Category Archives: Posts about Breakfast

Mar 27 2013
11 Comments
Food, Outer Sunset, Posts about Breakfast, San Francisco, San Francisco bakeries

A True Story of Pastry Paralysis

beachside cafe pastry display san francisco

Photo courtesy of yelp.com

On a Saturday in mid-March, I walked 2.6 miles and 42 blocks down Irving Street to Beachside Cafe, and I was hungry.

My hunger grew the longer I walked, and along with it, hungry indecision. In my mind, I could see a pastry, the perfect, tender, sweet, and comforting pastry that would solve my craving, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was. Was it a cookie, a scone, a cinnamon bun or twist? It was impossible to tell.

There was almost no line as I walked into Beachside, and a full display of pastries glowed in the light of hunger and baked good glory. This was the first level of disaster. When faced with a display of pastries in which everything looked good, my mind froze up solid. I was left staring open-mouthed at the pastry display like the first Adam trying to name a billion different orange-colored things. I began to ask the server a series of questions, becoming more dissatisfied with every answer.

“What is your favorite?” “I really like banana nut muffin and the peanut butter cookie.” (boo)

“What’s your most popular pastry?” “The chocolate chip cookie.”(duh)

“What your second most popular pastry?” “Blueberry muffin?” (boring)

“Is the blueberry scone good?” “Yes.” (obvs)

“What’s that thing” “Scallion-bacon scone.” (weird)

“And that?” “Cinnamon apple muffin.” (reminds me too much of oatmeal)

These were the questions of a woman who clearly had no idea how to satisfy her need for a pastry or even what that particular need was. The crux of the issue is that I knew there was a right answer – there was a pastry on the shelf that would satisfy my deepest desires and yearnings, but I didn’t know how to find it, and I was terrified of missing the chance to sample the perfect pastry.

At last I chose the peanut butter cookie, and it was tasty – probably one of the better PB cookies I’ve had, but it didn’t hit the spot, the spot that cannot be named. It’s not the chocolate, pie, or berry spot. It is the pastry spot, and it is left un-hit, a hole in my soul that still seeks to be satisfied.

The quest continues. Who will win? The spot, or the human?

If you liked this, you might also like Experimentation in Pastries at Craftsmen and Wolves, Purchasing and Eating a Sandwich, and Deconstructed Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich.

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Mar 12 2013
9 Comments
Food, Posts about Breakfast, San Francisco

Your Life Coach Recommends Biscuits from the Pork Store Cafe

The Pork Store Cafe on Haight

The Pork Store Cafe on Haight

On Friday March 8th, the last day of the work week and the first day of what was then the rest of my life, I went to breakfast at the Pork Store Cafe.

My alarm that morning woke me in a spiteful way, right in the middle of a sleep cycle. For a moment, I debated whether or not it was worth it and that maybe I should just get a morning breakfast on Saturday. But my strength rallied and I finally got up. The instant my tennies hit the pavement I knew I’d made the right decision. Even better, I felt the breakfast hunger.

I arrived to the Pork Store Cafe at approximately 7:03 am, and about 15 minutes later, some of the most tempting breakfast food was steaming in front of me like a freaking holiday feast. I ordered the two eggs in a tasty nest, which consisted of two eggs over easy gently laid across the most deletable mixture of hashbrowns, peppers, onions, cheddar cheese, and a wild amount of bacon. You’re probably already salivating and I haven’t even gotten to the best part.

When I first walked in the door, I overheard a conversation between the waitress and a certain gentleman who was interested in purchasing biscuits but was being told that they would be another 15 minutes before they came out of the oven. Let me repeat that for those of you who are slow to understand the most important part of stories. He was waiting for a PAN OF PIPING HOT, FLUFFY AS HELL, FRESH OUT OF THE OVEN, HEAVEN BISCUITS.

Of course I had to have them. Lucky for me, a side of these biscuits was included with my meal. They came out slightly after I got the tasty nest due to the fact they were still being incubated by their oven mother, but I didn’t care about their tardiness. When I saw them, I became a believer in love at first sight.

I gently pulled them open in order to prepare them with butter and nearly fainted when I saw the amount of steam that Pork Store Cafe Biscuitscame off of them. The pats of butter melted with love and grace, and I took my first bite. It was one of those experiences when all I wanted at that moment was to be wrapped up in that biscuit for eternity, to have it surround me forever in an eternal embrace of fluffy goodness. I began to wax poetic about them in my mind, “A biscuit as textured and embracing as the hills of San Francisco, a biscuit as tender as a good mother’s love, a biscuit as fluffy as a middle school crush.”

I left that morning inspired, and vowed to never, ever skip Friday breakfasts again. And the biscuits. Sweet Mary mother of God, the biscuits. With the taste of those dear lambs, I believe I fleshed out a little more of my life’s purpose. I suggest you do the same.

This post is part of my general obsession with breakfast, breakfast foods, and 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 Life.

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Feb 27 2013
25 Comments
Food, Posts about Breakfast, San Francisco

I am the Breakfast Whisperer

Breakfast at mozSometimes 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.

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