Central to the restaurant’s neighborly enthusiasm is Plums’ excellent breakfast. Thanks to the restaurant’s cold-weather style, the menu brings a most welcome addition: fish. Unlike the café’s Oregon pepper bacon (heavy slabs outlined with black pepper), its seafood dishes (an alderwood smoked salmon hash, a Dungeness crab and asparagus omelet) still eat light and are packed with pure proteins that won’t send you to sleep an hour later. But the best of those fish dishes is the campfire trout. Before it’s given a quick pan fry, the trout is rubbed down with cornmeal, a smart step that adds a gritty crunch to the fish without having to drop the whole thing in the deep fryer. Plums then wisely lets the trout eat on its own—all that tops the fish is that simple coating of cornmeal, which works here to make an expertly delicate breakfast.

PLUMS CAFE 369 E 17TH ST | COSTA MESA 92627 | 949.722.7586 | PLUMSCAFE.COM | OPEN EVERY DAY 8AM-3PM | FOOD FOR TWO $25-35 | FULL BAR

Tags: breakfast, costa mesa, lunch, pacific northwest, plums cafe