sauce (which was a sort of mustard aioli) was made with maple syrup in it to give it a sweet (but oddly tasty) flavour. It was served in a small ramekin on the side so that you could use as little or as much as you liked. This was a good idea. I liked using the entire ramekin myself, anyway. (This got me to wondering if a Coffee-maple syrup-mustard aioli might be an interesting combination... not that I am ever gonna make it for myself, though.)

I really did not bother to ask what Town's End restaurant & bakery might have to offer in the way of hot sauces for condimentary supplementation. I used some of my own Old St. Augustine Snake Bite Datil Pepper Sauce (Thanks, Cindy & Greg!) on top of one of the poached eggs and H*lls Kithchen Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce (Thanks, Mom!) on top of the other poached egg. When mixed with the soft egg yolks and their mustard sauce, this all made for a flavourful addition.

(Another not so) Strange Coffee Interlude

Like I had done after my last visit there, I walked across the street to Crossroads Café for an after-breakfast dessert Coffee. (I had planned on doing this all along and did not order another cuppa with my meal for that reason.) This morning I ordered a personal seasonal favourite, Pumpkin Spice Latte. Both Crossroads Café and Town's End restaurant & bakery serve the (Oakland) local Mr. Espresso®, anyway.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Roasted Brussels Sprouts Hash ~ 7.1;
freebie mini-muffins/mini-scone ~ 6.9;
Pumpkin Spice Latte ~ 6.6

21st Amendment - Brewery - Cafe - Bar

"Everybody is using coffee; this must be prevented. His Majesty was brought up on Beer and so were both his ancestors and officers. Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on Beer, and the King does not believe that coffee drinking soldiers can be relied on to endure hardships in case of another war." 
~ Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (1740-1786)

http://21st-amendment.com/the-restaurant/

(I couldn't find a "21"-related, or "Beer"-related, or even "Pizza"-related song on EweToob that I liked. This completely unrelated song will have to do; mainly 'cause I said so.)


What is better than Beer and Pizza for breakfast? (That was a rhetorical question. Well, maybe Beer, Pizza, and Ice Cream, but Ice Cream wasn't on the menu unfortunately.) So I had breakfast at 21st Amendment - Brewery - Cafe - Bar this morning. It is located just two blocks straight up 2nd Street (between Bryant and Brannan) from AT&T Park, Home of Your World Champion San Francisco Giants. I must admit, the 21st Amendment is one of my favourite of all the Amendments, but the other Twenty Amendments that Noah brought back down with him from Mt. Olympus are okay, too.

The restaurant has a large, indoor warehouse-y space with a Mezzanine[1] Bar and even ten four-seater tables outside on the sidewalk/alleyway (there was even a large big-screen teevee showing this morning's Giants game outside, too). They open at 10:00am for "Brunch" and only on Sundays.

21st Amendment is not just a brew-pub, they actually sell their Beer commercially in stores, too. I have purchased a few different kinds of their Beers in the past; however, they are all sold in aluminum cans, not glass bottles. They give this big reasoning why they actually package their product in cans (which they state are state of the art/new-fangled cans, yadayadayada), but the bottom line is because it's cheaper. Wine should always have real cork stoppers and Beer should always be in glass bottles. Simples!

They really don't offer too many items on the "Brunch" menu (just ten choices). The hardest decision this morning actually was choosing which Beer to have with the meal. I ended up ordering Breakfast Pizza ~ Black Forest ham, mushrooms, spinach, goat cheese, and an egg in the middle. I also had a side of New Potatoes O'Brien. I decided on a glass (well, a plastic cup, whatever) of Hell or High Watermelon Wheat (4.9% ABV), mainly because it is their summer seasonal Beer.

I ordered the Pizza without the ham. It is made with a Beer-mash crust. This was good, but not the best Pizza I have ever had for breakfast. I have no idea what Old Potatoes O'Brien tasted like, but the New ones were pretty decent. In addition to O'Brien potatoes, there were lots of red, green, and yellow bell peppers and (pickled?) red onions. The Beer was served with the requisite slice/chunk of watermelon on the rim (which I saw fit to eat for dessert, of course).

21st Amendment offers the San Francisco Triumvirate of Hot Sauces for condimentary supplements: Tabasco® Brand Pepper Sauce (the standard red), Tapatío®, and Cholula® Hot Sauce. I forewent any of those and used some of my own Palo Alto Firefighters Pepper Sauce ~ XX Habanero (Thanks agains, Amys and Brian!) generously on the Pizza and some Serious Food… Silly Prices Chunky Habanero Hot Sauce (Thanks, Cindy & Greg!) on the potatoes. The manager-guy noticed my little collection of hot sauces in front of me and tried some of the PAFFPS~XX Habanero; he really seemed to like it a lot, too, and I might have talked him into getting some to use in their restaurant. What can I say? This is really one of the best hot sauces (either the standard or the slightly hotter XX Habanero) that I have ever tried ~ not too hot, but it has a great amount of flavour.

