The early bird gets pretty much anything you can imagine for lunch or brunch at Early Birds Cafe on First near Olive in central Fresno.<\/p>\n
“The first reaction is, ‘Wow, finally something nice for this area.’ Finally something nice for this area, where they don’t have to go north of Shaw,” said owner Kanitha Soukaseum.<\/p>\n
For the palate, the color purple has been popular.<\/p>\n
“One of the most popular that we prepared that a lot of restaurants don’t have is our ube blueberry pancakes,” Soukaseum said.<\/p>\n
Ube is a purple yam native to the Philippines.<\/p>\n
“Once you bite into it and get that full flavor of it, people just love it,” Soukaseum said.<\/p>\n
It was so pretty, we didn’t want to cut into it.<\/p>\n
We also tried a Vietnamese coffee with ube cream.<\/p>\n
“Vietnamese coffee is a slow-drip espresso, and it gets condensed milk added to it,” Soukaseum said.<\/p>\n
Soukaseum’s wife, Lisa, keeps the food and drink flowing – when she’s not working as a nurse.<\/p>\n
“We love to see the new customers come and try us out, and then keep coming back again, bringing their families, bringing their kids,” Lisa said.<\/p>\n
Lisa added that chile verde is their top seller.<\/p>\n
“It’s been so popular, we made three dishes with our chile verde,” Kanitha said. “It’s actually our number-one seller, our homemade chile verde made from scratch. We serve it omelet style. We serve it in a chile verde wet burrito, and we also serve it with just chile verde and eggs.”<\/p>\n
Kanitha and Lisa renovated a space that once housed B&K Asian Kitchen.<\/p>\n
“When you walk in the door, you are amazed by what we’ve done to the building,” Kanitha said.<\/p>\n
Kanitha also showed us the smoked salmon benedict, which is layered with hollandaise sauce.<\/p>\n
“A lot of people have never had smoked salmon before,” Lisa said. “They think it’s raw fish, but it’s actually cured and smoked.”<\/p>\n
After working in the restaurant industry for 26 years, Kanitha figured it was time to open his own place.<\/p>\n
“The American diner is what I always favored,” he said. “This is not a big corporate chain. This is not coming from a rich family. We wanted to give the area something really, really nice to enjoy a meal at.”<\/p>\n
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