5800 Lincoln Avenue
Cypress, CA 90630
I know. This blog has gotten a little breakfast-heavy the last few weeks. Except for my year-end post, my previous three reviews have been about the day's first meal. I promise more diversity in the upcoming reviews, but this is a breakfast spot that I'm very passionate about. More specifically, I'm excited about the breakfast burritos LJ's Lil Cafe is churning out.
LJ's is situated in a small space in front of the Home Depot on Lincoln Avenue in Cypress. They opened in September of 2021 by a couple who had met while working at Seasons 52 in Costa Mesa. When this place was available, they snatched it up rather quickly because of the heavy foot traffic in the area and the fact that Cypress College is right across the street.
They are closed on Sundays and Mondays and are only open for business from 7:30 to 2pm the rest of the week. They start serving a lunch menu of sausages, hot dogs, a hamburger, and a foot-long queso cheesesteak after 11:30. Breakfast, which has gotten them the most press, consists of four breakfast burritos to choose from and a lone breakfast sandwich.
We were meeting our good friends Melissa, Kyle, and Melissa's mom Irene here for a mid-week meetup at 10am, but Melissa was predictably late, even though she lives nearby in the beautiful city of Whittier. When they finally arrived, we quickly ordered and were met with a quoted time of half an hour for our food. No problem, as we had not seen each other for a while and spent the time chatting about things important to Melissa; her love of the city of Yorba Linda, how she believed that her beloved Rams were going to win the SuperBowl this year, (ha!), and her aquatic dog named Pugsley.
There's only a little seating here, as there are a couple of picnic tables to the left of the ordering window. Unfortunately, these were occupied when we got here, so we improvised and sat at the picnic table, which was the display model for Home Depot. No one seemed to care, but we made sure to not make a big mess and cleaned up after ourselves once we were done with our meal. Speaking of the meal, let's see if the hype for the breakfast burritos at LJ's is warranted.
Of course, with all this talk about breakfast burritos, Katie decided to try the LJ's Breakwich ($7.99 + $2 for both bacon and sausage + .75 for grilled onions). This comes with your choice of cheese, two eggs, bacon or sausage, LJ's sauce (a spicy mayo), and salsa, all on a brioche bun. The egg was nicely folded into the bun and had a good cohesion with the swiss cheese, the bacon, and the sausage, a Portuguese-Hawaiian sausage, which was a nice departure from the everyday breakfast sausage most places use. Even with the close to $11 charge for this sandwich, Katie felt it was well worth it. She loved the high-quality ingredients used and savored every bite. The Tater Tots ($4.49) had a good crunch and was an excellent side item for the sandwich.
Here's what we drove nearly forty minutes for, the OG Breakfast Burrito ($11.25). I posted the first picture with the dollar bill so you could see what we are dealing with size-wise. Regarding breakfast burritos, this one falls right in the middle of the pack based on size. It's not going to overwhelm you and make you skip dinner, but it's also going to keep you completely satisfied through lunchtime. The OG is filled with three eggs, Portugese-Hawaiian sausage, bacon, cheese, tater tots, and LJ's sauce. I really enjoyed the inclusion of the crunchy tater tots, which kept their crispness remarkably well while I was eating this. The ratio of ingredients was also a bright spot for this breakfast burrito. There was plenty of cheese, and the eggs and cheese worked perfectly together. If I had to say one negative thing about this, the bacon could have been a bit more prominent, and a little more of the LJ's sauce wouldn't have hurt.
Kyle, who had the nickname hot tamale in high school, lived up to his nickname by trying the OG Spicy Breakfast Burrito ($10.99). This differs from the burrito above by adding jalapenos, omitting the bacon, and substituting the Portuguese sausage for a hotlink. Not overly spicy, just enough to give it a slight kick. This will be the burrito I will get the next time I visit LJ's. Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to try this, but Kyle enjoyed it.
These burritos were both the OG burritos we had seen earlier. I am highlighting the excellent hand-modeling job done by Melissa and her mom. Great job, ladies, and consider a career change to hand modeling soon.
The breakfast burritos at LJ's are worthy of all the hype they receive. These are one of the top three breakfast burritos in OC. Like my other two favorites, the ones from Nate's Korner and Ham N' Scram, I'm more than a little bummed that these spots are more than thirty minutes away from where I live, even with early morning light weekend freeway traffic. LJ's is worth a little extended drive time. I've also made a mental note to try their lunch very soon. Again, I'm sorry for all the breakfast reviews lately, but LJ's is one place you will definitely not want to miss, especially if you are a fan of breakfast burritos.
Out of five centurions (because the mascot of Cypress High School is the Roman centurion), five being best to zero being worst, LJ's Lil Cafe gets 3.5 centurions.
LJ's Lil Cafe does not have a website, but you can stay up to date with them by checking out their Yelp page by clicking here: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lj-s-lil-cafe-cypress?osq=best+breakfast+burrito
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