Plums Dandy

COSTA MESA — When I think of the great Northwest, I see misty forests, rivers full of salmon, mugs of hot coffee, wedges of homemade pie, people wearing Pendleton shirts and getting around in four-wheel-drives.

Portland native Kim Jorgenson wanted to bring a bit of this to Orange County when she opened Plums Cafe and Catering, and she certainly has. There are tokens of her home state throughout the cafe, such as pine boughs that hang from the ceiling over pine-topped tables.

When she started more than seven years ago, it was strictly a catering company. But Plums has grown over the years, and today it’s a delightful breakfast and lunch spot, scheduled to acquire a beer and wine license by year’s end.

I’d come just for coffee. Plums serves one of the most delicious cups this side of the Willamette Valley, a Mocha Java blend from an Oregon roasting company named Longbottom’s. If you order the coffee for two, it’s served in a French plunger pot. It’s perfect with a slice of crusty marionberry pie, and it’s also a good match for one of the delicious morning pastries, such as yeasty cinnamon rolls or sneaky-sweet pecan sticky buns.

The cafe doubles as a market. Shelves are stocked with regional food specialties from Oregon and Washington. This is the only local spot that carries the stupefyingly good Tim’s Cascade Alder Smoked Chips: thick, crunchy potato chips fried in peanut oil and dusted with a smoky barbecue sauce.

The cafe also carries New Age music CDs (which play over the sound system), gift boxes of alder wood-smoked salmon, Oregon blackberry preserves and--the capper--1-pound tins of a remarkably smooth, creamy fudge made by the Brigittine Monks of Amity, Ore. Sometimes this terrific fudge is put out for sampling, next to the front register. Almost everybody who tastes it buys it, I’m told.

But we’d better not spoil our appetites. Saturday and Sunday only, Plums offers a full breakfast menu, and you’ll need a logger’s appetite to get through it.

The best, and probably most filling, dish on the breakfast menu is alder wood-smoked salmon hash. It’s not technically a hash but big chunks of sweet, smoky Chinook salmon next to a pile of home-fried potatoes. It’s a huge plate, and the whole schmear comes topped with two perfectly poached eggs and a rich Hollandaise sauce. On the side, in case you were hungry, there is an order of nine-grain toast.

The Northwest also is big pancake country, so Plums naturally features a variety, all made from scratch. I love the yeasty Willamette Valley hazelnut-honey pancakes, laced with Oregon hazelnuts and served with a marionberry compote. (The marionberry, which grows wild all over Oregon, is a flavorful variety of blackberry.)

I’m also a fan of Dutch Baby, a puffy, egg-rich pancake baked until the edges curl and brown. It takes nearly half an hour to prepare, and it’s worth the wait. It’s served with powdered sugar, butter, lemon wedges and pure maple syrup.

Jorgenson gets her breakfast meats from Pendleton, Ore. The dry, pepper bacon is at least twice as good as any bacon made around here. There is a pepper ham too, a dry-style cured slowly, not injected with water or curing brine. I recommend the bacon or the ham with shirred eggs, which are baked nestled on a bed of garlicky spinach.

Lunch is served seven days. It’s pleasant, but the dishes are not nearly as distinctive as at breakfast. You can depend on the soups to be good. Sweet, creamy pumpkin soup is laden with ginger, cinnamon and clove. Comforting chicken rice soup is loaded with minced chicken.

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Every sandwich comes with a good salad, such as the chunky potato salad (lots of celery, not too much mayo). I like the confetti meatloaf sandwich--the loaf is lean ground beef leavened with minced carrots, onions and bell peppers. But the turkey and cranberry plum relish sandwich, festive though it sounds, is on the dry side. Ask for more of the sweet-and-sour relish.

There are several good entree salads. The spinach salad dressing--a creamy one made with pepper bacon--is the perfect foil for a giant pile of spinach leaves, mushrooms and hard-boiled eggs. The mildly sweet Asian chicken noodle salad could use more sesame oil and less sugar. Pasta primavera is a perfectly fine cold salad.

For dessert, Plums features a wide variety of cookies, bars and cakes. What the menu calls sour lemon bars aren’t--they’re sweet lemon curd on a rich shortbread cookie. The marble cocoa brownies have sumptuous streaks of cream cheese running through the fudgy batter. Aunt Jan’s chocolate chip cookies have a homey taste of butter and brown sugar.

If you don’t fancy coffee with your sweets, Plums offers premium teas brewed in tiny, elegant Japanese iron kettles. In short, all the sustenance you’d need to while away a rainy Oregon afternoon. Or a sunny California one.

Plums is moderately priced. Breakfasts are $4.50 to $8.95. Sandwiches are $3.50 to $7.25. Salads are $5.95 to $6.95. Desserts are 60 cents to $1.95.

BE THERE

Plums, 359 E. 17th St., Costa Mesa. (714) 722-7586. 7 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday. All major cards.