Since my first visit over three years ago, I have occasionally dreamed – and drooled – a little about The Country Way. My first foray into sausage patty making left me thinking about their huge sausage patty, wondering what they put in theirs (mine does not even come close; to memory, theirs is a rough grind, whereas my using what’s available at the supermarket has left much to be desired in terms of texture and even flavor). When I discovered that for part of our trip, we would be in San Jose once again, I decided I would have breakfast here. Every single morning that we were in San Jose.

The first morning, I decided to see if my memory of the huge sausage patty would hold up to reality. Prices have gone up a bit, but it’s been almost 3 years, if they hadn’t gone up, it’d be truly amazing. I ordered my country sausage patty and 3 eggs sunny side up with white toast (they also offer wheat and sour dough!) along with a large orange juice.

My order came pretty quickly – 10:30 on a Monday, the place was not even close to full. The eggs this time, while still yummy, were not cooked quite as proficiently as they were years ago, boasting a bit of albumen (I believe that’s what it’s called) – raw egg white – atop each egg. As a frequent orderer of sunny side up eggs, I am quite used to many places not fully cooking the white through (alternatively, if they do, then overcooking the yolk), so I can’t say that it really upset me much or grossed me out. I’m used to it.



uncooked egg white floating atop the egg

The sausage patty was actually even better than I’d remembered; the seasonings had been perfected and this time, perhaps because the place wasn’t so busy, it was fully cooked. I admit that last time, if you look carefully at the picture, the center of the patty was quite a bit pink, but it didn’t detract from my total enjoyment last time. This time, however, it was cooked through and had the right amount of oomph and salt to make it truly delicious.

The country fried potatoes were excellent; completely crispy through and through, with pieces so crispy, you’d swear they were potato chips, and just as thin to boot. A dash of salt and a swirl of ketchup, and they were absolute heaven.

Shamefully, I was unable to finish – again – and even left a whole egg yolk untouched. I appear to have eaten more of the sausage than I did last time, though.

The next day, I dragged B there, but due to a miscommunication or a misunderstanding – whatever you would like to call it – our timing was all off and after we sat down, ordered the above “House Breakfast” special, we discovered that we would be unable to take advantage of the special menu (which is dine-in only, no to-go orders) as we had to change it over to a take out order. Our waitress was polite enough about the whole thing, and gave me a cup to pour my orange juice into as well.

I still took pictures, as we raced back to his office in our rental car.

B’s scrambled eggs, bacon and country fried potatoes. Look how much potato they give you, it’s insane – this is in addition to the toast that I didn’t photograph.

My sunny side up with bacon and potatoes. Unfortunately, as can be expected, the potatoes do not translate well in a take out container (although I did see other people coming in and ordering breakfast to go, interestingly enough). The heat created moisture which led to condensation inside the container which led to the potatoes becoming quite a bit soggy. I was very sad. The bacon was nothing special, although I did appreciate the way the strips had been cooked – crispy with a chewy portion, which is how I prefer my bacon. Slightly chewy/fatty. I know, I’m weird; I don’t like it “fried hard” as the B will order. I was less than happy with my breakfast this morning, and zoomed off afterwards for a special shopping date with a special person (details to come… on ALL MY BENTO ARE BELONG TO ME, ooh…).

However, I still returned the next morning for my final breakfast at The Country Way (this SF trip, anyway).

I didn’t realize how spoiled I was for corned beef hash growing up until I reached adult hood and suddenly found that… it’s next to impossible to find really good corned beef hash. Why was I so spoiled for it growing up, then? Duh, because my dad made a phenomenal version that actually starts with canned corned beef. (I don’t even know if I’d call that corned beef now, knowing what I do about real corned beef, but whatever.) The kind of can that you open with a key and as a kid, I would always jostle with my brother to open it, until one day I cut my hand really badly opening it. From then on, I insisted he open the cans, but having lost the novelty of tormenting his kid sister, he wasn’t that interesting. Ah well. My dad would use fresh potatoes, whatever we had at the moment (perhaps occasionally already cooked from some other dish?), and fry that sucker hard – the corned beef hash was super crispy along the edges, sometimes even in the center, and it would just be so freaking good with sunny side up eggs (another taste I developed from my father; I was instructed that it is completely acceptable to slurp my yolks up straight from the white by putting my mouth to them BUT ONLY AT HOME. NEVER, ever, EVER at a restaurant or someone else’s house); poke the yolks and let them run over the corned beef hash, forming a semi-gravy, and just eat it that way or spoon some on toast and indulge in possibly the best breakfast EVERRR.

Leaving Memory Lane and returning to REALITY, though, this corned beef hash is probably the best rendition I’ve had in years. (Though I can almost exactly duplicate my father’s corned beef hash – in fact, he only made it a handful of times before I completely took over making it – it’s been a long time since I’ve made it. I should probably fix that, huh?) Crispy exterior, piping hot center, potatoes perfectly sized – small cubes for easy eating – overall wonderful. And in fact, the corned beef hash was so hot that I was able to spoon it over the even-more-undercooked-egg-white to finish cooking the whites.

It was so delicious, this was my plate when I finally decided to leave. Holy schnikees dude. I didn’t even realize until just now that I really cleaned that plate, huh? Teehee… and I ate all of my toast, spread with strawberry jelly.

Cost: the first day and the last day were both about the same; with a generous tip, somewhere in the range of $15. I didn’t pay the 2nd day, so I’m not sure how much it came out to, and that was for two people. You can definitely get out for cheaper, I just didn’t manage to snag any of the specials on the days I went.

Yvo says: I think you can judge for yourself how I feel about the place; I’ve only been for breakfast though they have many other lovely sounding items on their menu! I would eat here every weekend if I lived in the area, so it’s a great thanks that I don’t. Inexpensive prices (look how much food they give you!), great, friendly service, and excellent breakfast… come on. What the heck are you waiting for?!

strongly recommended for breakfast

SF 2k8, previously:

Bi-Rite Creamery

King of Thai Noodle House

House of Prime Rib

New Asia

Ghirardelli Square

In-n-Out