single serving breakfast sandwich: cafe reveille in mission bay...not what i was expecting

Mission Bay, it used to be a wasteland of empty warehouses and a golf ball hitting range. Anyone else remember seeing those big nets when coming in on 280? But time moves on and things change--A LOT. With the opening of UCSF Mission Bay Campus there has been a boom of building in the area of large apartment complexes for the "young urban professionals" or whatever. What has lagged behind, however, has been food choices, but that is beginning to change.

This hood is only a hop, skip and jump over from my hood and I usually walk through it on my way to work and have been keeping track of the new food spots. One that opened a bit ago is Cafe Reveille. They aren't a new name, they have several locations across the city serving up eats and their own coffee brand. This one offers breakfast, lunch and dinner, something not all the others do. Since I'm on the breakfast kick, I got myself out of bed a little earlier (ugh, yeah that was hard) in order to try their sandwich version--of which I'd seen appear on a few "best of" lists.

It's a nice, big, open space right on the corner, you can't miss it. It was the middle of the week so fortunately they weren't real busy and I could easily order and find a table. The egg sando was what I was here to try. The pictures I'd seen of it were of the egg in the hole kind of sandwich. To see what I mean, click this link and scroll to the 3rd picture from the bottom. Now that really stood out to me and it was something I just had to try. I placed my order for and went all in paying the upcharge for them to add bacon. That's $7 for the sandwich $2 for the bacon, sigh, it better be worth it was all I kept thinking.

I took a seat at a table in the corner and awaited my food. Seems they were making the sandwiches to order, which is good, thus it took a little time to get, even though it was slow. Eventually, a gentleman from the kitchen came out with a plate and this is what I got:

Hmmmm......doesn't exactly look like the other pictures I'd seen with the two slices of bread, one with an egg in the center. I pulled up the picture on my phone and showed to the guy who brought it out, he just shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, he had no idea what I was talking about. This is all they got.

To say I was bummed is an understatement. $9 for something that wasn't what I was expecting and not all that big to boot was an early morning downer. But since I was here and they had my money, may as well see what it was like. It was a sunny side up egg, gruyere and American cheese, garlic aioli, greens and the bacon I paid for on a toasted brioche bun (they are all the rage it seems).

I sliced it in half and the egg was appropriately runny. I took a bit and for something that took time to fix, it was luke warm at best. Not cold, but not hot off the griddle either. The bacon was on the chewy side, nice flavor, but could have been crispier. The aioli was definitely garlic and they sure put plenty on here. Between the runny egg and all the mayo it became a messy sandwich requiring a knife and fork to eat. Sad, as I'm not that dainty. I know what you are thinking, my disappointment is causing my dislike of this sandwich. Maybe a little, but it's not like it is an inedible thing. The egg is cooked, there's bacon, there's cheese, there's toasted bread. It's a basic breakfast collection with a not so basic price. Outside of all that garlic, there isn't really anything to distinguish this from something you'd get from your local deli or make at home. Though, at least the one I'd make would still be hot. Eventually, I kind of picked out the bacon and some of the cheese to eat and left the rest of the mess on the plate.

Here I was, up early and after the sad sandwich, I still had time on my hands and just a bit of hunger in my stomach. I'd noticed a selection of pastries when I placed my order so I sidled back up to the counter, perused the offerings and picked out this:

A kouign-amann with a chocolate center. I've been down this particular pastry road before with a very delicious version I had at b. patisserie. That was of the basic variety. This was much the same with it's layers of dough folded over and over with butter and sugar, baked up to a crispy, sugary delight. While this one doesn't reach the light heights of b.'s, it was still really good, made all the more so with that creamy center of bittersweet chocolate. Crusty, crunchy sugar bits, buttery flaky dough and chocolate! It was just the flavors I needed to wipe away the memory of that other thing above. For $3.50, this circle of delight satisfied my sweet and my breakfast taste buds. I'm sure if I drank coffee it would have gone perfectly with it.

I wondered who was making their pastries as it didn't seem this was an in-house job. A little sleuthing (asking folks) and I realized why I liked this so much. Their pastries are supplied by Neighbor Bakehouse, a place I know and love well, as evidenced by the innumerable things I've had there and written about. (just do a search of the blog and you'll see)

Well, that answered lots of questions for me and helped determine that I really don't have to go back to Cafe Reveille for a breakfast nosh. While I might go some time and see what their dinner service is like, breakfast is a skip. Now I can sleep in and just get my sweet pastry fix at Neighbor Bakehouse since that is also on my way to work. It's great how things work out isn't it.