Breakfast @ Lincoln

Even during our mini vacation we woke up early...

so we could get to the breakfast place we had in mind and not deal with crowds...

Stops #2, 3, & 4 - Brunch @ Et Voila French Bistro, Coffee @ Hawthorn and dessert @ Black Market Bakery

Another downpour occurred while en route to Normal Heights. We made it safely, thanks to TORC's calm driving skills.

I got splashed while taking this full on shot of the Jimi Hendrix mural, near the corner of 30th and Ohio Street...

Et Voila! French Bistro + food gifts from Japan!

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting up with my good friend Kirbie...

For a change of pace, we did brunch at a newly opened French bistro called Et Voila! (the exlamation mark is part of their name)

La Bonne Table + Kir Royales with cheese!

Last Friday Mr. TJ, La Ley and I went to the prom...

but before making a late appearance, we had dinner first at a French restaurant in Hillcrest recommended by Mr. TJ...

Panera + St. Tropez Bistro, downtown

Our coffees at WestBean were so good, I was already thinking of when we'd come back!

We all didn't really eat breakfast yet, so we headed over to Panera to get TC's first before ours...

Next to Panera by Horton Plaza is this statue of Pete Wilson...

Return to Euro Pane for a mini breakfast

Fresh off our caffeine run at Jones Coffee Roasters, we headed over to one of Pasadena's main drags, Colorado Street...

for our "second breakfast", with our first being Cream Pan earlier that morning...

Return to Opera Cafe

KD's choice for dessert was the well chosen Opera Cafe...

which we were trying to haul ass  to get  before they closed at 2 pm...

Opera Cafe & Patisserie

It's been nice being on vacation and having lunch with friends...On this particular day, I met up with Mary up in Manila Mesa.

at a place I'd been wanting to try for quite awhile. I've had their macs at various farmer's markets and they used to have a cafe downtown but it's now called Operacaffe. I don't think it's affiliated with this place.

We met early to beat the lunch rush and boy was I glad that we did because when we left, the cafe and the parking lot were packed...

A Delight of France

What we liked about downtown Escondido was the free parking!

Well, up to two hours at least, but hey, at least we didn't have to fiddle with any change for meters...

Although we were set to go straight to the California Center for the Arts after our breakfast at Belen, I saw another place on our Garmin that ended up being our next stop...

Le Cochon Dingue

A view of the glorious Chateau Frontenanc on the edge of old Quebec was quite majestic...

The relatively short ferry ride from the picturesque town of Levis across the river took only ten minutes...

Farm House Cafe

[Update  - This restaurant is now closed and is now Circa]

Located north just a few miles away from Alchemy was our next stop...

We would have the "other half "of  our dinner here as well as our dessert...

Le Normandie

Dinner was at one of their favorite spots in Pacific Grove. It was housed in this big building complex that sold antiques.
On the bottom floor of the Holman building was Le Normandie, a French restaurant owned by a French couple.

Return to Cafe Madeleine

Today 3/4 of the Educator GF's went out for a late lunch to celebrate some good news for TORC. Unfortunately, D was out of town, so it was just me, TORC and KD. A few weeks ago, I scoped out Cafe Madeleine...so it was there that we went today for a late lunch/early dinner.

Again, here is that awesome Shepard Fairey mural next to a courtyard of cute yellow bungalows:


Here's my post from last month. It was already 3:45'ish when we arrived. We didn't know they were going to close at 4 pm and they didn't tell us either. More on that later...

We placed our orders and sat outside. We were the only customers there. The French lemonade was KD's, while I had the canned Illy coffee (strong stuff!), and TORC's Orangina.

KD ordered the Arugula Salad which came with chicken, blue cheese, walnuts, sliced pears (those were really good and buttery soft) and some sort of mustard dressing. She really enjoyed her salad. Although I didn't have any of it, other than a small pear slice, the flavors sounded intriguing, especially since aurgula is so strong. I tend to like salads that have texture (nuts) and some sort of sweetness (pears). The mustard added bite and the blue cheese added creaminess.

