Hobee's

Location: San Jose, CA
Cuisine type: American breakfast
Atmosphere: family style dining, retro decor
Meal: breakfast/brunch
Overall score: 7

Nina

Lazy Sunday, early brunch, gift card to local cafe - match made in heaven? I'd think so!

We walked over to this friendly looking cafe down the street from where we live, looking forward to a hearty meal to start out the day right. The restaurant looked inviting and bright, with retro decor which appeared recently revamped. Their menu also looked very promising - some creative combinations with a bit of an edge. I picked the sunny-side up eggs (my favorite preparation, always) with salmon hash, spinach and rye toast. In my head, this would be creamy and tender, and possibly just a touch smoky in flavor - now I realize there really wasn't anything to suggest that the salmon would be smoked. The execution, however, disappointed me a bit. The salmon tasted like it was out of a can, the eggs were undercooked and the hash was a bit greasy. I was putting my hopes in their famous blueberry coffee cake, the description was scrumptious and I couldn't wait to pair that with my cold creamy milk. This was also a bit of a disappointment - instead of the flaky, syrupy and rich texture of a coffee cake, we got this large chunk of a somewhat dry and fluffy cake, with a few blueberries baked in and a large dollop of sugar icing. While this restaurant could provide a solid breakfast in the absence of any pantry essentials at home (or in extreme cases of the Sunday lazies), it fell short of my expectations this time.

Food 5
Drinks 7
Atmosphere 9
Service 8
Value 7


Ben

This is right next to our place and we had to give it a shot. It has the look and feel of a neighborhood classic, and it is actually quite popular place for brunch (no wait time, but most tables were full). They had a great looking menu of a lot of different eggs benedict type dishes, which come with a monstrous blueberry muffin. The food came out looking as good as it sounded, but to our surprise the taste of both of our dishes were pretty disappointing. Most of the vegetables appeared unfrozen from bags, the hollandaise sauce was bland, and half of the eggwhites were uncookied on the sunny-side up eggs. The muffin was delicious, though probably not advisable for anyone on any sort of diet. They were also severely understaffed, and it was difficult to wave down our waitress to take our orders / the bill. 

Food 6

Drinks 8

Atmosphere 9

Service 6

Value 8