Dining Out: Tower Cafe

Yes, we’ve already reviewed Tower. For the deserts, probably for dinner—but never for breakfast. With the nice weather kicking in, we decided to hit Tower for their best meal of the day, followed by a walk around the Curtis Park area.

Of course, we were pretty busy that morning, and made it with “20 seconds” to spare, according to the hostess. Yes, breakfast at 2 pm. It’s not that we got up anywhere near that late.

But anyway, we started with an old Tower standby, and one I’d actually had before. Now I’ve never thought of blueberries and cornmeal going together, but in the case of the New Mexico Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes ($8.95 full stack / $4.95 half stack), they do. The blueberries are cooked right inside. There’s something oddly tasty about the contrast of the coarse cornmeal with the sweet, plump to the point of bursting blueberries. Maybe it’s that they’re not sickly sweet—something I tend to like to avoid first thing in the morning (or afternoon in this case) because it often leaves me with an odd feeling the rest of the day.

Needing to order something else quickly, since we had only 20 seconds, we opted for the special—the Louisiana omelet ($10.95). The hostess literally came and erased the specials board within a minute of our order. This was a concoction of hot sausage, hotter sauce and various Cajun veggies and spices. It formed a nice contrast to the sweet side of the meal. One nice thing about going out to breakfast with your significant other is the ability to order something sweet and something savory and split them.

Also, the potatoes at Tower are great, seared crispy on the outside but softer on the inside, mixed with a generous amount of onions. My SO said she didn’t want many—then proceeded to raid my plate for more.

Given that we weren’t overwhelmed with sweetness, we each had a mocha—mine dark chocolate, hers white (each $2.95)—and given that it was well into the afternoon, we both went decaf. Mine was rich and grainy, hers lighter and sweeter.

Tower has many other breakfast items as well including, your standard omelettes—Denver, Greek, Mexican, Salmon ($9.95 to $10.95). One new-to-us addition to the menu that would might have gotten had we had more time to order, was the Portabella Toscana ($9.95), with tomato, asparagus, and smoked mozzarella.

Also, the French Toast here is not  to be missed (served a variety of ways, from $5.95 to $9.95). Though I admit, on this day, we did miss it.

Tower Café
1518 Broadway, Sacramento
916-441-0222
Sun – Thur: 8 am – 11 pm (desserts and drinks from 10pm-11pm)
Fri & Sat: 8 am – 12 am (desserts and drinks from 11pm-12am)
Breakfast until 2 pm Sat & Sun