Sugar Shack Café (Huntington Beach): Breakfast Edition

food: 3.5/5

experience: 3/5

overall: 3/5

Sugar Shack is located in downtown HB next to the place formerly known as Sharkeez (rest in peace). I came here on the Sunday Sharkeez closed in search of some brunch.

Sugar Shack's menu is pretty basic. It's a basic bacon-and-eggs style place that closes at 3pm so they only serve breakfast and lunch, but you can get it all day. They have the standard two-egg breakfast which comes with your choice of bacon, sausage, hamburger patty, chicken, pork chops, or steak; hash browns; and choice of toast.

No comment, it's whatever. Their bread items are all packaged since they're not a bakery so there's really nothing to review here. The burger patties and sausage you can be a little creative with at least, so I'll get to those; otherwise it's just how well you cook the food. But yeah, on to the more interesting menu items, which I will review.

First, the breakfast burritos. You can get your burrito vegetarian, with just avo and cheese, just cheese, bacon avocado cheese, bacon and cheese, or sausage and cheese; and you can add meat or veggies in there too. Comes with hash browns or fruit.

Breakfast burrito: 3/5

Their burritos are humongoloid. Three egg burritos. I got the vegetarian one just cus it had the most stuff in it. Avocado, sprouts, onion, bell peppers, cheese, and I added tomato. Honestly this seems like it's made very haphazardly. The ingredients aren't combined, they're all just kind of separate components, if that makes sense. The eggs are plain, the avocado comes in huge chunks, the vegetables whatever. The sprouts are only in the middle of the burrito, not dispersed throughout. The tortilla itself is alright I guess. Yeah I wouldn't recommend their breakfast burritos.

Hash browns: 5/5

Crispy hash browns saved this plate to be honest. Very crisp on the top and nice and mushy on the inside. Just the right amount of butter.

Omelettes, a breakfast must-have. Three eggs mixed with cheese and your choice of vegetarian (same ingredients as in my burrito), spinach, avocado, Spanish style (salsa), mushroom/onion, plain (just cheese), bacon avocado, ham, bacon, sausage, chili, and Denver style (ham and veggies). Chili sounds bomb but I'm allergic to kidney beans ugh. I went with my gut and got the Spanish salsa with jack cheese. Comes with a side of hash browns and buttered toast or English muffin (not pictured).

Omelette: 4/5

Pretty damn huge. Nothing special here other than that it's a lot of food. Their salsa includes celery which is different. Cheese sprinkled on top as well as melted inside. Not a whole lot of cheese, just the right amount.

Sugar Shack has several breakfast specials, mostly which are some combo of toast, eggs, bacon, etc. I did try a couple that piqued my interest.

The Breakfast special comes with an egg, sausage or bacon, and pancakes or French toast. I got sausage and Peggy's French toast.

Peggy's French toast: 4/5

There's regular French toast and there's Peggy's, which is made on cinnamon raisin bread. Sounds good to me. It's slightly more expensive for dumb reasons but whatever. It's pretty moist, thick, a little chewy in some places but not bad.

Sausage: 4/5

Tastes like the sausage at McDonald's which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Not too many flavors going on but it's nice and salty and meaty.

Keppler's: 5/5

Kinda like an eggs benedict, which they have, but they put scrambled eggs, avocado, and tomato atop an English muffin with hollandaise on top. Hollandaise is a creamy mayo-based sauce and theirs tastes a bit cheesy. It's good stuff. Comes with a side of hash browns but I subbed homestyle spuds (below).

Homestyle spuds: 3/5

Sliced potatoes, presumably sautéed in oil or baked. They're solid, nothing special but certainly hearty, as potatoes are. I'm used to country red potatoes that are seasoned but these are alright I suppose.

Biscuits and gravy: 3/5

Well this is kinda where it fell apart for me with Sugar Shack. I was already fairly unimpressed with their other food but when these little biscuits arrived (as small as a McBiscuit), and they were nuked so much I could break them... yeah, no bueno. I love supporting family-owned business but this is just bad. The sausage gravy, I must say, is a definite 5/5; and flavor-wise, the biscuits are pretty good - floury, buttery, soft. But microwaving a restaurant meal? No no no.

Turkey patty: 4/5

This was on the side (above). Normally it comes as a burger. It's not bad, tastes like turkey. Not plain but nothing special. For five bucks it's not much though.

On to the rest of the carbs: pancakes, muffins, and cinnamon rolls.

Pancakes: 4.5/5

These are huge. They're nice and fluffy too. I was gonna just get one but I decided to get two. Yeah I should've stuck with one. Massive, but good. They taste kind of like cornbread, which is interesting because they are not made with corn. I won't lie: I do miss my cornbread.

Banana nut muffin: 4/5

Served warm. Not sure if it's made in house but this tastes like those Otis Spunkmeyer muffins in the store. Rich banana flavor with chunks of walnuts throughout.

Bran muffin: 4/5

Two little muffins, served warm again. They're sweet, and have a bran flavor to them, but it's not the rich grainy bran that I like. It's a little basic.

Hot cinnamon roll: 3/5

Man, it's hard to mess up a cinnamon roll but the fact that this too is so obviously microwaved just sunk my heart. Cinnamon rolls are probably among my favorite breakfast items and it's very hard to make a bad one in my opinion. This one is just too basic. It's not crisp and flaky, it's chewy and when you eat it you have to rip it, it doesn't just tenderly break off. The flavor is very "whatever". It tastes like a cinnamon roll in the most rudimentary way imaginable.

Sugar Shack has lunch too as they're open until 2pm (3pm on weekends). But I was just so thoroughly unimpressed with the breakfast menu that I couldn't bring myself to keep coming back. They do have hand-made shakes and malts if you're into that. I can't tolerate ice cream but they have vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and peanut butter. Sounds delish. Plus this thing called a "surf" which is hot chocolate mixed with coffee.

Get the outdoor patio seating if you go so you can people watch while you scarf down your food. Decor is nothing fancy inside or outside; just tables, chairs, and umbrellas. And the prices are nothing special either. This place seems to be a beloved local favorite, probably just because it's been here for so long, but I remain unimpressed.