San Francisco: Chouquet's and Boulangerie

We wrapped up our San Francisco trip with Sunday brunch at Chouquet's, a French Bistro just off Fillmore on Washington St (formerly occupied by Pauli's Cafe).



Chouquet's is a rather trendy little restaurant that has a cute little patio with little tables and little chairs. Emphasis on the word little. The chairs are so tiny that little ol' me even had a tough time getting comfortable. Those French like you challenge you.

The tables are also really close together, so you get a great opportunity to eavesdrop on your neighbors. Sometimes you get a boring dining neighbor who talks too loudly about nothing particularly interesting. This morning, however, we were fortunate enough to get a zinger: the morning after breakfast of a first hook-up between two officemates. Oooh it was good. For starters, she was clearly head over heels for him, and he clearly couldn't wait to get away from her fast enough. She was obsessed with her job and office politics, he could care less. She kept throwing out snappy one-liners like "I could never work under you... well, at least not at work" (wink, wink), which he politely pretended he didn't hear. She became increasingly obsessive ("so you WERE awake when I was calling you the other night"), while he tried to keep his story straight on the other parts of his dating life. Too much good stuff to write about.

Fortunately, the food was just as indulgent as listening to their conversation, and our decadent eavesdropping turned into decadent brunching within about 30 minutes (I certainly can't accuse this place of hurried service).

Brian had the eggs benedict, which I like to think of as an Egg McMuffin deluxe. The Egg McMuffin is actually thought to be inspired by eggs benedict, although I doubt you'd ever see Lemuel Benedict shoving one of those in his mouth on the way to Wall Street. Picture perfect, and just about as solid an eggs benedict as one can get.



I'm a sucker for a good quiche, and Chouquet's was perfectly elegant and delicious. Instead of a slice of a bigger quiche, they serve an individual quiche tart... which was tasty and oh-so-cute. And probably 2000 calories... who cares...



We were on vacation, so of course we had to have french fries for breakfast... it's a free country, right?



Anytime I eat french fries, I can't help but think back to the completely silly episode of Freedom Fries from 2003. Just last July, the House finally changed the name back to French Fries in all of its restaurants. Hill fries free to be French again - thank God! I mean, it was only a matter of time before we packed up the Statue of Liberty and shipped it back to France, right?

If only our dining neighbor could ship his mistake date back on the same boat...

Chouquet's
2500 Washington St.
San Francisco, CA 94115
415-359-0075
Brunch: Sat-Sun 10AM-3PM
Lunch: Tues-Fri 11:30-3PM
Dinner: Tues-Sun 5:30-10PM

We decided to continue on the French theme with some treats from Boulangerie down the street. Bay Bread Boulangerie specializes in organic artisan breads, which I'm sure are great. But when I decide to get serious about eating, I go for the sweets.



When I saw that Boulangerie had macaroons, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. A very authentic-looking French bakery in San Francisco, the food mecca of the West Coast - the macaroons would be awesome, right? Well, almost. Actually, not really.

Will I have to travel straight to Paris to find a macaroon better than the ones at Boule? Perhaps, but that's certainly a trip I wouldn't mind taking...



Bay Bread Boulangerie
2325 Pine St
San Francisco, CA 94115
415-440-0356
Tues-Sat: 8AM-6PM
Sun: 8AM-4PM