The Sweet Pea Café
 Akron, Ohio       Date of Visit: 01/04/14         http://www.sweetpeacafe.moonfruit.com/  

Had some pictures printed, wanted to see Saving Mr. Banks, all to be accomplished on Friday. Just wasn’t going to happen so we are back in Fairlawn on Saturday to catch the flick (pretty good) and pick up the posters (turned out nice, from Sam’s Club no less) so we added a stop for breakfast. Sweet Pea Café is tucked into one of the plazas off of Market Street and we thought we would try their breakfast offerings.

The place is busy and remained so through our entire stay. Only two folks are working the floor a young man who is entertaining himself and a woman who winds up serving us. She worked very hard but even if slick was looking to be helpful I don’t know if two people could have handled the full floor by themselves. Regardless, she did what she could.
 

The interior is what you might expect in a strip mall. Cornered off kitchen with a few counter seats, booths and tables roughly arranged on an open floor. Local artists hang on the walls and there are specials on white boards…they could really use some spell check on those white boards. My guess is Slick. Waters and coffee joined a pretty average mug of hot chocolate. We decided on an omelet and a special. Steph ordered the Mac n Cheese Omelet with basil, tomato, mushroom, chorizo, onion & Mac n cheese, pan cooked with three farm fresh eggs typically served with country potato and choice of toast. The toast was sourdough and she replaced the taters with what tasted like a jarred applesauce. The applesauce was a disappointment as most other things on the menu are made in house. The omelet was well prepared but was mangled by design. When you order mac and cheese I want CHEESE. This didn’t even have cheese. It did have more basil than you might use in a 50-quart pot of marinara and a slick of red ooze from the sausage. I was disappointed top to bottom and worried about the crazy mess I had ordered.
 

Looks Great But Never Comes Together
 

Holy Too Much Basil & Lack Of Cheese
 

For So Much Other Stuff Made In House The Jar-like Applesauce Was Ehhhh
 

The Fresh Cut Fruit Was Much Better
 

That mess (that I ordered) was called the San Francisco (actually Franciso) on the board and was a riff on Eggs Benedict. After the underwhelming version from Sweet Sage and the aforementioned omelet I suspected things were not going to go well. So wrong I was.

Two English muffins were topped with a slice of spicy tomato, avocado, and poached eggs. The eggs are doused with another frail hollandaise but in this case the sauce is topped with crumbled chorizo and queso fresco boosting egg yolk and butter into something wonderfully tasty. The whole thing together was particularly delicious, witting so many varied notes which all managed to compliment each other so well. It was served with the taters or fruit. I ordered the taters and added the fruit once we saw the guy in the kitchen dispatching fresh pineapples etc. for the monkey dishes of fruit lined up on the prep table. For the middle of winter they had much better melon, berries and other fruits than expected.

The country potatoes are also pretty good and were delivered with a bottle of hot sauce, which has become a breakfast must for me. Two unique breakfast combinations slid towards opposite ends of the success spectrum but the successful one made up for lack in its counterpart…or maybe it just feels that away because it was the one I ordered. Not everything worked but there are at least a couple of gems at the Sweet Pea. Now for some San Franciso glamour shots.... Man, this was tasty.
 

Looks Every Bit As Good As The Omelet
 

Taters Work Well, Esp. With Franks
 

Muffin, Avocado, Spicy Tomato, Poacher, Hollandaise, Chorizo, Cheese
 

Ooozy, Awesome, Breakfast Crack