Cimona Cafe

Restaurant: Cimona Cafe

Cuisine: American/Breakfast/Brunch/Cafe
Last visited: January 2, 2010
Area: Richmond, BC (Steveston Village)
#210 – 3791 Bayview Street
Price Range: $10 or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 2
Service: 3

Ambiance: 2

Overall: 2

Additional comments:

• Since 1999
• Popular to locals
• Owned by Mediterranean family
• Homestyle/Casual/low maintenance food
• Café/Catering
• Typical American/West Coast diner food
• Extensive menu
• Family diner style
• Old-fashioned
• Focus on catering
• Breakfast until 2:30pm
• Daily breakfast specials until 3pm
• Daily dinner specials
• Do not go by prices on their website, they’ve increased a bit
• Breakfast is café price, very inexpensvie lunch and dinner
• Outdoor patio available
• Mon-Sat 8am-9pm
• Sunday 8am-8pm

**Recommendation: Smoked salmon wrap

I’m not going to lie; it looks nicer from the outside. The inside is very causal, dated and I felt like it’s where a fisherman would go for a ‘fancy’ meal in the old days…

It’s very family diner style with small wooden chairs and tables. It definitely feels community supported and familiar with locals in the neighbouhood. I’m assuming there are regulars that have been coming here for years that order a morning coffee with the same food every Sunday morning.

The menu is pretty big and I assume they do a lot of casual catering. They serve the typical salads, wraps, soups, sandwiches, pastas and meat and potato entrees. They’re quite popular for breakfast and the prices are pretty cheap. Breakfast is Denny’s pricing, but a little more “gourmet” with bigger portions. I haven’t tried their lunch and dinner, but they are about $1 LESS than Denny’s with their lunches at about $7 and dinner at around $10-12.

The food was very mediocre and they claim to focus on healthy, however I don’t know if it’s “healthy” as it is just fresh and made upon order. The food wasn’t greasy or anything, but it also wasn’t that good or very impressive.

On the table:

Seafood Benedict 1.5/6

• Wild salmon, baby shrimp, served on a crisp English muffin, topped with hollandaise sauce served with hash browns $9.99
• This was their daily special served until 3pm. Having brunch in Steveston Village I almost feel like it would be taboo not to order seafood.
• Ok this wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I would much rather have smoked salmon eggs benedict. It was loaded with wild salmon and baby shrimp, but the wild salmon was fully cooked flaked wild salmon. It was overcooked and almost dry.
• It was a very fishy tasting eggs benedict and I wasn’t a fan of this canned salmon taste…I don’t know if it was in fact canned, but from colour to presentation to flavour the seafood benedict just didn’t work for me.
• The hollandaise sauce was really bland and almost flavorless. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was from a package. It was a very pale yellow and not very creamy or rich at all.
• The poached egg was pretty good though. They didn’t ask how cooked we wanted it and I forgot to put in a request but they served in medium. I prefer mine soft so that when I cut into the yolk it will be runny and creates its own sauce. Then I dip my hash browns, toast and everything else in it! Yum!...but that didn’t happen here. I can’t ding them if the request was never made though.
• The description says “crisp English muffin,” but mine was not crisp. It was actually very soggy and I questioned if it was toasted at all.

Hash browns 3/6

• So the menu says “health conscious,” but I’m not so sure because their hash browns were deep fried. The hash browns were those potato nuggets and they taste like frozen McCain fries in nugget form. I mean they’re pretty tasty with some dried herbs on them.

Western Omelette 2.5/6

• Red onion, green pepper & black forest ham. Served with hash browns and toast. $7.49
• Option: Substitute free range eggs for $1.50 Substitute egg whites for $1.00
• The omelette is their popular breakfast item. I can’t help to think maybe a little bit has to do with the portion size. It’s quite big.
• They do make it a bit differently too though. It’s almost a layered omelette pie rather than a fluffy omelette. Each layer has ingredients and each layer is kind of stacked so it’s a dense and thick omelette.
• The omelette was a bit overcooked and dry for me, but there were lots of ingredients and for being overcooked it actually didn’t taste bad. I don’t think they put any salt and pepper in it, but there were so many ingredients and there was lots of ham which made it salty enough.
• The red onions were roughly chopped and almost raw though. They were really crunchy and they needed to cook those for longer before adding the eggs.

Smoked Salmon Wrap 4/6

• Eggs, red onion, smoked salmon, and cheddar cheese. Served with hash browns. $8.99
• Ok so they really need to work on their plating. I mean even adding a simple fruit garnish would have made the plate look more appetizing or even just full. They almost just spread the hash browns around to take up more room on the plate.
• The wrap itself was good though, it was my favourite thing we ordered. It was really big, and nicely stuffed and very fresh. It more like a breakfast burrito than a wrap to me. It was quite hearty with lots of ingredients.
• The eggs are scrambled and not overcooked this time and they give you a lot. It almost made 1/2 of the wrap. I don’t think they season the eggs with any salt, and it didn’t need it. The ratio of the other ingredients gave it enough flavour.
• The smoked salmon got a little bit cooked with the heat of the eggs, but that’s bound to happen. They gave at least 2 layers of this as well. I really liked how the salmon was spread out in the wrap and not only in one section of it. It was on both sides of the wrap so they gave you quite a bit. It was put together really well.
• The cheddar cheese isn’t overwhelming either. They didn’t use too much, but it was more or less a nice thin and even layer that is fully melted to hold the wrap together. They used just enough so that it wasn’t greasy and it actually tasted like a hearty and relatively healthy breakfast. It’s also on a whole wheat wrap. It’s very simple with no additional sauces or anything fancy, but I liked it!