Despite what Old Fritz said, I did make myself a cuppa Peet's® Ethiopian Fancy when I got home and was writing up this 'blog-entry.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Breakfast Pizza ~ 6.7; Hell or High Watermelon Wheat ~ 7.0


1. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer del giorno:

"Mezzanine" comes from French, from the Italian word "mezzanino" which is the diminutive of  "mezzano" (meaning "middle"), from Latin "mediānus" (meaning "median/of the middle"), Malcolm.

the Butler & the Chef

"And now leave me in peace for a bit! I don’t want to answer a string of questions while I am eating. I want to think."
"Good heavens!" said Pippin. "At breakfast?"
~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

http://butlerandthechef.com/

(Because every good breakfast needs a little bread[1], be it "lost" or "found".)


I went to breakfast at the Butler & the Chef this morning; this was my first ever visit there. They are located in South Park[2] (which is just two and a half blocks away from AT&T Park, home of your 2012 World Champion San Francisco Giants), where there is lots of free early-morning parking to be had. They open at 8:00am on Tuesday-Saturday, but don't open until 10:00am on Sunday (not a big fan of that, though).

The Butler & the Chef has a Frenchified bistro atmosphere to it (I think the owners are actually Frenchified themselves). There is plenty of seating; however, these are mostly small round tables for two (where you would need to push two together for a group of four, and they also make a point of it that they don't seat parties of more than six). There are also two tables for two on the sidewalk, but those can tend to be surrounded with people waiting in line to get in (so just be sure to order enough food to share with those waiting).

Their "Le Brunch" (their le words, not le mine) menu has an okay array of items on it: a few different egg dishes, some buckwheat crêpes (savory or sweet), and four different Belgian waffles. What I ended up ordering, though, was Pain Perdu ~ French Toast made with organic sweet French bread (pain de mie) dipped in organic egg & milk with real (they don't specify whether it is also "organic" or not, though) vanilla, served with 100% pure (but not necessarily "organic") maple syrup. I also had a good, strong cuppa Graffeo coffee (again, I didn't ask if it was "organic" or not). One very disappointing thing is that they do not offer any type of potato side dishes (either "organic" or not) for "Le Brunch".

http://www.graffeo.com/

This was made with two extra thick slices of bread ~ good. They almost had a cake-like taste and texture to them ~ also good. These really sucked up the maple syrup like a sponge (which I liked). However, this really needed something extra to make it "special"; some side fruit, or something. They also put wayyyyyyy too much powdered sugar on top of the slices (for a change, I actually agree with some of those snooty-ass judges on Chopped ~ just a little dusting is all that is really needed for appearance; the maple syrup is more than enough to sweeten this). All in all this was good, but it just goes without saying that it really doesn't compare with Baker Street Bistro's version (Mission Beach Cafe's was also better ~ see 'blog-entry from June 16th, 2012).

As I had only ordered the Pain Perdu (and, again, no potatoes? What's up with that?!), I didn't bother to ask what they had for condimentary supplements. And I had just received two brand new bottles of hot sauces in the mail yesterday afternoon (Thanks, J.T.!) which I was really looking forward to trying out this morning; looks like they will have to make their debut next weekend now.

The bill comes with a chocolate truffle, which is always nice.

I can recommend this place to people, but for me it's really not worth a return trip just for the Pain Perdu (and I would suggest to just go on a Saturday when "Le Brunch" is served two hours earlier ~ same food, just at a better early hour). I suppose that if I lived in the neighborhood, I would probably go more often… to Town's End Restaurant & Bakery (see 'blog-entry from October 28th, 2012).


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Pain Perdu ~ 6.5


1. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, Part A:
 
"Bread" in Latin is "pane" (pronounced "pah-nay"). It is the word root for "bread" in several other Romance languages:

French ~ "pain" (hence the "Pain Perdu" this morning)
Italian ~ "pane"
Portuguese ~ "pão"
Romanian ~ "pâine"
Spanish/Galician ~ "pan"
Catalan ~ "pa"
Esperanto ~ "pano"
Haitian Creole ~ "pen"

Now I told you Part A so that I could explain the Bad Company EweToob link above. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, Part B:

I heard this on Pizza Cuz on the Cooking Channel, and it was only said as a joke: "Company in Latin means 'with bread'". It is actually "cum pane", but close enough for Government work.

Finally, stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day, part C:

The English word for "bread" is related to Old Norse "braud", which comes from Old Frisian "brād", from Old High German "brot".

2. This South Park is not a cartoon series located in Colorado. It is just a neighborhood in San Francisco with the same name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park,_San_Francisco

I had about half an hour to kill before the Butler & the Chef opened this morning so I walked around the oval park a bit. I came across this young lady sunning herself shamelessly topless in the morning warmth.

Yeah, only in San Francisco.