S* and I decided to meet again to try another brunch place. It was Wednesday and we decided to trek up to North Beach to check out the famed Mama’s. I’d heard amazing things about their french toast, but had been scared away by their two hour wait times on the weekends. However, since neither of us were constrained by anything that day, we had the opportunity to finally try this famed institution.
We walked a mile uphill from the FiDi to North Beach, past Washington Square Park and pondered on the fact that neither of us had ventured to North Beach for ages. Why? Mainly to avoid the mass of tourists. Who, we viewed as we began approaching Mama’s as we passed the park. At 10:30 am on a Wednesday, a sizable line had already formed, and we queued in the back. I tried to overhear the conversations of the folks in line with us, and as I suspected, the majority of people were out of towners, or tourists. Mama’s had been written up in Zagat’s and other San Francisco guide books, and once that happens to a brunch place, the lines typically get out of control.
S* and I waited in line for the next hour. Thankfully, it was sunny outside and we had a nice time chatting while we waited. We were ecstatic upon finally being let in- and knew exactly what we were ordering since we had spent the past 30 minutes in line narrowing down options.
We started with our standard fare of the last two brunches: mimosas.
Then we decided to order three brunch dishes. I was hesitant. S* argued that the likelihood of us coming back was slim to none, so we should try some of the best known things on the menu.
We started with famed Montecristo. Both S* and I had no idea what a Montecristo was, but it was supposedly one of the most popular dishes on the Mama’s menu. It arrived and we devoured all 2000+ calories of its fried, cheesy goodness. Basically, for those of you not in the know, a Montecristo is a ham and cheese sandwich, covered in egg and batter fried.
Next, we moved on to the French toast sampler: banana nut, cinnamon, and blueberry. We doused the pieces in syrup and went into a sugar coma shortly afterwards.
Last, we had the Blackstone Eggs Benedict with organic eggs. It featured perfectly poached eggs on a well toasted English muffin, with slices of crispy american style bacon, doused with creamy Hollandaise sauce. This was actually my least favorite dish out of the meal- the bacon was delicious, but besides that there was nothing particularly memorable about the famed benedict. I thought it was just ok.
This meal was in entirety, several heart attacks on a plate. S* and I attempted to remedy the effects of this by walking back to BART- and I did Vinyasa yoga later and juiced some beets in an attempt to clear out my arteries. I don’t think it worked.
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