Today, for whatever reason, I woke up fairly early in the morning and decided I might as well knock out a breakfast place. I’ve been thinking lately that I need to go back to do the proper reviews of Country Gabel’s Cafe and Pacific Street Cafe, which I had a bit of quick breakfast at each for the Good Day Sac thing. I texted the parental units and soon we were stepping off the freezing street and into the warm Pacific Street Cafe.
They weren’t very busy at 8:26AM and we were immediately seated, just one table away from where I was last time. The decor is much the same as you might find at other breakfast/lunch cafes but with one main exception. Overhead you will hear a model train doing laps around the dining rooms on a suspended track, moving from room to room through tunnels in the walls. It’s a nice touch, and kids seem to love it (OK, I do too). We went over our menus, which offer good balance of breakfast and lunch items. I looked at the cinnamon roll french toast for a moment. I had this the first time and it was ridiculously awesome, but I was in the mood for something a little more sensible this morning so I continued on. We were served coffee and water very quickly. Servers roaming the dining room with coffee pots were quick to provide refills throughout breakfast.
Soon we were ordering. My dad went first and ordered the short stack of pancakes. After my mom and I ordered he said “wait a second,” and suddenly realized that his menu was missing one of the breakfast pages and instead he had a second appetizer page. After getting a chance to look at the missing page he changed his mind and went with Mark’s Mess (eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, cheese, potatoes, bell peppers and onions scrambled together and served with toast). From the same page my mom ordered the scrambled eggs & diced ham (three large AA eggs scrambled with a generous portion of ham. Served with toast and your choice of homefries, hashbrowns or fruit) and I chose the corned beef hash & eggs (homemade with special seasonings, fresh onions and potatoes, grilled and served with two large eggs and toast).
A little caddy of jellies arrived along with ketchup, Cholula and Tabasco sauces. It was a very short time from ordering to the food coming out, maybe 10 minutes tops. Mark’s Mess was indeed a mess of all it’s ingredients, and it looked pretty damn good with it’s melted cheese all over the top. The scrambled eggs & diced ham looked very simple in comparison, but tasty none the less. Mine was topped with the two eggs, done over medium as requested. Finally, my biscuit was served on the side with a packet of honey and two packets of butter.
The butter was quite hard, so I cut the warm biscuit in half and stuck both pieces inside, still in wrappers, to soften them up. A minute or two later I checked on them and the butter had pretty much completely liquified in their packets, which worked out better than I expected. With honey drizzled on it and the biscuit re-assembled I took a bite. It was pretty good, a little crumbly but not too dry. I did decide that the biscuit was a bit too big for the amount of honey, so I removed the top and enjoyed that with some grape jelly on it’s own. My corned beef hash was fantastic, it was incredibly tender and almost melted in your mouth. The potatoes were also great, covered in butter or oil and seasoned, they were very flavorful. I ended up saving the last fork-full to be the last thing I ate so I could savor that taste for longer.
Everyone was really happy with the food and our service was quite good. A couple times the waitress rushed off before my dad could clear his throat and ask for a glass of water but I flagged her down soon enough. I know they can get pretty busy, based on how they were when I first went for Good Day, but that was later in the morning. I think arriving between 7-9 is a good time to beat the rush and have a good, quiet breakfast here.
Website: http://www.pacificstreetcafe.net/
The site is not mobile friendly, so here’s a direct link to their menu: http://www.pacificstreetcafe.net/menu.pdf
Eating Through Roseville 