Eastgate Cafe'

We thought that this week we would revisit one of our favorite breakfast spots from before we began blogging but then Saturday night we went out for dessert (and wine) at the Eastgate Cafe' following a play and we were so charmed that we decided to try it for breakfast.

The Eastgate Cafe is in the "art's district" of Oak Park at 102 Harrison Ave.  This little cafe' is great.  It has been open for a year and a half on a quiet corner with plenty of street parking.  In addition to the food in the cafe' they also feature a small cooking oriented gift shop.   But we came for the coffee and breakfast and we were not disappointed. Although this was only our second visit the owner remembered us from our last visit and we were warmly welcomed.

After being greeted by the friendly owner the first thing that you see walking in the front door is a display case with desserts and pastries- All looked tasty and the ones we tried were delicious.  We sat at one of the  8 or so tables and enjoyed the quiet friendly atmosphere of the cafe'.  There were only 2 other occupied tables, two women were seated at one table and at the other was a man enjoying the wifi on his lap top.  (Max may come back here to work on sermons). 

The coffee was fresh and had a great flavor - kind of caramel and berry.   A carafe was sitting on the counter so it was also plentiful.  The breakfast menu was limited (pastries, 2 types of quiche and some type  of Russian egg/mushroom pastry that was the owner's grandmother's recipe) -- I think that they specialize in lunch.   We decided to share our orders. We split an order of the mushroom/thingy and 3 wonderful small pastries.  The mushroom/egg/phyllo thingy was very good, light and tasty. The serving was large, served with sweet fresh fruit and two potato pancakes (frozen).  It was supposed to be served with sausage or bacon, which we declined.  The pastries were great- the corn and blueberry muffins were moist and sweet. There was a cinnamon swirl which had a lightly crunchy crust and was flaky and moist on the inside. 

We sat for a while after we ate read the paper and relaxed.  When we went to pay Leslie got into a conversation with the co-owner (the wife part of the husband and wife team) and found out the the pastries were made by a french company located in Hawaii.  Apparently the owner of the factory got fed up with France and decided to relocate the entire operation. The pastries are shipped frozen and cooked fresh on location.  The desserts are shipped frozen from New York and are also good (we tasted those the other night).

The breakfast was much more relax than last week.  No phone calls and just the newspaper and one another's company.  We'll be back here again but not for awhile on a Tuesday since we want to keep exploring.