Everyday They're Hustlin' at Everyday Eatery

Everyday Eatery

6634 Irvine Center Drive

Irvine, CA 92618

We've gotten very lazy on Sunday mornings. I roll out of bed around six, which is two hours later than I usually wake up when I'm working. Katie sleeps way more than I. She will probably kill me when she reads this, but she could easily sleep 10 to 12 hours at a time and still takes a nap later in the afternoon. All this sleeping does put a crimp into our chance to try some breakfast spots. 

This particular Sunday was rare though. Katie had gotten up relatively early for her, right at 8am. She was a ball of energy, making plans to go out and get breakfast, walk around the Great Park in Irvine, and visit the Farmer's Market that operates there every Sunday from 10 to 2pm. I don't know what got into her, but she hasn't been like that very often or since then. Not wanting her to heed the siren call back to her comfy bed, I hastily picked a place near the Great Park where we could have breakfast. I selected Everyday Eatery. 

Everyday Eatery opened their doors in late 2019. This restaurant is run by a husband and wife team from New Zealand. After moving to California, these Kiwis missed the breakfast places from their homeland. They decided to take action and open up their own place. After a couple of mentions in the OC Register, Orange Coast Magazine, and OC Weekly, things have taken off here. They are the proud owners of a four-and-a-half star rating on Yelp, with over 500 reviews, and there's a big line on weekends if you wake up too late like Katie usually does. 

We arrived at just before 9 on a recent Sunday and were met with a very manageable line of three people ahead of us. Ordering is done at the counter, you are given a number, and then the food is brought out to you at one of the many tables located out in front of the restaurant. The one-page food menu is separated into breakfast and lunch options, but both are available all day. Prices consistently hover around the $12 price point. We quickly made our choices, found an empty table, and waited about five minutes for our food to arrive. 

I guess you can say that I've been on a Chocolate Croissant ($4.50) kick as of late. I've had five in the last two months, and seem compelled to get one whenever I have the opportunity. I'm not sure if they make all of their pastries in-house, but this was a very solid croissant. It was predictably flaky and had nice-sized chunks of chocolate inside. I'm sure it's not something that places do with a proper croissant, but I wished they would have heated it to get the chocolate nice and melty. Maybe next time I'll get one to go and heat it up myself at home. 

Katie is always partial to sampling breakfast burritos at new spots we eat at for the first meal of the day, so that led her to the Bacon Breakfast Burrito ($12.50) at Everyday Eatery. Some breakfast burritos are massive, and keep you full the rest of the day. This was not like that, but I'd say it was more of a gourmet breakfast burrito. It contained bacon, fluffy scrambled eggs, green onion, roasted potatoes, jack cheese, chipotle aioli, and roasted salsa on the side. Katie opted to have avocado added, hence the extra two-dollar charge quoted above. She liked the freshness of this and liked the slight bitterness that the arugula added. It made it unique. She would not hesitate to get this again.  

 

Out of the thirteen breakfast options that dot the Everyday Eatery menu, the Bacon and Fried Egg Sandwich ($11.50) was the one that really jumped out at me. Placed on the well-made brioche bun were a nicely fried egg, cheddar cheese, two strips of thick bacon, some arugula, jalapenos, and a tomato jam. I really enjoyed this sandwich a lot. Each bite was pretty consistent, and even though the tomato jam did not stand out as much as I would have liked, the provided chipotle aioli, which might have been meant for the brekkie potatoes, was excellent on this. I usually prefer a crisper potato at breakfast, but these spuds were nicely seasoned. 

It's easy to see why they call this Everyday Eatery. because I could imagine a lot of people making eating here a habit. I could for sure see myself getting that breakfast sandwich again many times over. The food here was lighter than most breakfast restaurants, and you can tell that they take great care to get the best ingredients and prepare them the right way. The service was cheerful during our stay, and with so many people here early this morning, the food was out way quicker than I imagined. Hopefully, this visit will entice Katie to wake up a little earlier on Sundays so we can visit here again without waiting in a long line. 

Out of five beach umbrellas, (because wherever you are in New Zealand, where the owners of this place were originally from, you are never more than 80 miles away from the seashore), five being best to zero being worst, Everyday Eatery gets 3.5 beach umbrellas. 

For more information about Everyday Eatery, head to their website here: https://everydayeatery.com/