Here’s the outside… there are chairs and tables where you can sit outside on the sidewalk or inside the gate by the door.

View from upstairs…

My latte! The latte’s here are always good, hot and foam is nice and velvety.

I forgot to take a photo of the upstairs, but there is a large area upstairs with tables and sofas where you can sit and drink your coffee or work on your laptop. There’s a bar area that overlooks the downstairs with stools and the row of tables along the wall are laptop-free for certain hours in the day, so look at the little table sign before you sit down.

That’s about it. I’ve been coming to Coffee Bar for years now and it never disappoints!

Coffee Bar 1890 Bryant St, San Francisco, CA 94010

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HOLY CRAY to the 5th…. this place is AWESOME. It’s kind of fancy inside but don’t be fooled, you can be as dressy or casual as you want. There were people in jeans (including myself) and people semi-dressed up (after churchers). They were playing Barry White and Aretha Franklin… perfect!

I took one look at the menu and knew instantly what I would order: CHICKEN FRIED BENEDICT. I got a side of bacon too (applewood smoked) and Hav and I split an order of the beignets as a morning appetizer. I’m going to post the photo of the chicken fried benedict first, because I want that image to appear on the homepage…. lol.

NOTE: Bacon was extra… the dish doesn’t come with it, I just put it on the plate to make the plate look fuller. Basically, the dish is called “Chicken Fried Benedict”. It’s fried chicken (boneless) atop an English muffin, with a poached egg on top, covered in hollandaise sauce. They also give you a little side of their house special smokey hot sauce, mmm.

I’m not the hugest benedict person mainly because it’s too wet and mushy, but I decided to try this dish because the idea of juicy fried chicken in the morning sounded perfect. Let me tell you, this dish is AMAZING. Everything about it was awesome – I think the fried chicken really balanced out the soft liquidy/creaminess of the benedict. The hot sauce was also super yummy and it had the perfect ratio of heat to hotness to smokiness. My only suggestion would be to add toast or home fries or something else as a side item because I would’ve liked something to dip in the sauce.

Now check out the beignets:

The beinets were just simply to die for. They are soft and light and have a sweet sugary buttery flavor. The powdered sugar really give them an extra kick. They’re very rich for being so light… soooo good we even took the last one home!

Hav ordered grits with her meal. As much as I love corn, I’ve never really been a huge grits person – but the grits at Pican are seriously so good I would add them to my last meal list. These grits are so buttery and corny – you know what I mean! They have an extra kick of the corn flavor – salty, sweet and buttery corn. I was already stuffed from the chicken benedict and I couldn’t stop myself from eating these grits. I will definitely order a side for myself next time…. and had I known I was going to eat the grits I would’ve taken a photo of the dish without spoonmarks… sorry!

Lastly here’s a photo of my orange juice and latte. What a nice simple presentation!

Pican is A-CLASS… LOVE IT and can’t wait to go back and try something else!

Disco fries all the way baby!

2295 Broadway
(between Grand Ave & 23rd St)
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 834-1000
www.picanrestaurant.com

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Besides awesome pastries, La Boulange also has a nice little menu of breakfast and lunch items like eggs, sandwiches and salads.  I opted for a cup of the Soup du Jour – Potato Leek, a Breakfast Pizza with Bacon and a Nonfat Latte.

This is the kind of place where you order at the counter, get a number and find a place to sit.  Then you sit down and wait for your food to be delivered.  We waited a little while and then the soup came first.  It was pretty good — not quite as sweet as I expected it to be, but nonetheless, good.  The soup came with a little slice of french bread which was really good. Once the bread was gone I really had no reason to continue eating the soup, but I did anyway… just because.

Above is the breakfast pizza with bacon.  It is very interesting… basically the crust is a sweet flakey phyllo-ish kind of dough, topped with melted cheese, diced tomatoes, chunks of bacon and finally some scrambled eggs (oh, then sprinkled with chopped parsley i think?).  I usually cut it in slices the short way and eat.  It is very good and filling.  The buttery-ness of the crust and eggs mixed with the smokey saltiness of the bacon is the perfect combo and worth every bite.  I’ve had it twice so far.

This is a “real” latte.  Drink it right from the bowl.

