On a nice lazy Saturday afternoon, the wife and I were destined to spend the day with our lovey friends at the San Diego Zoo. As our scheduled play date was not for a couple hours, we decide to go and get some brunch to fuel up for the day of walking around. We were going to go to Cafe on Park, but as we drove by there was a huge line outside and our hunger would not wait for that. The wife fired up her yelp app on the phone and started throwing out names of restaurants in the area we were driving. We drove past many of the choices, but they were equally unappealing in wait times. The wife called out Cafe 21 and we said what the hey. We pulled up to the parking lot that Cafe 21 shares with a liquor store and saw that while it was full of people, there was no line.
We were greeted at the door by a friendly hostess/waitress who actually held the door open for us, and were seated in the back at a cozy table for two. Our waitress gave us our menus and took our drink order and was very nice and not pushy about ordering. I ordered the orange juice and the wife ended up getting the fresh squeezed apple juice. We both we taken aback by that, with both of us saying," really? Fresh squeezed?". When the glass of apple juice, arrived it had that cloudy look of apple cider and when tasted it was like taking a bite of a fresh apple. You got the tang and slight bitterness from the skin of the apple and then instantly the crisp sweetness washed over the taste buds. It was delicious.
The decor inside seemed like a gothic farm house mated with a middle eastern bazaar. The tables were mismatched in a pleasant way and there were all kinds of knick knacks on the shelves and walls. I thought it was cozy and eclectic, but the wife was unimpressed.
This was the delicious shrimp and corn cake. These cake concoctions are a house speciality at Cafe 21 so me and the wife had to try them. I ordered this one. The corn cake was velvety and creamy. The sweetness of the corn played nicely with the shrimp and the spices in the cake. There was a cilantro cream sauce on the bottom and poached eggs on top, so it was almost like a benidict. My eggs were two different levels of poached, one was perfect and the other one was border line hard boiled. I feel tha the cream sauce needed to have a level of spiciness or some sort of acidic quality because it was basically rich taste on rich taste and after a couple of bites it kind of blows out your palate. The taste and presentation overall was very good and would return here most definitely .
this was the potato pancake that you could order as a side dish. I fell in love with this bad boy. It was crispy, moist, fluffy, creamy all in one sweet package. The Jew in me was very impressed. The wife felt it was too much together with the rich food.
This was the wife's cake choice, the salmon potato cake. It is the same overall dish just different protein and starch inside the cake. It was equally delicious and her eggs were both perfectly poached. Both breakfast plates come with a lovely piece of house made bread with a little slab of butter an I believe it was the wife's favorite because it cut the richness of the meal.
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