Pigeon District

I really wanted to like Mission Beach Cafe since it’s just around the block from my apartment, so even though I’d been burned a couple times with so-so meals and bad service, I decided to give it another shot.

I wasn’t disappointed by this egg sandwich with bacon, served on an English muffin:

Sorry about the photo quality, the sun streaming in the windows made for nice ambience but my iPhone camera couldn’t cope with the dynamic range.

This probably isn’t what the chef was going for, but the combination of lettuce, tomatoes, and savory juiciness reminded me of an In-N-Out grilled cheese sandwich. The eggs were perfectly over medium, just the way I like them, and it coated the whole sandwich in deliciousness. Definitely made this a fork-and-knife affair toward the end, but I didn’t mind:

Half-eaten sandwich

Also, thanks Mission Beach Cafe for serving your delicious brunch on weekdays so I didn’t have to brave the weekend brunch line.

Oh, and that sign! Gorgeous:

Photo (cc) Tychay, Flickr

I got the Egg and Cheese sandwich on plain country bread with bacon. I’ve gotten this sandwich once before and it was pretty good but I had forgotten one thing: this bread isn’t quite sturdy enough for an egg and cheese sandwich.

It reminds me of when I was a kid and my parents would make hot dogs or hamburgers but they didn’t have the right kind of buns so they’d just use two slices of bread, or even worse, one slice wrapped around the hot dog taco-style.

First-world problems. Sigh.

Oh by the way, check out that coffee in a bowl. I know this is sort of a thing at French cafes, but it seems like in France people would think of this as a gluttonous American thing. Anyway it sort of makes me think of dogs which is both good and bad.

Oh, here are some pictures documenting the signage and the bright green façade, and my journey from the cafe to the park where I finished my coffee:

OK so maybe I should have seen this one coming but this Vegas breakfast sandwich, which I enjoyed from room service at the Aria, is all about excess. Look at this thick chunk of ham:

Let’s take a closer look at that ham:

Ham!!! Also look at this Vegas-sized cup of coffee:

Also I know I would have some very disappointed readers if I didn’t include a picture of the Aria sign:

I promise there’s a sign there, but you might need to click through to see it. The breezy handwritten logo might look great in Adobe Illustrator but “breezy” doesn’t really cut it when you’re talking about twenty-foot letters on the side of a building. I give it two and a half stars.

When my dad made scrambled eggs for me, we’d always enjoy them alongside some crispy buttered toast and Pace picante sauce. So the combo of bread + scrambled eggs + salsa has a special place in my heart.

Maybe that’s why I had high expectations of the Mexican Breakfast Sandwich at Alexis Baking Company in Napa. Or maybe it’s because the menu advertised that it was served on cornbread, which I (usually) love. Here’s what it looked like:

(Sandwich: Alexis Baking Company. Sunglasses: Oliver Peoples)

In any case, I was disappointed. The sandwich was uniformly squishy. The cornbread was more like a corn-flavored hamburger bun. The scrambled eggs in the middle put up no resistance, and neither did the large slice of ancho chile.

So there it is folks, hopefully breakfast sandwich #2 will be more satisfying. Maybe I’ll go check out Maxfield’s, it never disappoints.

Oh yeah here’s a photo of the sign, courtesy of glennhuang on Flickr:

(I forgot to take my own sign picture. I promise to try harder in the future.) The painted logo looked right at home on the front of ABC’s warehouselike building in a tree-lined, unchic block of downtown Napa. OK, the big handwritten “Cafe” is over the top, but in general the sign made me think about checkered tablecloths, small town America, and bakers in toques toiling over some bread dough. And of other cafes I’ve enjoyed in similar buildings in Sacramento and Austin.

Speaking of signs, the men’s and women’s bathrooms were dubiously indicated with pictures of a donut and an eclair, respectively. Remember kids, just say no to clever bathroom signs.