Cafe Estelle

[lfabio2007]

www.cafeestelle.com

444 N 4th St

Philadelphia, PA 19123-4124

(215) 925-5080

We went Sunday for brunch, in our continued search for something new & better. The place was mentioned in passing in a brunch thread back in February, so we figured we'd stop by: the new part was there, the better part needs some work.

Coffee was good, orange juice (fresh squeezed!) was good, they make their own scrapple, which was good, and their own bacon, which contained more sodium than most table salt. The 'mains' were... correct, acceptable, heavy handed. I had 'french toast' stuffed with cheddar, bechamel and sausage, which was light on the sausage and heavy on the cinnamon (?!?). My SO had the shirred eggs with mushroom and spinach which were a tad overcooked but definitely the better choice. The homefries were also... OK.

In this pricerange, I can't say it's a bad experience, but I'd rather keep driving down Callowhill and go to Sabrina's.

[dagordon]

We love this place. Note that the OJ is arguably "fresh squeezed" in some sense, but is not made fresh on premises. When we were there recently I ordered a gigantic serving of it, -- like a magnum of OJ -- as I love fresh squeezed orange juice, and the waitress cautioned me that it's purchased from Amish folks who squeeze it themselves, and so not "fresh squeezed" in the strictest sense. She suggested I try a smaller size serving of it to see if I liked it. I thought this was extremely thoughtful. It is fine OJ, but not magnum worthy. BTW, Max's Produce has consistently the greatest OJ in Philadelphia. They use a Zumex.

The last time we were there we split a soft shell crab sandwich and a croque madame. Both were spectacular. Crispy, meaty crabs with a light, tangy, not at all overly mayo'd dressing on the side. The croque madame was perfect, though quite rich -- the brioche was verging on cake.

We went to Sabrina's once and didn't understand the fuss, but we should give it another chance.

[mattohara]

Agreed on both the Max's OJ and Sabrina's points. Try Carman's instead of going back to Sabrina's though (if you haven't already). We know we're going to like a place when we run into Holly, and we ran into him at Carman's.

[Tim Dolan]

I like Honey's slightly more than Estelle, but Estelle's coffee was seriously awesome. Still need to get down to Carmen's one of these days.

[Holly Moore]

I tried Estelle over the Memorial Day weekend. Had shirred eggs and the wild boar scrapple. Scrapple was good though they didn't crispen the outside enough for my taste. My shirred eggs were also a bit overcooked but otherwise good. Generally liked the place and will be back.

[lfabio2007]

Aha! So THAT was the deal with the OJ, it makes sense. Thank you matt, will try Carman's.

As to Sabrina's - it's not really a ... fuss place. It just executes according to expectations.