The Dish: The Zorba

Rose’s Sugar Shack Cafe. 2319 S. El Camino Real, San Clemente. 949.498.0684. www.sugarshackcafe.net.

Indeed, sweetness is abundant at the Sugar Shack. The staff lovingly interacts with patrons as if they were all regulars. The dishes are tenderly prepared as if mom or pop made them.  And the roadside diner feel provides a sweet reminder of simpler times.

Now that’s not to say the food is delicate. In fact, Sugar Shack’s breakfast and lunch offerings come in heaping portions that’ll surely let you skip whatever meal was next. The Zorba is one such concoction.

Slices of gyro meat are mixed in with scrambled eggs, meaty mushrooms, onions, bell peppers and floes of feta cheese. Hash browns are cooked to perfection—crunchy on the outside, piping hot on the inside, and just the right size. Sourdough toast, grilled on the skillet, is imbued with butter and a flavor that only comes from cross-pollinating delicious breakfast stuffs on a skillet. The bite, altogether, is creamy with the feta and egg, smoky and rich from the mushroom and lamb, and, yes, slightly sweet from the pepper and onion.