Back to Dottie's

I reckon I still have four or five posts left to make from our vacation to the west coast back in May.  So today I'll check off one from the list - after our drive up to Mendocino and our first day back in the Bay area, we'd arranged to meet one of my Air Force friends, Brian, for breakfast and sightseeing.

Brian keeps a blog called Breakfast at Epiphany's about his exploits at unique breakfast joints in San Francisco.  On the one hand, having ready access to so many fine venues is great, but on the other, there are so many great venues so it can be hard to choose which one to go to...in the end, I recommended that we join him at one of his favorites, and one I'd been to with him before - Dottie's True Blue Cafe.

Dottie's is famous for a couple of things - great breakfasts are the primary one, and there are menu items and daily specials on a big board.  It also was famous for its location in the Tenderloin District, although it has moved to a new location recently - still in the Tenderloin.  Finally, it's notable for the long lines outside - often people will wait for an hour or more to get in for breakfast there!

When we arrived via a short walk from the BART station, Brian was already waiting in line there.  So we had maybe 20 minutes or so to wait until we could be seated.  I was really impressed with the new location - more seats, looks like a bigger kitchen, and all that.

The line outside is still a colorful experience, too, although not quite as entertaining as it had been before.  I suppose that is going to strike some people as a good thing, and some as a bad thing.  Different strokes!

After we were seated and had started catching up, Brian gave us the orientation briefing about the menu and the board.  He's written so often about ordering the specials that we all did just that - Mary and I both chose the Sweet Potato Tart, and Brian picked the black bean cakes (I think they are a favorite).  Money shots follow:

Breakfast at Dottie's simply doesn't disappoint.  I'd go there quite frequently if I lived in San Francisco...I think I might even make excuses to have business meetings there on weekdays.  And as a matter of fact, Brian has already been back there on his rotation since we made our trip to Dottie's together!

Meanwhile, here' a link to his blog post about the day - I'll have another post about the rest of our activities together soon.  http://breakfastatepiphany.blogspot.com/2014/06/dotties-true-blue-cafe.html