Brunch the French way

French culture and cuisine seems to have a huge influence on San Francisco. There are countless of bakeries everywhere in town - from small neighborhood cafes to popular chains. Luckily, the majority of them serve delicious authentic food. The only bad thing is that I can't possibly try all the places I want to go to...

Well, the most obvious choice if you can go to only one bakery in San Francisco is La Boulange. It is a chain with several restaurants around the city, but the location I go to is the one in Cole Valley. This location offers typical bakery a-la-carte fare like croissants, quiches, turnovers and macarons, and it also has a made-to-order menu. I first tried La Boulange last year. On my last day there, I ordered the Fantastic French Toast. I was expecting a traditional French toast because nothing from the menu description suggests otherwise. But WOW! The French toast at La Boulange is seriously the best thing I have tasted in my life, at any restaurant, for any kind of meal. I couldn't go back there this year and taste it again.

So what makes the French toast so special? Well, it does comes in a round shape, but other than that it has a pretty much nondescript experience. But once you bite into it, you notice a flavor that's familiar, but yet it seems like it doesn't come from a traditional toast. After a little bit of thinking, you might realize that it tastes like creme brulee! Yes, that's right. And if you look carefully, you'll see that there is an egg custard layer beneath the toast itself. The combination of the creamy custard and the egg-soaked toast makes for a truly heavenly taste.

La Boulange is known for its macarons, which are supposedly the best macarons outside of France. I've tried several flavors so far, including chocolate, lemon, walnut, and raspberry mango (not pictured). They were fresh and did have just the perfect texture. However, the flavor wasn't as intense as I would have liked it to be. For example, I wish the lemon macarons were more lemony and that I could distinguish any kind of individual flavor rather than an overall fruity flavor in the mango raspberry macaron.

I'm a huge granola fan, so I also tried the granola at La Boulange (not pictured). I got mine with yogurt, which was the best part of the dish. It was very thick and sour, just like I like it. There are other items that I want to try, so I will definitely be going back there :)

Another French place that I had brunch at was La Terrasse at the Presidio park. The location of the restaurant was great. I had my brunch while looking at the Golden Gate Bridge on a sunny, warm day. I ordered the Brie, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes omelet, which was great. The cheese was perfectly melted, but not overpowering. There was a lot more spinach than I have seen in any omelet before, so I was able to get my daily serving of veggies :) My only disappointment is that the sun-dried tomatoes didn't stand out too much and were hard to find in the omelet.

You always wonder whether an international place here is as good as it would be in its country of origin. There were French people sitting close to me at both La Boulange and La Terrasse, and that to me is the best stamp of approval for a place.