"Elvis Cakes": pancakes with bananas, chocolate chips, and scoops of peanut butter

Mission Trails is the sort of place that gets a lot of January action, largely from people who resolve to spend more time outdoors and exercising in the new year. I might have fallen into that category too, had successive rainstorms not arrived to let me off the hook. However, hike or no hike, foul weather didn’t dampen any appetites, so we decided to follow through on plans to brunch in the area.

That area, of course, being San Carlos, home to the aptly named breakfast and lunch diner The Trails Eatery, located only a few blocks from the trailhead to Cowles Mountain.

If you don’t live in San Carlos, you’re probably here for the regional park too, and in that regard, Trails Eatery makes a handy pre- or post-hike destination. Its mostly standard-fare menu offers just enough quirky departures to make things interesting, if you like, as well as all the usual egg and breakfast meat staples, if you don’t.

"Bene asada": eggs Benedict with carne asada made by Valley Farm Market

Stick to those, and you can still find a filling bargain, even as restaurant prices rise in response to inflation and increasing minimum wage. You can still get a two-eggs breakfast, or a breakfast sandwich made on croissant or sourdough toast, for under ten bucks. Indulge your sweet tooth on the likes of waffles or French toast, and it’s $10-12ish. Go for an omelet or more filling plate such as corned beef hash, and you’re into the fifteen-dollar range, which is about the breakfast rate we can expect from 2023.

At the (slightly) upper end, you’ll find Trails Eatery’s top-shelf eggs benedicts priced around $18, because that’s when you’ll find the restaurant’s premium ingredients, including house-made crab cakes smothered by the eatery’s signature chipotle hollandaise. The same is employed on the so-called Bene Asada, wherein a spicier benedict is constructed with the help of the Imperial Valley carne asada, made by Valley Farm Market, down in Spring Valley. As a regular consumer of the stuff, I pass on the surprise opportunity to make it part of my first restaurant meal of the new year.

Breakfast sandwich on sourdough toast, with ham and scrambled eggs

I sure could have used that hike though. The benedict would have been filling enough if several of our group hadn’t split the $10.99 Elvis Cakes: a pair of pancakes stuffed with banana slices and chocolate chips, and topped with generous scoops of creamy peanut butter. Apparently, any number of filling foods involving peanut butter and banana may be attributed to Elvis Presley, whether or not it includes bacon (we did add a side of bacon, to be genuine about it).

And just like that, any hope this would be a New Year’s Resolution sort of brunch outing have been thoroughly dashed. But that’s fine. We’re still holding out hope for more exercise once sunny weather returns to Southern California, and if anything, I’d like this year to feature more chocolate and peanut butter, not less.