One Great Brunch in San Francisco

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of dining at Foreign Cinema with my lady friend Sarah over at The Year of Sexy. We share an obsession for brunch, and as you know from my last week's post, my obsession has a specific shape. She has great taste in restaurants, and this was the best choice yet! Making us reservations four weeks ago, Sarah assured me it was worth the wait. Yes, they were booked four weeks in advance for Saturday brunch. I felt like I was part of a scene in American Psycho, but without too much psycho.

Though, I have to say that I'm crazy for this place! Outdoor seating, simple decor, and sophisticated but unpretentious food. This is a classy place, but not too classy, and that's comforting considering you really just want to stuff your face once you see the menu.

Speaking of which, here's what we had!

I'm not a very good day drinker, but I couldn't resist the cocktail options. Unfortunately I don't recall the name of Sarah's drink, but I'm pretty sure it's a blood orange mimosa that may contain another ingredient other than champagne. Whatever, it was good! I had a St Germain, a refreshing mix of sparkling wine, elderflower liqueur, and a lemon twist. If you like Jasmine tea, this is way better and I'm not just referring to the booze. The elderflower liqueur, which I never knew existed until yesterday, was almost candy sweet. Wow, it was good.

I never thought of having an appetizer with brunch, but I sure had one yesterday. We ordered the strawberry "pop tart." I will be thinking about it next time I have a real Pop Tart. We tried to show the scale of the 'tart in this picture. It's big! It was also flaky and light with a fresh strawberry filling. The top of the tart was encrusted with Turbinado sugar and dusted with powdered sugar. I have a feeling I would be able to make this at home easily, and I will get to enjoy it any time I want.

Main courses. You may see three in the above image, yet there was just two of us. Well, we ordered three entrees, what? We had to have our eggs for brunch, but that french toast had a reputation. Basically, everything, including the third entree, was spectacular. Sarah had the lobster and Dungeness crab frittata, seen at the top of the image. It was topped with fresh greens and outlined with a red pepper sauce. Usually I don't love crab, lobster, nor red pepper things, but damn. The frittata was so moist and plump with fresh seafood, and the mild sauce added a lovely velvety texture. 

My champagne porcini omelet, at the bottom of the image, was wonderful, but I have to say that I enjoyed the few bites of the frittata I snagged more. The omelet was very good, but the frittata was GOOD! 

French toast=glad we ordered it. What made it super special was the fresh mango and fruit creamy thing (the pink, serbert-looking substance on the plate in the center). Yeah, I'm not sure what the pink stuff was other than a type of fruit salad dip. I feel silly calling it that, but I don't feel silly raving about it.

So, the entrees were obviously filling, but I still had a hunger. I wanted to try it all at this point. We indulged in a small goat milk, herbed cheese plate with dried cheeries and walnut bread. The cheese was nice, but those cherries... They were not too sweet, not tart at all, and had a tinge of cinnamon! I wonder how I can make them so that I can put them on every bagel and cream cheese ever.

While Sarah likes her liquor, as I said above, I'm not always up for it in the morning unless I want to sleep the afternoon away. In fact, I'm not always up for it in general for the unfortunate belly ache and heart burn that results from it. Though, the sun was shining and I was wearing a sundress without a jacket in San Francisco on a Saturday at a beautiful restaurant. I'm glad that I took the chance on cocktails here. Perhaps it was the bedding of brunch in my tummy, but I felt fabulous after! Actually, it might really be because the used good liquor in the right quantities. I know I used to down overloaded, $4 gin and tonics, but today that doesn't do me good. These cocktails were delicious, refreshing, and well made. 

So, what did I treat myself to above? After sipping Sarah's Steel Magnolia (ginger beer, bourbon, and something called Snap), I couldn't resist. Halfway through my own, I felt transported to a veranda in Tennessee. It was that good. 

Overall, I had a wonderful Saturday brunch with my buddy Sarah. I'm a little bit in love with this place, and soon I will be taking Jeremy there for dinner under the stars—and for a movie! If you haven't figured it out, the outdoor dinner experience includes a film, and there are renovated drive-in speakers between tables. How fun. This is definitely a place for a special occasion, be it an actual event birthday or just "Life is good." Be prepared to pay a pretty penny, but every cent is worth it. 

Have you gone? Do you love it? 

Eggs

One fun thing about moving to a new neighborhood is finding all new places to eat. I love eating! Yesterday we tried Toast, a breakfast and lunch eatery on Church St.

They have a second location in Nob Hill, but we're lucky to be near the 29th and Church location. It was a lovely walk in the sun to get there and a short wait for the two of us to get a seat. Before too long, we were chowing down on one of the better simple brunches I've had in SF!

I got their breakfast burrito (pictured above), a favorite dish of mine. It was my usual at The Grind in the Lower Haight before we moved. Toast's breakfast burrito is comparable in price and offering to The Grind, but it's way tastier if I even thought that was possible. The tortilla was nice and crispy, not gummy. The eggs were fresh and fluffy and accompanied by the perfect amount of sour cream and salsa fresca. It comes with hash browns, which I was apathetic about until I ate them. They were light and crispy on the outside and soft, steamy, and flavorful on the inside. A+ brunch. Go there!

Something I've not covered in this blog yet: Eggs. I really love them. I might be a little obsessed with them. I might talk about brunch a lot in this blog, and I love brunch so much because it almost always includes eggs.

At this point in my life with eggs (specifically our typical leghorn chicken eggs), I've grown to love them prepared many ways: scrambled light, poached, sunny-side-up, frittata, omelet, hard boiled, bird's nest, quiche... I've recently made my own eggs blackstone at home. I'm working on egg salad sandwiches as a substitute for tuna salad. Next steps: master the soft boiled egg and find the perfect egg cup for me, and try preserved eggs in Chinese cuisine. I gotta try it all.

My favorite eggs to buy at the store now are Rock Island's fertile brown eggs. They're usually $3 to $4 a dozen. They're cage free—which is important to me. I also have a biased to brown eggs for no reason but they give me a false sense of "real" farm eggs. I also enjoy the different shades of creamy light brown found in each carton. 

I will probably speak more of my egg-cellent adventures in the future, but now I want to leave you with one last egg affection. Below is a drawing of my imaginary hens I will have someday. They are Lulu and Miss Davis and they will be our friends. They'll *cluck cluck cluck* in the backyard in the sunshine. Each day, I'll go outside and ask permission to add their little presents to our collection. It will be paradise! :P