Some things are worth waiting for…

…and some things are not.

I was in San Francisco earlier this week and like always, I reached out to some friends (and followers on Twitter) asking for a great breakfast recommendation. A number of San Franciscans responded with suggestions to hit up Dottie’s True Blue Cafe which was recently featured on the popular Food Network show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.

Just about every person that recommended the little diner prefaced by saying the line would be about an hour long, and they were right. Plus 39 minutes.

Yes folks, I waited 99 minutes on the streets of San Francisco on a Sunday morning for this breakfast people raved about. And here’s where it gets sticky…

If you ask me if the food was worth the wait, I’d say, probably so. The food was truly terrific and hit the spot I needed before heading to a game at AT&T Park. If you ask me if I would ever go back or ever recommend that spot for others, my answer would be hell no. And here’s why – 99% of my travel (which includes the sporting events I attend for TheBlondeSide.com) is done solo. Which means, I eat by myself. Sometimes I get lucky and I’m able to avoid the heinous breakfast lines because there’s a spot for one at the breakfast counter. My day at Dottie’s, there wasn’t a spot, and it wasn’t a big deal. I was chatting it up with the folks in line around me since we became BFF’s over the course of our wait. Right as I made it inside the door (still a small line to go), there was a tiny tiny TINY spot at the edge of the bar. There was enough room to sit, but there would have been zero room for even a saucer for my coffee. So I kept waiting in line.

When it was finally my shot and the hostess asked how many in my party, I replied, “just me.” She asked if I wanted to sit at the impossibly small spot at the bar and I told her I’d wait. She was pleasant and said she’d clean off the two-top in the corner and it’d be just a minute. Great, I was excited. As the line inched closer and closer to the door I realized my excitement for food rivaled that of every ride at Disney World. I wonder if this is the moment you know you’re a real adult when your mouth waters for French Toast and coffee?

Then enter the man from the kitchen who verbally accosted me for not sitting at the bar. He began YELLING at me, in front of all the other customers that I SHOULD sit at the counter since it was just me. The tables were supposed to be for parties who “weren’t alone.” Not to toot my own horn, but it takes a confident person to eat alone in a crowded diner – or any restaurant for that matter. And this experience downright embarrassed me. The kitchen man went over to the head cook (who I am assuming was Kurt Abbey, the owner) and started loudly and rudely explaining to him that I was complaining about the wait. The head cook proceeds to start yelling at me as he’s slinging bacon and sausage around, without ever taking a moment to ask what was going on.

Minutes later I was seated and approached by 3 other customers who apologized and repeated, “I feel so bad for you” as well as the hostess who apologized for the man’s actions. She also claimed that he does that quite often. Good to know. I didn’t see the episode on the Food Network, but I wonder if he was featured on it? Had it been Hell’s Kitchen, surely he would have.

But back to breakfast… The food was great. Like I said above, worth the wait (if you’re obsessed with breakfast like me). I got the Open Road breakfast which included:

1. Your choice of small juice
2. Two eggs, any style
3. Bacon, ham, or mild Italian-sausage (I got the bacon and it was probably the tastiest bacon I’ve ever had!)
4. Home fries
5. 2 pancakes or 1/2 order of French Toast (obviously, the French Toast!)

My neighboring table did offer me a bite of their jalapeno-cornbread, which is not something I would typically order, but I was very impressed. From what I hear, that’s one of their biggest claim to fames, as are the fresh daily baked goods with varying specials each day.

I was very hesitant to write a negative review in any capacity, but as a writer, and one that travels and blogs about it, I feel that honesty truly is the best policy. I will also say that the folks that referred this breakfast spot have never experienced negativity in the manner I did, so perhaps this was just a one-time thing? Let’s hope so.

As I tweeted from that morning, I don’t give a damn how good your food is or what cable network show gives you publicity – I work too hard for my money to spend it places that don’t appreciate my business.

Dottie’s True Blue Cafe
522 Jones Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

415.885.2767

Open everyday except Tuesdays 7:30am – 3:00pm

Total Bill- $22 ($13.50 meal + $3.50 coffee + a regular ole average tip.)

Jayme Lamm

Jayme Lamm is a delightfully unrefined writer, lover of sports and words, serial do-gooder with a limited filter. Follow her on Twitter @jaymelamm.

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Kula Lodge is a whole lot “koola” than it sounds…

When traveling, it’s often a crapshoot where you eat and how you go about getting there (in the form of how did you hear about us, not the actual mode of transportation).

I don’t think it’s possible for anyone, in this entire world, to enjoy breakfast more than I. My love for breakfast may or may not have something to do with my less than defined palette, but that’s beside the point. People can rattle off 4-5 unassuming lunch or dinner recommendations, but breakfast is usually limited. Which means, it’s usually amazing. Which is what Kula Lodge was. Is. And will be again tomorrow when I go back.

In just 2 days I’ve quickly learned that Maui, Hawaii is pretty big. And spread out. But when it comes to eggs, omelets, applewood bacon, turkey sausage links, french toast, Belgium waffles and the like, I don’t mind driving far. Kula Lodge was about a 40 minute drive from where I was staying, but the impeccable view going up the Haleakala Crater was worth it alone.

Kula Lodge is quaint and exactly as it claims – a lodge. You can stay there and roll directly out of bed into their small wooden dining room overlooking the island of Maui. It took a few minutes to get seated because I only noticed a staff of three on the restaurant floor. Every single person that worked there was beyond pleasant and smiled incessantly. I figure one of two things is going on: either they realize they live in Maui and should be smiling as not to piss people like me off or they get free breakfast after every shift. Something tells me it’s a little combo of both.

