Ferry Building’s Breakfast Opportunities

By Paul Redman

Reporting for duty, ground zero, gourmet food heaven in San Francisco. Foggy outside, early morning hours, and many commuters going to work. At the Ferry Building, a breakfast trade is booming, or trying to. My chronicle of this momentous event spans a work week, delving into different tastes, and messages each day. This frenetic pace reflects the manner in which the vendors here are defining themselves before the sun has fully risen.

Monday It seemed a logical place to start, considering Peet’s Coffee & Tea was the first place to open early enough to offer breakfast. Anywhere in Europe or Central America, strong coffee that is not overly bitter is taken for granted. In this country, it is lauded almost as a technological, if not psychological, breakthrough. Peet’s coffee is strong, well caffeinated, and not too bitter, and the assorted pastries and morning breads they offer are of a higher quality than those found in most corner stores, but not by much. This is the place to go for the least expensive and most reassuring breakfast on the go.

Tuesday The relationship between Peet’s and Frog Hollow Farm could be a metaphor for the greater food struggle, real or imagined, that has all but engulfed the Bay Area. Wannabe independent but actually corporate coffee chain pours inexpensive coffee alongside mass-produced pastries. Along comes organic fruit orchard, begins serving organic drip coffee one cup at a time, and makes breakfast pastries with their own fruit and real, buttery puff pastry, made in-house. The fruit pastries offered here are impeccable, and incomparable, and you can see them being formed before your very eyes. If you want to eat responsibly and can afford to do so, break your fast at Frog Hollow.

Wednesday When the original Taylor’s Automatic Refresher in Napa, known for their wonderful burgers and milkshakes, opened a branch in the Ferry Building, many locals noted that the food had lost something in the transfer. But now, having decided to branch out yet again with a to-go counter serving among other things breakfast items, Taylor’s may have gone one step too far. I tried the breakfast burrito, which for the price did not live up to its image in my mind or the reputation of its maker. Although my guest and I found it tasty and satisfying, the manner in which it was prepared left not much to the imagination. Let’s just say it involved such modern inventions as a microwave and a steam table, not to mention dirty fingers and a prodigious waiting period. This lack of sanitation and professionalism would be quaint and cultural in many other situations, the Ferry Building not being one of them.

Thursday The latest arrival on the breakfast scene is also the Ferry Building’s newest vendor. Boulette’s Larder is a small shop with a gorgeous open kitchen, a world-class range and accompanying fireplace. In some sense, it is everything that is right and wrong with the Bay Area. Recognizing that in the momentous push to modernity that took place over the last 100 years something was lost in the way of eating good food around an open fire, Boulette’s has attempted to restore the balance by building what must be one of the most expensive and state-of-the-art kitchens in the whole city. My breakfast companion and I ordered the breakfast of the day, scrambled eggs with a single slice of white toast and fresh black truffles. It is not necessary to point out that for the price of our meal we could have fed a family of four for a week if we had to.

Friday Somewhat fatigued by the end of the week, I finally ate what for several weeks has been the running favorite of Ferry Building employees and regulars from the law and investment firms upstairs. Golden Gate Meat Company’s breakfast sandwich is an enlightened delight, ostensibly a red-state meal with blue-state sensibilities. They begin by frying two eggs, draping them in soon-to-be melted cheese, garnishing with healthy slices of house-made applewood smoked bacon, sandwiching it between a warm, yellow hamburger roll. There is a secret ingredient, too, which I must admit took me several bites to discover. If you are the type that cringes when there is an unexpected addition to a dish you have grown accustomed to, please brace yourself or stop reading this article right now. There is an ever-so-thin layer of mayonnaise on this sandwich, which breaks many of my own rules about eating this constituent of the elite five-member mother sauce clique, but which works to make this breakfast a transcendent experience in rich, satisfying morning eating. If you eat only one breakfast sandwich for the rest of your life, make it this one.