Long on our list of places to try, HRD Coffee Shop in SOMA is a San Francisco favorite known for generous portions of Asian-Mexican fusion food. Open only for breakfast and lunch hours, many of the plates feature various Chinese or Korean items (such as BBQ pork, shortrib or kimchee) that can be ordered as a fried rice, rice plate, sandwich or burrito style.
It’s not really a coffee shop nor a diner since no table service is provided. Instead, you peruse the menu while standing in line, place your order once you reach the register and then find a space to eat when your name is called when your order is ready.
As the line moves forward, you can view the process of the food being made with a setup that is very similar to a Mexican taqueria:
The menu is quite extensive as the choices of proteins (seafood, chicken, tofu, roast and BBQ pork, beef shortribs and hamburgers) can be ordered many different ways. They do provide a list of 5-6 items that are their house specialties to help with the ordering process for first-timers.
We went there for a late lunch to try to avoid the crowd and unfortunately they had already run out of their BBQ pork. So, our order of their Famous Scrambled Egg with BBQ Pork over rice had to wait for another day, and we decided to get the Spicy Pork Kimchee Burrito instead. The Korean burrito was quite tasty. It wasn’t as spicy as we had expected, but they do provide gochujang sauce in squeeze bottles at the tables to add more heat to the wrap:
Their Mongolian Cheesesteak was made with grilled ribeye and came topped with onions, peppers and grated mozzarella cheese. The Asian twist to this sandwich was using hoisin sauce for an Asian flavor. It came with fries that were decent enough, but not great, since they use the starch and rice flour coated version to keep them crispy longer (note: even Burger King got rid of these last year):
Featured on Food Network on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, the crowds made up of locals and tourists alike will continue to come and form lines at HRD Coffee Shop. Food was decent and plentiful making this one of the bargain places to eat at in the City for breakfast or lunch.
BarFlySF 