James Street Cafe: East Meets West for Breakfast
James Street Cafe has always been a bit of a mystery to me. The restaurant doesn’t actually sit on James Street and seems far from a typical cafe. We visited early one February morning for breakfast… something that they are supposedly well known for.
Walking into this somewhat spacious dining establishment, you realize that this is more like a full-scale restaurant instead of a tiny cafe. The menu offering is highly eclectic with a mix of western, Indian, and East African dishes. As we arrived when they first opened, the sounds of what I presume was morning prayers (Ismaili perhaps given the close proximity of an Ismaili community centre?) punctuated the restaurant, followed up shortly thereafter with light jazz music.
I opted for the Brunch Special ($15.95) which consisted of a veggie omelette with masala potatoes, kheema (ground beef) curry, bharazi (pigeon peas in coconut curry), and puri (a fried Indian flatbread that’s light and airy). Let me tell you… there’s a lot of food in this dish! Loved the kheema curry but I found the bharazi to be a bit too watery.
They also serve a traditional English Breakfast ($14.95) with baked beans, sausages, bacon, eggs, potatoes, and toast. Talk about hearty! The standout here has to be those thick, plump, juicy sausages which had a nice crackling to the bite. I would definitely come back just to have those sausages again.
If you’re in the mood for a mix of western/Indian/East African dishes, James Street Cafe has you covered.
3819 Canada Way
Burnaby, BC
Posted on June 13, 2019, in Breakfast, Brunch, East African, English, Fusion, Indian, Restaurant Review and tagged Breakfast, Brunch, Burnaby, East African, English, English Breakfast, Food, Fusion, Indian, restaurant review. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
Penny and Rusty's Food Blog 
hmmmm…..used to pop into JSC in the past 6 years or so. The food can be okay to good, depending on what you order. Mainly i went there for the Indian food, but their prices have crept up per dish ( online menu prices example ; Lamb Curry $16.95, Butter Chicken
$15.95, Goat Curry
$17.95 ….Beef Biryani $16.95,Steak Samosa (3 pcs)$6.95). Considering the take out containers are not as large as other places and the curry dishes themselves are lots of sauce to few portions of meat/seafood/vegetables & $17 for a rice biryani that is really rice with a few pieces of whatever you asked for, kinda expensive. The $15 breakfast is crazy, might be good but if one makes the effort, you can get a $7-10 breakfast at a local diner. The owner/staff/servers seem nice and friendly enough, nice restaurant interior , can get very busy especially on thursday/friday/saturday nights with Indian families celebrating special events , but i just stopped going for the crept up prices and smallish portions.
Everything is relative about price. You can go to McDonald’s and get a big breakfast for under $5 and honestly, I’m good with that on occasion (not as good as it used to be but it gets the job done). Meanwhile, go to a trendy place like OEB and the breakfast prices can be over $20. I’m okay with $15 for a good breakfast (I’d prefer cheaper but we live in an increasingly expensive city). Fraser Park is a good place for breakfast… think their German breakfast is $12… really filling but they also have regular breakfast which is cheaper. Their German lunch (only on Weds) is a steal at under $10.