Hangtown Fry appears as a signature dish in 1 United States cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Hangtown Fry · San Francisco
Hangtown Fry is a Gold Rush omelette of oysters, bacon and eggs, named for the mining camp of Placerville and kept on the menu at Tadich Grill in San Francisco.
The dish is one of the few American breakfast plates with a documented 1849 origin. A miner who struck it rich in Placerville (then called Hangtown) walked into the Cary House Hotel and asked for the most expensive meal on the menu. Oysters, brought up the coast in barrels, eggs, scarce because of the gold rush, and bacon, imported from the east, were the three most costly items. The cook scrambled them together. The dish migrated to San Francisco's gold-flush restaurants within a year and has been continuously on the Tadich Grill menu since 1850. The omelette is usually folded with pan-fried, panko-crusted Pacific oysters and crisp bacon, with chopped chives or scallions on top.
Where to eat in San Francisco:
- Tadich Grill
- Sam's Grill
- Brenda's French Soul Food