Cafe 21 in San Diego, California

While on my whirlwind adventure across the Southwestern United States, I got to spend my weekend in San Diego, in between meetings in Orange County and Tucson.  Having been to San Diego several times, I had a good feel for the local cuisine, with the exception of breakfast. I've always been there during the week, making breakfast whatever could be easily acquired at the hotel or en route to my work destination. I wasted no time letting my fingers do the walking to Yelp and in minutes I was strolling down Fifth Street from my hotel to Cafe 21, a boutique restaurant with rave breakfast reviews. 

As the marquis gives away, this place had a large and varied menu that included any breakfast item you might want and then some.  However, one of their specialties and a dish for which they had earned much praise from Yelpers, was the Azeri Style French toast.  Unsurprisingly, it took me no time once I took my seat at the bar to decide on the Strawberry version of this French toast variant.

 My strawberry Azeri toast

From the minute my breakfast hit the table, I was in heaven. Made with sweet mascarpone and two chunky slices of homemade bread, this french toast sandwich of sorts, had yummy written all over it. And it was! Crunchy bread, creamy cheese, punctuated with strawberry bursts.  Breakfast does not come better. Or so I thought.

After my unbelievable breakfast at Cafe 21 on Saturday, I looked around Yelp for other places to try on Sunday.  But I just couldn't find anything that had comparable reviews and there were so many other delicious menu items calling to me, that I ended up back at Cafe 21 for breakfast on Sunday.  This repeat performance forced me to break on of my cardinal travel rules - use every opportunity to try new restaurants - but it was well worth it.

This time, I spent more time scanning the menu, deciding which of a dozen or so tasty looking items I would take a shot with.  In the end, I settled on the shrimp and corn cakes served with poached eggs and a cilantro cream.  Call this a west coast nod to eggs benedict.  

It arrived, two round shrimp and corn cakes, on a gleaming green bed of cilantro cream.  Perched perfectly on top of each cake was a poached egg, prepared soft. 

Shrimp and corn cake with poached egg, cilantro cream

If I had been happy the day before with my Azeri toast (oh and I was! I was!), it was nothing to my new breakfast companion.  The cake was pan-friend just enough to warm everything through, but not so much as to overcook the shrimp. Loading a fork full of gooey egg and soft shrimp cake rolled in cilantro cream was the perfect way to start the day.  The only downside was my disappointment at cleaning my plate. I could have gone on a long time with that meal.