Aside from the ridiculously friendly wait staff and the Travel and Lesiure’esque view, the first thing they did really scored some points. Enter my biggest breakfast place pet peeve: an upcharge for subbing french toast in lieu of pancakes in one of those combo breakfast plates. Especially when the menu cost of pancakes and french toast is exactly the same. Menus always do this to me – they list all of my favorite things in one big-time plate offering and they’ll always include a short stack of pancakes. So maybe my palette is a little more refined than I thought since I consider pancakes to be God’s most boring and uninspiring food on the planet. So I always ask to sub french toast (because you can tell a lot about a chef with his take on french toast) and the waiter or waitress almost always prefaces with “yes” they can in fact swap out the two, but there’s a $2 or $3 upcharge (Vegas is famous for this and it angers me greatly). Anyways, so off to a good start at Kula Lodge by not charging an additional fee.

It also never fails at breakfast time that I end up ordering the most manly version of breakfast plates imaginable. I remember, vividly, one breakfast with my boyfriend at the time. I ordered the Lumberjack breakfast. Not only did he comment about what I was ordering, he subsequently commented that I ate the entire thing. Duh, that’s what you’re supposed to do – eat ALL the good food. So it should come as no surprise that I ordered the Mile High Plate ($15) – “to give you enough energy to climb the volcano” (which is right around the corner) as the menu text so kindly pointed out. My ex would be so proud – I again ate it all!

The views are glorious; the food is plentiful and delicious (a rarity these days); and my waitress never once tried to rush me out of the joint. All in all, an A+ for Kula Lodge.

Did I mention I was making the 40-minute trek again tomorrow to do it all over again? Same french toast substitute and all.

Total Bill – $19.50 (meal + coffee + an undisclosed generous tip because she deserved it)

Jayme Lamm

Jayme Lamm is a delightfully unrefined writer, lover of sports and words, serial do-gooder with a limited filter. Follow her on Twitter @jaymelamm.

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I was fortunate enough to get to the LA area not only twice this summer, but over back-to-back weekends.

I spent a Friday night at the start of August catching up with one of my best girlfriends. Nicole lives (I use that term loosely in that at the time this is being written, she is currently packing up and prepping to move out) in an LA suburb, and we wanted a night to catch up on all the ridiculousness that had transpired in our lives over the summer so far.  So I abused the flight benefits I have access to and headed out to her place for the night.

SLEEPOVER WIN.

The second weekend, I randomly decided to join a new friend – a blog friend – as his plus one to a wedding of a friend of his. Both weekends were fabulous, and of course, included delicious dining that will be highlighted below.

Weekend One -
We did dinner in Malibu on Friday night (I just love saying that. Doesn’t dinner in Malibu just roll off your tongue a little? No? Just mine? Ok FINE.) at a place on the beach called the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe.

We had giant margaritas and I enjoyed the seafood tacos (two fish, one shrimp) that were HUGE and delicious and spicy and nearly perfect.

The setting of the Beach Cafe was great, in that it was – naturally – on the beach.  I’m not accustomed to ocean outside my windows so I basically just sat and stared off in daydreamland while we ate.

On Saturday morning, Nicole took me BACK to this bagel shop – East Coast Bagel – we’d stopped in prior to our Vegas trip back in June. As you can infer from the name, they’re all East-Coast-style and stuff… not sure what that means exactly except for two things:

• they are fucking DELICIOUS
• they actually make chocolate and/or chocolate chip bagels, which I haven’t found elsewhere YET. So when I get chocolate chip bagels, toasted with peanut butter and the peanut butter gets all warm and amazing because the bagel was just toasted… my heart does a little song-and-dance routine that not many other food combos can elicit.

(Rachel promises me that their available on the East Coast and when she comes in from Jersey this weekend, I’m getting a suitcase full. What a great friend )

Weekend Two -

I joined Nico out in the Hollywood Hills area the following weekend as his plus one for his friends’ wedding. It was kind of fun to tell people I was from the Internet (and since Nico and I met because of 20-Something Bloggers, that’s what we told people), until we realized that the people seated with us at our table – Nico’s friends – were also major social media nerds so that wasn’t as impressive as we thought it’d be. Anyway, Nico writes a lovely recap of the event here (and says some sweetheart things about me). But let me talk about the food at two different places.

Breakfast.  We did breakfast at what apparently is a famous little eatery.  And by famous I mean it was in the movie Reservoir Dogs, or so I’m told (I actually haven’t ever seen that movie, whoops!).

We enjoyed multiple cups of coffee at Pat and Lorraine’s in (on?) Eagle Rock.  I had classic French toast that was the perfect amount of comfort breakfast food to start the day.  It was a really cute, diner-ish place with a great patio and friendly staff.  Seems like the kind of place that the locals frequent and that certainly has it’s “regulars.”

Then, after a few hours of tooling around Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and other nifty little neighborhoods, we did a late lunch at The Alcove.  It’s a gorgeous little bistro/deli place in the Los Feliz neighborhood of the LA area.  We sat outside, drank mimosas, and I ate the most ridiculously amazing crab cake sandwich in the history of crab cake sandwiches.

Here’s what they say about it on their menu:

crab cake sandwich
maryland style crab cake made from sweet blue crab meat on a caramelized onion bun, caramelized bermuda onions, wild arugula, tomato and chipotle aioli on the side

Don’t even tell me you’re not salivating.  That aioli?  AMAZING.  And you really can’t go wrong with arugula; it’s one of my favorite greens of all the greens.

So, mid-afternoon outdoor lunch plus good company plus champagne plus crab?

Le swooooon.

doniree

Doniree Walker is the Nomadic Foodie. She loves the exploration and community of food, and currently lives in Portland, Oregon, and loves the region's focus on local and seasonal food, daily farmers' markets and food carts at seemingly every turn. She's on twitter as @doniree and @nomadicfoodie, and blogs her adventures and life in general at doniree.com.

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