Author: jean komatsu
Last saved by: ENU

October 14, 2013
Cock-A-Doodle Café
719 Washington St., Oakland, CA
Sample menu: http://www.cockadoodlecafe.com/BkfastLunchMenu.pdf 
Review date: October 2013

We had intended to lunch at nearby Café Gusano, but they have apparently decided to close on Mondays without bothering to tell anyone, change their website, or even reprint the ink-jet page that lists their hours/days of operation in the front window. 

Customers? What customers? Who cares about customers?!? Sheesh.

Anyway, we wandered around and finally decided on the Cock-A-Doodle, which serves only breakfast and lunch. Carlos got the former and I got the latter. CaD Café is well-known in the LGBT community, but has gathered some ups and downs in its on-line reviews.

He ordered the spicy shrimp omelet, which he liked but didn't love. I thought the one bite he gave me was very good, the shrimps sautéed with thin onion shreds and fresh cilantro, in a genuinely spicy filling. The omelet wasn't browned, which is always a plus in our book. We like our eggs handled with respect, which means gently cooked with no hint of browning anywhere.

With it came nicely browned fried potatoes in small dice, but unfortunately the kitchen had dolloped sour cream on top, which he doesn't like and wasn't expecting. I traded him some of my fries for his "contaminated" potatoes.

He got sourdough toast, which was cheap standard whitebread-type. CaD Café misses a trick by offering a nice loose strawberry jam that seems housemade, but it's just as sickeningly sweet as Smuckers. Outside of the texture, there's no difference in taste, sadly.

I ordered the burger special, which was a Chipotle Aioli Burger, complete with Swiss, mushrooms, and bacon. Although I specified medium rare, it came medium-well. It's a pan-fried patty with almost no crust, and also no salt. The portion size is good, and the chipotle aioli partially offsets the non-salting of the burger. 

But the bun tends to fall apart, being a little too balloon bread-ish. They assemble it with the lettuce and tomato in the kitchen, and unfortunately the bacon was mounded up in the middle, instead of evenly laid over the cheese. It was messy and pretty tasty, even though the burger's blandness eventually showed up as the aioli squeezed out and the bread smooshed down.

Not a great burger, but not a bad one either. The aioli really pulled it together; I wish they'd spread it on both bun halves, not just the top. The bun is toasted, which helps the overall good impression.

The fries were the thin McDonald's-style frozen commercial fries. They were infinitely superior to the hideous housemade fries Tribune Tavern (just up the street) sends out with their marvelous burger. 

There are times when a restaurateur should just surrender to reality and go with Sysco or Simplot, or whoever it is that can provide simple, unbattered, consistent crisp fries. Is it really that hard to admit that sometimes homemade/housemade isn't always better?

The coffee was strong and terrible; Carlos adulterated it with cream and sugar to be merciful.

Prices are very reasonable. We liked Cock-A-Doodle Café, even though we didn't love it. But if we want a simple breakfast or lunch and we're in the Old Oakland area around Endgame (Carlos' favorite hobby store, so we're there twice a month, minimum), it's worth keeping this place in mind.

The Web menu is a cross between the regular and the brunch menu. The only way to see the actual two menus for the day is if you stop by, and look in the front window where they are taped up.

Two people, breakfast/lunch (the weekend brunch menu looked pretty interesting, btw): two entrées, two beverages, with tip was only $38.