Best Breakfast Ever at Blackbird Café – Long Beach

To say I’m not a morning person would be an understatement. It would be like saying that Fox News is only occasionally biased when reporting current events. Another example of an understatement would be the claim that I am less of a morning person than most people.

Anytime before 10 AM is an outrageous hour at which to be awake as far as I’m concerned, and if I said I didn’t mind getting up at 7:30 AM to drive to Blackbird Café in Long Beach on a Saturday morning, I would be lying through my unbrushed teeth. You see, in the case of Blackbird Café, its location is called Long Beach because it’s a long way from anything remotely appealing. By the time I finally stumbled in, no one could tell whether I was smiling or grimacing, and my eyes were half-closed and not because I’m Asian.

I may have also been the tiniest bit hung over, and everyone needs an eye-opener like the CinnaWhip. Regardless of why you need it, a delectable bowl-sized brew with whipped cream the size of a baseball will get the job done. Just drink it and try not to judge.

Once my eyes were a little more open, it didn’t take long to order the Huevos Rancheros, the classic tortilla-topped beans and eggs, mixed with perfectly-braised carnitas-on-crack, which turn a simple breakfast staple turns into the best before-brunch bite of your life.

The huevos rancheros were by far the best breakfast of my life, but one look at the Elvis French Toast and I knew that this thick, fluffy toast smothered by peanut butter and gluttonized with gooey bacon and banana would be tied for king…of breakfast. Inspired by Elvis’s favorite food, the King was known to go through as many as 12-15 of these sandwiches in a single sitting, and this French toast is so filling it feels like you ate at least ten.

In retrospect, I wouldn’t have changed a single thing about my morning except I wouldn’t have bothered with the CinnaWhip. Because as awesome as it is to have this cup of coffee to start your day, the heaping helpings of carnitas and carbs will undo all caffeination.

After breakfast at Blackbird Café, I started thinking that if I were waking up to food this good every morning, I may actually become a morning person, but when the food coma kicked in, I smiled/grimaced a goodbye, got into my car, drove the long way from Long Beach while squinting through the sunlight with my half-closed eyes, and promptly went back to bed.