Dine and Dish: Early Birds Cafe in central Fresno
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- The early bird gets pretty much anything you can imagine for lunch or brunch at Early Birds Cafe on First near Olive in central Fresno.
"The first reaction is, 'Wow, finally something nice for this area.' Finally something nice for this area, where they don't have to go north of Shaw," said owner Kanitha Soukaseum.
For the palate, the color purple has been popular.
"One of the most popular that we prepared that a lot of restaurants don't have is our ube blueberry pancakes," Soukaseum said.
Ube is a purple yam native to the Philippines.
"Once you bite into it and get that full flavor of it, people just love it," Soukaseum said.
It was so pretty, we didn't want to cut into it.
We also tried a Vietnamese coffee with ube cream.
"Vietnamese coffee is a slow-drip espresso, and it gets condensed milk added to it," Soukaseum said.
Soukaseum's wife, Lisa, keeps the food and drink flowing - when she's not working as a nurse.
"We love to see the new customers come and try us out, and then keep coming back again, bringing their families, bringing their kids," Lisa said.
Lisa added that chile verde is their top seller.
"It's been so popular, we made three dishes with our chile verde," Kanitha said. "It's actually our number-one seller, our homemade chile verde made from scratch. We serve it omelet style. We serve it in a chile verde wet burrito, and we also serve it with just chile verde and eggs."
Kanitha and Lisa renovated a space that once housed B&K Asian Kitchen.
"When you walk in the door, you are amazed by what we've done to the building," Kanitha said.
Kanitha also showed us the smoked salmon benedict, which is layered with hollandaise sauce.
"A lot of people have never had smoked salmon before," Lisa said. "They think it's raw fish, but it's actually cured and smoked."
After working in the restaurant industry for 26 years, Kanitha figured it was time to open his own place.
"The American diner is what I always favored," he said. "This is not a big corporate chain. This is not coming from a rich family. We wanted to give the area something really, really nice to enjoy a meal at."
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