Great Stuff from Good Stuff - Redondo Beach

Everything moves slower at the beach. Time slips away luxuriously while we lay out under a scorching sun, swaying to the smell of Coppertone and the sound of crashing waves. In Redondo, the serene beach-town scene permeates the nearby Rivera, a beachy village straight out of a summer romance. Even its diner-style digs smell of surfboards and salty sarongs.

Good Stuff is a medium-sized diner-style joint serving breakfast at any hour. Things may move slowly at the beach, but this granola pancake house turns over tables faster than a wave under an inexperienced surfer. There is a 20-minute wait at 11 AM on a random Monday, and you'll spend your Saturday baking on their bench. But the free coffee outside does make the line seem shorter, and a cream and sugar a day keeps the hanger pangs away.

In case you forget where you are, the Krabby Cake Benedict is a cushy beachy spin on a favorite brunch. I didn't mind the softer crab with runny yolks as yellow as a tanning sun and a sandy shade of Hollandaise, but I do prefer the texture of the classic Canadian bacon/ham. 

The Carne Asada and Eggs features a thin, juicy, grilled steak the size of beach umbrella, shading firm grains of Spanish rice, tasty corn tortillas, and a cool touch of pico and guac.

The California Quesadilla is every breakfast food you could possibly crave, stuffed into a generous flour tortilla and glued together with slightly stringy cheese. The scrambled eggs are interspersed with chunks of applewood honey bacon, chewy morsels of mushroom, and creamy chunks of avocado. It sounds like a crude combination, but the right proportion of ingredients makes it the perfect pre-surf scarf-down.

My favorite part about the beach is the humbling feeling you get from standing in the sand watching the majestic miles of neverending water on the horizon. I think whoever named Good Stuff was doing just that when he was coming up with names. Good Stuff keeps it simple, but its name is the wildest understatement around. It is probably my favorite beachy brunch to date, and it deserved to be called "Great Stuff" at the very least!