YOUR WEEKLY DIGESTION OF FOOD NEWS TO CONSUME...AND BREAKFAST SANDWICH MAYHEM

The Plant Cafe Organic is a mini Bay Area chain with a handful of restaurants around town. There stated goal is to make it easy and affordable to eat local and organic. They opened a new spot in the Dogpatch hood recently. I'd not tried any of their locations before and when I tripped by this one I thought, let's see what they got. One glance at the menu right away tells me, their idea of affordable and mine are vastly different. Salads are $13 or more and sandwiches (with no real sides) fall into that $9 or more range that infuriates me. But, in the interest of at least seeing if the food was worth it, I decided to try a turkey sausage and white cheddar breakfast sandwich, which still set me back $8.75 plus tax. It's 2 scrambled eggs with turkey sausage, arugula, tomato and mayo on a toasted pan de mie roll. Positives: the roll was nice and there was enough mayo. Negatives: it's not a big sandwich for the price, there were just a few leafs of the arugula, the turkey sausage had no flavor and tasted like that ground turkey you buy at the grocery store. The egg, what can I say, it actually tasted dry, as in overcooked. It's almost as if they have a pre-made pan of sausage and egg made up that they then slice into squares, slap a piece of cheese between them, then microwave the heck out of it. This only serves to melt the cheese to a point of evaporation and give the egg a weird dry texture and pretty much no taste. Something a little milk or butter added to it while scrambling could have easily remedied. Some salt, pepper or seasoning of any kind would have been nice too. If I want a bland tasting overcooked egg and ground turkey sandwich, I can do that at home myself and save the money. Add in the fact, the place was relatively empty when I went, yet it still took more than 10 minutes for them to make this. This location is new and maybe they are still working out the kinks that may not be present at other locations. But considering cost, size and taste, I think I'm just gonna pass on other stuff. I mean for just a few bucks more, I can get a full pizza 2 doors down at Long Bridge Pizza and still have some left for lunch/breakfast the next day. With so many other choices in Dogpatch, it will be hard for me to go back to The Plant again.   

• It's a recipe for Swan Oyster Depot's classic combo salad. Hmmm....only looks like cold seafood slapped on shredded lettuce. How hard could it be?
• Slanted Door was still the area's top grossing independent restaurant last year. Though that only puts it at 29 on the overall list. SF still has a ways to go.
• Sous vide cocktails? Drinking is getting all molecular gastronomy now.
• Seems that whole tipless thing wasn't working for Sous Beurre. 
• And it also wasn't working for Bar Agricole and Trou Normand. I wonder if this means they will lower prices too since they were slightly elevated to cover the whole tipless thing. My tip money is on--no they won't. 
• Michelin's Bib Gourmands are out and here are the SF places that scored some kind of nod.
• No you'll no longer need to track down his pop-up as Wes Burger has found a permanent home.
• A cursed restaurant spot in the Castro (4 down and counting) has a liquor application out for a new spot to open there. Well, good luck with that.
• Former popular sushi spot Minako lives on with take from local Mission market.
• While closing one location, Pizza Orgasmica rebrands another in the FiDi district.
• Even chefs in San Francisco like to brunch and here's where they like to go.
• Nojo in Hayes Valley got new owners and they are giving it another shot.