A great week at the Good Day Cafe

John Volo

In the movie “Groundhog Day,” Bill Murray’s weatherman character

awakens every morning to find himself reliving the previous day. I

felt a little like that when I spent the better part of a week

visiting the Good Day Cafe.

Although Murray’s character was disenchanted with his

surroundings, I was charmed with Good Day’s genial atmosphere and

scrumptious breakfasts and lunches. Trish (the owner) and Jeannine

(her right-hand woman) were perfectly cast in the part of friendly

hosts.

On Monday, post-workout, I raced across town in hopes of beating

the 11 a.m. cutoff for one of their “off the hook” scrambles. I made

it with only minutes to spare and quickly ordered a meat-lovers

scramble so delicious it was worth the risk of a speeding ticket.

Tasty turkey sausage and full-flavored hickory-smoked bacon are mixed

in with fluffy scrambled eggs. A simple flick of the fork was all

that was needed to indulge in the light and fresh hash browns. My

scramble also came with black beans and grilled tortillas.

There’s also a vegetable scramble, one that features seasoned

tofu, another with ground beef and two Mexican-styled scrambles.

On Tuesday, my wife and I enjoyed Good Day’s “sweet sandwiches”

and “awesome burgers.” Our thick roast beef sandwich had plenty of

blue cheese and came on grilled sourdough. In reality, I’d probably

like anything (even Spam) sandwiched between two of my favorites:

blue cheese and grilled sourdough. So it’s no surprise I thought this

roast beef sandwich was amazing.

Good Day also has a grilled Reuben with sauerkraut, a veggie

sandwich and a club sandwich on toasted wheat.

Choosing one of Good Day’s burgers made for a hard decision, but

the mushroom burger won out over some tough competition (like the

Ortega chile burger, barbecue bacon burger and patty melt). Our

extremely juicy burger was topped with robust Swiss cheese and

freshly sliced mushrooms. The pedestrian yellow hamburger bun doesn’t

begin to do justice to this juicy, flavorful creation.

All burgers and sandwiches come with Good Day’s awesome homemade

potato chips and wasabi mayo.

For some reason, wasabi seems to be all the rage these days. Don’t

get me wrong; I like wasabi, but wasabi mayo? Wasabi pesto? Wasabi

mashed potatoes? What’s next, wasabi pancake syrup?

We drank tropical iced tea and raspberry Italian cream soda.

Dessert was a warm, homemade chocolate chip cookie the size of a

Frisbee golf disc. Delicious.

They have a variety of other cookies, including chocolate-dipped

macaroons. We got a crumb-topped blueberry muffin and a cinnamon

crumb muffin to go. Both were delectable.

On Wednesday, I called in an order for an iced mocha and a recent

menu addition -- the black forest and cheddar cheese breakfast

burrito.

My wife frequents a place where the breakfast burrito has a layer

of egg that is so microscopically thin it doubles as a second

tortilla, but I prefer the novel approach taken by the Good Day Cafe:

their burrito actually contains eggs, and lots of them. This thing

was just packed with egg. Combined with their tasty hash browns and

black forest ham, you’ve got yourself a great burrito. I shudder to

think how fantastic this burrito could have been, had they not

forgotten the cheddar cheese.

I had now tried their scrambles and breakfast burritos, their

sandwiches and burgers, their coffee drinks and specialty sodas,

their cookies and muffins. Salads and smoothies were the only things

left to sample.

So on Thursday, I got “the gobbler” and a strawberry smoothie. All

smoothies start with a base of orange juice and yogurt, then mix in

your choice of fruit. This smoothie was way too tart for my liking.

My delightful salad was a mountainous spring mix tossed in Good

Day’s homemade avocado dressing and topped with diced tomato, plenty

of feta cheese, some carrot shreds, tangy red pepper strips and

sliced turkey strips. They offer other salads too: Caesar, spicy tofu

with cilantro soy dressing, and baby spinach tossed in strawberry

vinaigrette and topped with toasted almonds and goat cheese.

I found the Good Day Cafe certainly lives up to its name.

* JOHN VOLO is the Independent restaurant critic. If you have

comments or suggestions, e-mail hbindependent@latimes.com.