La Boulange
500 Hayes St
(between Laguna St & Octavia St)
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 863-3376
www.baybread.com

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So, the reason we went back to T-Rex is because we liked it so much last time (read previous post here) and we wanted to try out more things on their tasty menu. It was pretty busy for a Wednesday lunch.  Maybe there were alot of people in the area on their lunchbreak – the place was definitely packed.  One of the reasons I was also really excited today to go to T-Rex was to try the Chicken Fried Bacon appetizer.  YES, you heard me, CHICKEN-FRIED-BACON.

The other things we ordered included… Mac and Cheese, Mashed Potatoes, Deviled Eggs and the Fried Chicken Sandwich. I ate this food about 8 hours ago and I can honestly tell you that I am STILL FULL.

Onto the food… there are alot of photos in this post!

Started off with a Hoegaarden…

Mexican Coke – T-Rex has a nice selection of bottled sodas on the menu.

[above] Chicken Fried BACON.  I never had Chicken Fried Bacon before.  It was interesting… not really what I thought it would be.  There were two dipping sauces – a Dino-Mite Mustard and Ranch.  The Dino-Mite mustard was definitely infused with horseradish and had a nice little bite to it… I actually preferred it to the ranch for this appetizer.  Check out the bite-shot:

I’m glad I tried this, but I have to say – I dont know if I’d get it again.  Not that it wasn’t good – but the bacon became kind of lost in the breading and it was more about the breading than the bacon… You could still taste the bacon though, which btw, was cooked perfectly.  I guess I was expecting it to be a little saltier or something…hmph.

Here’s a shot of the deviled eggs.  It came with a little handful of arugula salad as well.  These were just OK.  There are alot of variations to deviled eggs and this version was definitely more yolky than other my version which has a little more mayo and mustard, making the yolk part sweeter and more tangy.  Ehh.

For lunch, Hav ordered sides of Mac & Cheese and Mashed Potatoes.  The mac and cheese was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.  You definitely get enough for a whole meal and it was rich, creamy and super cheesy (sharp cheddar and parmesan).  What I liked best is that it was made with orecchiette pasta – my favorite!  This dish alone is worth disco fries… hands down!

Here’s the mashed potatoes.  They were also just OK.  They mixed very well, almost as smooth as a puree… definitely needed MORE BUTTER!  They are called “Mashed Potatoes with Smoked Garlic and Chives”… I think if they had just a bit more butter they would be better… somehow they just tasted a little too bland.

This is the Fried Sonoma Chicken Breast with Ham, Gruyere and grilled Scallion Aioli Sandwich.  It definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. Being that T-Rex is a BBQ joint, I was expecting a piece of fred chicken – you know, with the big chunky pieces of breading, with a slice of ham and cheese on a nice kaiser roll or something of that sort… but I got chicken cordon bleu instead on a VERY soft roll.  This roll was sweet and so soft that the first thing to come to my mind were steamed Mcdonalds burger buns (no offense!).  It didn’t taste like McDonalds, but it felt as soft as McDonalds.

The chicken breast was very juicy, moist and tender.  It was really good.  The breading on the chicken breast was the little fine kind – a pretty thin layter of crispy breading.  The ham was good too but there was only 1 thin slice so the flavor of the ham kind of got lost in the sandwich since there was so little of it.

What saved this dish were the BBQ potato chips… LOOK AT THEM!

These chips are AWESOME.  They are thick cut with a great crunch, and the BBQ seasoning is sweet and salty.  I love these chips.  I usually opt to substitute fries when chips are involved with sandwiches, but at this place, the chips rule!

We were completely stuffed but we had to check out the dessert menu.  Behold the pumpkin spice cupcake, doesn’t it look cute?  Well, sorry to bust your bubble but it was pretty dry, and the icing was kind of hard and tasteless… don’t get it, go to Teacake in Emeryville instead.

Here is the Devil’s Food Cake and a latte.  The cake was also just OK.  The icing wasn’t really icing it was more of an aerated style frosting… so it crumbled when you cut into it.  The cake wasn’t very moist either… it had a very subdued chocolate flavor, which was kind of deceiving from the looks of it.  Looked good though…. guess T-Rex isn’t into baking as much as they are into BBQ-ing.  At least I know now!

Ahhh!  You’ve made it to the end!! Here is a shot of myself entering a serious food coma…

Today’s visit was good, not great:

T-Rex Barbecue
1300 10th St
(between Camelia St & Gilman St)
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 527-0099
www.t-rex-bbq.com

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