TORC got the Ham panini which had a grainy mustard spread greens, cheese, and a tomato slice inside. I think I will try this next time we go since it was really delicious.

You can see the mustard....

Well, since I liked the beef crepe so much last time, I got it again but in panini form (beef, tomato, caramelized onions, greens, and horseradish).

This time I asked for my salad to be plain. The downside to this was that there were a few pieces of salad that looked "off". I picked them off my plate. You know how it is when you see some greens that are on the verge of slimy because they were wet and probably stuck together? Well, I had a few pieces of those. Ugh.   I liked the bread though - nicely toasted. The crunchy top and the beef

So back to the time thing. When we got there it was around 3:45 pm. We weren't aware that they were closing soon. When we walked in, we were the only customers and I had the feeling that they were ready to close up shop and then we came along. I told the server that we'd probably order a dessert crepe for later. But unfortunately, there was no later because when we went in at 4:30 to order our crepe, I noticed that their desserts in their cases were already wrapped in plastic and that they were cleaning up. I had to ask if they were already closed and the girl replied that they were.

I liked the colors of the VW van across the street (below):

I guess we should have been more aware of their hours? But a small warning might have been nice. Especially if we were going to order a dessert crepe, I could have ordered it ahead of time and they could have given it to us. We were a bit disappointed and I also felt that they weren't that nice about it and had the feeling that they wanted us to GTFO.

So instead of having a dessert crepe, we headed off to get some ice cream a block away at the Daily Scoop...

Cafe Madeleine

Just a few steps away from the Shepard Fairey monk mural is a fairly new French place, Cafe Madeleine. It's right on the corner where 30th meets Juniper.

There are tables outside and a few inside along with bench seating by the windows. We snagged an open table and it was good that we did because soon after we sat down around 11:45'ish, the place was packed! It's really cute inside. Not much of a kitchen but you can watch the staff make your crepes and sandwiches if you wanted to.

The case held desserts. We'll have to come back for those next time. To the far right, next to the fake Eiffel Tower is the crepes station. This is the third time we've had crepes in about a month (Fabrison's and La Creperie) and these crepes were the best we've had by far.

Bert ordered our drinks: For me, the iced coffee and for him, Illy coffee with unlimited refills. He really really liked this and remembered that Fresh and Easy carries tins of Illy coffee (we checked later and it was $11.99). He said the coffee was so good that he hardly had to add anything to it.

Along with savory crepes, Cafe Madeleine also serves dessert crepes, paninis and salads.  This was Bert's crepe, the Smoked Salmon which had creme fraiche,c apers, red onion and confit pepper ($9).

He really enjoyed this crepe and found the portion just right. The crepe batter also had a nice pull/chew to it. It wasn't soft or mushy. I tried a bit of his and really liked the saltiness of the salmon with the creme fraiche. Thank goodness I didn't bite into a caper since I don't really like those things! And may I add that this photo came out pretty damn good!

I had the Beef crepe which had horseradish, caramelized onions and tomato ($9). Very simple ingredients that were put together quite well. I liked how our crepes came with a bit of salad on the side. The only thing I didn't like was that the salads already had balsamic dressing on it. Next time, I will have to ask for my salad to be plain. Despite this, I still ate my salad.

I would totally get this again!

The onions were awesome and went perfectly with the thinly sliced roast beef.

TC didn't want a crepe today. Instead, she chose the Prosciutto panini which had mayonnaise, Emmenthal Cheese and tomato. She really really loved this. Bert and I also had a bite and thought it was quite tasty. She really liked the cheese which was a departure from her regular American or Cheddar slices in her normal lunch sandwiches.

Look at that...it's just beckoning you to devour it.

Of course we had to try the cafe's namesake, the shell shaped Madeleines. I've had better and thought they weren't as light and fluffy as I thought they'd be.

