Sunday, October 16, 2011

If You Are Looking For Someone in Gilroy (CA),…

on a Saturday morning, you’d better go to O.D.’s Kitchen. This locals’ favorite was full with a waiting line (left) when we arrived at about 9:30 a.m. and was still full and with a longer waiting line (next to last photo) when we left just before 11:00 a.m.

Slightly bigger than a “hole in the wall,”

O.D.’s doesn’t have much in the way of ambience. Unless you consider cowboy art juxtaposed with plastic flowers ambience. Or table tops with ads for such local businesses as Abel Pasilla’s Bail Bonds. But judging from on-line reviews, people don’t come for the wall décor, they come for good food in massive portions.

I didn’t look at the lunch or dinner menu, but the breakfast menu was long and inclusive. To name just a few, omelet choices included: the Vegetable with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, bell peppers and cheddar cheese; the Spinach and Bacon with tomato; the Ham and Cheese; the California with bacon, avocado, jack cheese, and sprouts; the Santa Fe with green chilies, green onions, jack cheese, salsa, guacamole, and sour cream; and the Linguica with jack cheese. All of these come with hash browns or home fries and toast.

Also on the menu were pancakes, French toast, biscuits and gravy, eggs with your choice of meat, and, on the weekends, eggs Benedict. For larger appetites there is the “Big One” with three eggs, ham/bacon/sausage, potatoes, and toast. And for really large appetites there is the “Kitchen Sink” with two eggs, ham, potatoes, bell peppers, tomatoes, and cheddar cheese – all on a bed of fried potatoes. Still not enough? Try the “Rosebud” which is the Kitchen Sink mixed with diced biscuits and smothered in sausage gravy.

Neither of us was ready to tackle the Big One, Kitchen Sink, or Rosebud. Instead, Chuck ordered the Chicken Fried Steak covered with sausage gravy that came with eggs, home fries, and toast.
While the potatoes in this photo look extremely dark, let me assure that they weren’t burned. In fact, Chuck kept remarking on how much he liked them. The cube steak had been breaded and cooked on a flat top and was covered with perfect sausage gravy. What made it perfect? The flour had been cooked with the sausage and sausage drippings before the milk was added and the sausage flavor was distributed throughout the gravy. And the eggs? They were eggs.

I ordered the Santa Fe Omelet with a side of hash browns fried crisp. The potatoes, which probably were shaken from a bag (Doesn’t anyone other than Matt’s Big Breakfast in Phoenix grate their own potatoes for hash browns?), were just as I requested. Crisp on the outside and soft (but not mushy) in the middle. Now omelets are another one of those foods about which I am picky. I don’t like the ultra-beaten egg omelets that are too fluffy and airy. Nor do I like omelets where the eggs are spread out to one-sixteenth of an inch or so on the flat top and then folded and folded and folded. This was just right. Fluffy but not puffy. The cooked salsa, which looked more like an Italian marinara sauce, was mildly spicy; the green chilies had mild to medium heat; and the guacamole had just a hint of garlic—to be expected in the Garlic Capital of the World.

As we left following our 4.0 Addie breakfast,

we paused to admire this old truck (Chuck guessed it was an early 1940s Chevy) parked directly in front of the restaurant. Did it belong to an O.D.’s customer? Or does the café’s owner park it there for additional ambience?

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