Mexican Breakfast! all day at San Jalisco in the Mission District
All day, everyday:get your Chilaquiles fix here
The Mexican breakfast is the best breakfast. If you aren’t of the opinion that it is indeed the best, then I’m guessing you’ve never broken the taut, glistening surface of a fried egg yolk and watched it’s contents slowly swirl into salsa, beans and pulled pork; or bitten into a crispy-fried tortilla chip coated in cheese and scrambled eggs. Most of us are at least familiar with Huevos Rancheros, a longtime gringo favorite, but there are many other sphincter-searing delights. Slightly lesser known amongst those who don’t count Mexican food as a birthright are Machaca (shredded beef with scrambled eggs), Nopales con Huevos (eggs scrambled with strips of the Nopal cactus), Chilaquiles (fried corn or tortilla chips, usually tossed with scrambled eggs and chorizo), and Chicharrones con Huevos (crispy pork skin with eggs).
The only problem, at least for me, is that I can’t always find a good Mexican breakfast when I want it, i.e., after I’ve managed to extricate myself from my nocturnal cocoon, performed the routine bodily maintenance mandated by polite society and made my way out of doors and to The Mission District, by which time the clock usually chimes about 2 pm. The Mission is full of all-day breakfast joints, but very few places fitting my criteria. One of the few that does, to which I have only very recently become an adherent, is San Jalisco, on the corner of 20th St. and South Van Ness. From the looks of it upon entering one Saturday afternoon, it wasn’t any kind of state secret; it was packed with a poly-ethnic crowd of varying social strata (read: middle-class whites and working class Latinos), a good indication of both it’s steadfast relationship with the community and au currant appeal.
All that demographical bullshit aside, San Jalisco is great because it’s one of the few spots where you’re sure to get Mexican breakfast from 7am to 9pm, every day of the week. The food is amazing (including a fiery red Posole, which a friend and I split in addition to our own entrees) and there are some nice folks behind the long Formica countertop who refill your coffee at least six times without prompt, which is just how Mr. Pink (sorry, Mr. Fink) likes it.
San Jalisco,
901 S. Van Ness St.
[The Mission District]