Our server was really cool and she suggested that we also try dessert crepe if we had room. Her choice was Nutella but instead we chose the Chocolate and Banana ($6). Unlike the dark chocolate crepe we had at Fabrison's, this crepe's chocolate was low on bitter flavor. It was still all right but maybe next time we'll try the Nutella. The dessert presentation was simple. Not overly done like the crepe we had at Chopin (a Polish restaurant) in Toronto where the crepe was fkg covered in whipped cream rendering it unrecognizable as a crepe. I hate that. It's like the Cheesecake Factory where they totally drown their desserts with whipped cream (from the one time I had dessert there, ugh). Kind of like how a cat buries it's shit with sand because it wants to cover it up.

Who else ate at Cafe Madeleine?

Apparently no other SD Foodbloggers came up on a google search. However, here is the Ed Bedford review from the SD Reader that originally piqued my interest as well as the (mostly favorable) yelp reviews.

I really liked this place. It was so cute and charming! Parking is easy to find. The prices are reasonable. The workers are nice. The menu is simple. It's walking distance to other great places in South Park like Rebecca's Bakery, The Daily Scoop on Juniper, Station Tavern, and the Make Good store.  It's also right next to a fkg awesome mural of a Burmese monk. Can't go wrong with that.

Fabrison's French Creperie & Cafe

Late last year, there was a "Restaurant" issue of the SD Reader. In it were tons of coupons for local places which I dutifully clipped for future use. One caught my eye and after having had crepes at La Creperie on 30th, I wanted to make a comparison. That coupon I'd been saving was for Fabrison's in Little Italy.

Very cute inside...

I know I always harp on parking but man, we were so lucky  to get a parking spot on Ash right around the corner from India Street. The crepes place was only a few steps away. It pays to get there early because when we left, there were no more spots! Parking really sucks downtown.

Here's that coupon...

Bert's mocha which was very good and chocolatey.

I got the Baja...

Harissa sauce isn't really "Mexican" but it did add a big kick to this crepe which was excellent!

The marinated flank was slicedso  thinly, it practically melted in my mouth. I ended up eating most of the filling and not the crepe itself. I liked the crepe batter here a tiny bit better than the one I had at La Creperie the other day, as well as the one's I've had at Melt at the Otay Ranch mall.

Bert got the "Hungry Bear" breakfast crepe. This haddiced sausage, ham, eggs, cheddar cheese, and it was set off by a very flavorful and spicy aioli which featured fresh garlic.  Both my crepe and his came with spring salad mix with cheese slivers and tomatoes. Unfortunately for this salad dressing hater, it came with balsamic on top so TC was the happy recipient of my green salad.

Although I really liked my crepe, I liked Bert's almost as much!

TC got the Fruit Crepe - the fruit of the day happened to be green apples.

Oooh, very pretty...

The sourness of the green apples was not even present. These were cooked down and quite sweet and almost pear like in texture.

Lastly, we ordered a dessert crepe for all of us to share, the  Dark Chocolate (with chocolate imported from France)...If I could have licked the plate clean, I would have. But I have some sense of decorum when other people are present, heh heh, so I just scraped what I could get with my fork! Hello! The dark chocolate was really quite velvety and smooth and not bitter at all. This was excellent! I'd go again just for this1

The dude who helped us was super nice too. We didn't see the owners there, Fabrice and his wife Alison (hence the name "Fabrison's"). Everyone there was pretty cool and the vibe was very relaxed. In addition to crepes, they also sell sandwiches and salads as well as various pastries. There is also a small section of the cafe featuring photographic prints by a local artist (greeting cards and matted photos).

Who else ate at Fabrison's?

Darwin and Ange of Eat, Darwin Eat! went here back in August 2010

And that's all I could find for SD foodbloggers. Otherwise, here are the reviews from
Yelp
SD Reader ,"Not a Tourist Place"
and City Beat "French Favorites"

We hadn't been here in awhile. I think the last time was back in '06 for the Little Italy Fest. We ended up walking up India Street to check out the local flavor....