In the Mood for Crawfish Beignets and Chicory Coffee?

The warm sweet smell of Chicory coffee is wafting out of this small hole in the wall building just blocks away from the civic center in San Francisco. I'm desperately in the need of coffee and eats, after a drinking adventure from the night before and when my partner in crime tells me we HAVE to be up by 8am, to make sure we get a place in line by 9am or we won't eat makes my stomach kinda quake. So I shakily get up and get going, were on a deadline.

Right as we get to the famous Brenda's we know were in for a wait, there's multiple groups outside waiting on line, and it's 9:02 am. In their small 7-10 table restaurant people are practically staring at the window where others are being served. So waiting for 45 minuets we where able to take in the menu, soak in the chill, and build anticipation for what was to come; because for all I hate waiting there is a true statement about food in San Francisco, "When people are waiting -- the food's worth waiting for, it's the places without the line out the door you have to look out for."

So when we finally get a table we order all the things we had been waiting for and quickly, starting with the coffee and a flight of Beignets: traditional, dark chocolate, apple, and crawfish! Their like huge donuts, covered in powered sugar, with the exception of the crawfish. The chocolate was warm and melted out of the pastry shell, the apple was like Apple Hill apple pie, and the crawfish was the best - topped with Old Bay seasoning and filled with crawfish, cayenne, cheese, and green onions - absolutely scrumptious.



So for the actual breakfast portion we got multiple items on the specials menu and ate family style, much to the pleasure of all those still in line watching through the window. Shown are:

Deep Fried Catfish Eggs Benedict with a creole hollandaise on a cream biscuit, and as I'm not a friend of "regular" grits I requested the famous cheddar cheese grits on the side (slightly more than I though there would be). - Insane flavor, crispy, spicy, heavy, creamy and a satisfying; one of the best takes on an Egg's Benedict I've ever seen.

The pancakes are a pumpkin pancake with ginger streusel and a vanilla cream cheese butter - heavy, thick in texture, and spicy sweet. It's was like eating a spice cake and crispy/crunchy streusel inside and topped with a sweet cream cheese frosting. It would have been heavy/sweet for breakfast if it was the only thing I was eating, but it was a perfect contrast to the other flavors we ordered.



And my personal creme de la creme was the Shrimp and Cheddar Grits with Tomato-Bacon Relish - where the others were wonderful, this dish is one of my favorite standards and I've never had it with a bacon-style addition. It was creamy, salty (bacon), cheesy, and tangy (tomato).
A rare treat.



I've never understood why people would go to incredible find restaurants and not try what their known for, quite a few people sitting around us were having their accustomed "two-eggs any style" and looking at our food. It's called being adventurous, even if it's in your own backyard! So next time your in San Francisco and hankering for a great, hearty breakfast/ brunch take yourself to Brenda's and get in line - you might be waiting for awhile, but it's ALWAYS worth the wait!

Brenda's French Soul Food
652 Polk St
San Francisco, CA 94102-3328
(415) 345-8100