Break of Dawn, Orange County

Fancy eggs in the most unlikely of places. In this case, a shopping strip in Orange County, playing host to a very impressive serve of designer eggs benedict. Nicely trimmed poached eggs, artsy swirls of pesto hollandaise, fat slabs of juicy ham, all carefully balanced on a couple of slices of toasted potato bread. They do breakfast in style at Break of Dawn, 24351 Avenida De La Carlota, Laguna Hills, California. And not a real housewife in sight.

Sears Fine Food, San Francisco

I am always suspicious of "world famous" venues I've never heard of. But I decided to throw caution to the wind and sample the world famous Swedish pancakes at Sears Fine Food, 439 Powell St (between Post and Sutter), San Francisco, CA, Tel +1 (415) 986-1160.



Rather than 18 straight silver dollar cakes, I went with 9 little pancakes, corned beef hash, poached eggs and hash browns. The eggs came in their own dish with a puddle of water, and were so runny that they disappeared into the beef hash as soon as I started to slice 'em up. The beef hash was good, and the fat wedge of hash brown potatoes was even better. Soft in the middle. Crisp and golden on the outside. As for the pancakes, they were fine. I wouldn't call them world famous. But I wouldn't complain about them either.

13/20 "babycakes"