Sometimes I’m a marketing associate working an office job, printing out personal things at work because the paper quality is higher and vaguely feeling like I’d rather be outside building something with bricks.
Other times I’m a friend, mooching off my companions at restaurants, sampling their food, and arriving late with extra people in tow.
Once in a while I’m a lover, wooing my beau with orange-accented tennis shoes and a no-frills attitude towards personal dressing and home furnishings.
But sometimes, when the weather is right, and the sun is shining just so and the city is not quite awake, before 9:30 am on weekends and as early as 6:00 am during the week, I am the breakfast whisperer.
I love breakfast. Just to prove, I’ve blogged about it here, and here, and probably somewhere else too.
Like many passions, I can’t really explain why I love breakfasting. I only know that I do, and that I have a very specific idea about what constitutes the ideal breakfast experience. Allow me to describe:
The ideal breakfast is a solitary event and takes place as early as possible, anywhere from 5-7 am, depending on when the restaurant opens. The restaurant should not be busy, thus ensuring best possible service. If available, a window booth with a little bit of sunlight falling on the table should be had. A book should be there, or a newspaper, and this shall be read while drinking a cup of (preferably weak) coffee, a cup that shall be magically refilled without asking.
The server could be cheerful or grumpy, but above all, the service should be quiet and respect the holiness of the morning hours. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns should all be had for $10 or less. The hot things should be hot. Tender things should be tender, and crispy things should crunch. Fancier items can be had, but food type, variety, and quality is only part of the breakfast experience.
In other words, I like to get up when it’s still dark outside and go alone to an empty restaurant and read the paper while eating normal foods that may or may not be good.
This might sound strange, but it is my breakfast vision. However, this is only one kind of breakfast experience. There’s also the social experience, the brunch experience, the breakfast for dinner experience, the traveling, the continental, the exotic, the homemade, the holiday, the…well you get it. There’s a lot of breakfast possibilities.
The breakfast I described is my ritual, a certain set of customs I perform that somehow make the world seem more reasonable and help me find my place in it. Setting off on a quest to find the best 7 am breakfast experience near downtown San Francisco has been one of the highlights of 2013.
All throughout the week I look forward to my excursions, to discovering yet another outlet for my breakfast passion. I think about breakfasts of weeks past, the crispy hashbrowns, the sourdough pancakes (from Bette’s Oceanview Diner – well worth the price tag), how a particular server was especially gracious, or the perfect bite of pancake, egg, bacon, and hashbrown all together while people-watching on a sunny street, wondering where they’re going in their lives and if they’ve ever had breakfast before.
I eat breakfast, for I am the breakfast whisperer.
If you have any stories about breakfast, feel free to share. Leave them in the comments or email me at richmondapt328@gmail.com. Or share something you’re passionate about. Just share.
Snotting black 
[…] how much I love breakfast, check out these posts: Oh My God, It’s Breakfast in Istanbul, I am the Breakfast Whisperer, Your Life Coach Recommends Biscuits from Pork Store […]
Have you tried Crepes on Cole at the junction of Cole and Carl? SO much better than over hyped Zazie’s. It’s my favourite brunch spot in SF.
oooo…I’ll have to go. I’ve heard much about Zazie but I’m glad to hear another opinion.
Breakfast alone with the newspaper at a restaurant where the cooks and the staff just get it. I’d like you to whisper me up one of those places around here.
[…] the holistic experience that encompasses breakfast. If you want to munch on more of this topic, see I am the Breakfast Whisperer, Oh My God It’s Breakfast in Istanbul, and The Oatmeal that Changed My […]
i adore breakfast as well however my preference is staying inside and making my own then going back to bed!! rather than having to risk acutal human interaction.
http://citystylecountrysmile.com/2013/02/28/healthy-french-toast/
It’s true…human interaction can be dangerous.
You must breakfast at the Buena Vista some morning… nothing like a shot of Aquavit to get the day started.
p.s. http://thebuenavista.com/index1.html (don’t let the slick website fool you)
Must go!
give a report…
I love breakfast too! I’m a big fan of pancakes. Well, anything that you can put syrup on actually. 🙂
But it has to come with at least eggs and sausage or bacon. None of this just pancakes business. That won’t fly for me. Glad to know another fan of breakfast foods!
I’ve gotten to the point where I think I need to start bringing my own maple syrup with me places.
Ha ha! 🙂
“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar”
I take the king thing to heart – glad you do as well! Sahtain (Arabic “bon apetite”)
God give you health!
Got one. It’s MIA because I tried to entwine truth with fiction.
The people view MIGHT be unpleasant first thing in the morning (especially if you have a day off or not working, watching people and their downtrodden go-to-work expressions sour my milk a little) I used to choose the small booth in the back, near the waitress who was prepping the cole slaw cups that go with burger deluxes (they rotated who was on slaw duty).
My favorite are servers who aren’t chatty.
You are awesome. One time I took the kids to a donut shop for breakfast. The rest is history. A history of once-upon-a-time not feeling crabby in the morning and actually going out for breakfast. A little greasy spoon in New Haven, Connecticut comes to mind, followed by the remembrances of a thousand “breakfasts” (noon, at least) my family had when I was growing up at various Village Inn types of places. Hello nostalgia!
Wow….that place sounds amazing. I’ll have to search it out.
Breakfast! I miss a good filling American breakfast, such as the ones I used to enjoy at 7.30am in the almost-empty Warren dining hall, with a scenic view of Comm Ave and downtown Boston.
Now I just swallow some snacks on my way to the bus station, or grab some food from a cafe to go and eat it in class -_-
There are a lot of restaurants here that serve HK style breakfast, but I don’t enjoy that stuff as much.
American breakfasts are one of the things I miss the most when I’m abroad. Come visit soon and we’ll do breakfast right!
Your quest sounds like fun and what better place than San Francisco to find good food. My favourite meal experience there was a bowl of chowder in a bread bowl – sitting on the dock watching the sea lions and fighting off the sea gulls.
I am a breakfast person, but it is a ritual I prefer to have at home, in my pj’s:
http://gogreygirl.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/weekly-photo-challenge-breakfast/
PJ breakfasts are nice—I love eating buffets at hotels, where I don’t have to do anything besides show up and throw as much food as possible on my plate.