Once upon a time, the California Cookshack was a halfway decent place to grab a nice weekend breakfast. You could sit indoors or out, and dine on huge omelets with wonderful cubed and baked potatos. The pancakes and French toast were equally good. Oddly enough, you'd also get a slice of coffee cake that I swear tastes like the one you can make from the Bisquick box recipe, but it was a good complement to fresh OJ or coffee regardless.
However, that is no more. Besides never knowing if the place is really going to be open any more (most of their business appears to be catering now), the portion sizes have shrunk and they don't appear to be using as fresh ingredients as they used to use. In fact, last time we were there, my wife's omelet had barely melted shredded cheese of dubious quality sprinkled on top; when we tasted it, it was clearly well headed south, and not fit for human consumption. When we complained, the server took the omelet into the back and then brought it back out sans cheese; the cook had merely scraped the topping off the omelet and given us back the same dish!
In all, it's just a sad downhill progression for a once perfectly fine breakfast joint.
Address[]
California Cookshack
1929 Huntington Drive
South Pasadena, CA 91030
(626) 799-3333
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