[road trip] papa z’s / fountain valley – orange county, ca

Over Labor Day weekend this year, we made another trip up to Huntington Beach for the annual Civil War reenactment in the park next to the Huntington Beach library. This time around we took Jake’s oldest son, T, along for the fun ride.

Before we headed over for the battles, we fueled up for breakfast at a joint in Fountain Valley called Papa Z’s. I found the place on Yelp and after peeking at the menu, I was surprised at how low their prices were. Low priced breakfast that people seemed to rave about? Sure, sign me up!

Papa Z’s has a big, open area and you order your food at the counter, like a fast food place, and then you seat yourself. You get a number and the food is brought out to you. We waited less than ten minutes before our food arrived, which really surprised me! Very quick service.

 western-breakfast-burrito

[western breakfast burrito, wet style]

This is Jake’s order: the western breakfast burrito which came with eggs, hash browns, ham, onion, bell peppers and cheese. If you order it “wet”, you get the burrito smothered in Spanish sauce with extra cheese on top.


Jake thought this was pretty tasty and liked the Spanish sauce that came with it, but he didn’t like the bell peppers and big slices of onion instead his burrito.

sausage-egg-breakfast-sandwich

[sausage and egg breakfast sandwich]

T ordered the Sausage and Egg breakfast sandwich on a bagel which came with a fresh tomato, lettuce and mayo. It was like like a cross between breakfast and lunch! A blunch sandwich, if you will. The bagel tasted very fresh and the sausage was really good from the one bite I tried of the sandwich. The sausage wasn’t overly salty (like some sausage can be) and tasted like it was house made (or at least, good quality stuff). Yummy stuff!

fluffy-french-toast-breakfast

[french toast combo – two slices french toast, 2 eggs and 3 slices of bacon or sausage]

As for myself, I decided on ordering the French Toast combo with 3 slices of bacon and 2 eggs. The french toast was super fluffy and they used thickly cut bread which helped make the french toast extra puffy. There was a good amount of eggy coating so that it was moist on the inside and had a nice slighty crispy exterior.

I ended up dipping my french toast into my syrup cup so that the french toast wouldn’t get soggy. Yay! The bacon was also pretty good, but after having a little bite of T’s sandwich I kind of wished I had gotten the sausage links instead!

hash-browns-side

Jake ordered a side of hash browns for us since I forgot to, and then I regretted wanting them. Parts of the top were overcooked and overall the hash browns just tasted dried out. Considering it was the only not-so-great-thing, I’ll give them a pass on that one.

Sadly I didn’t write down the prices nor did I take a photo of the menu… but our food cost less than $20, I do remember that much!

papa-z-restaurant-breakfast

I wouldn’t mind stopping at Papa Z’s again for another meal if we’re in the area – I bet they have a stellar cheap lunch, too!

More road trip stuff to come!

Papa Z’s
9121 Garfield Ave.
Fountain Valley, CA 92708
(714) 962-8887

Papa Z's on Urbanspoon


2 thoughts on “[road trip] papa z’s / fountain valley – orange county, ca

  1. A blunch sandwich – sigh – your Maryisms crack me up!! I always find it so hard to find a new breakfast place to fall for – this place looks good 🙂

    1. Hehe, I like making up words and phrases. It is hard to find a really good breakfast place! Some places make my favorite hash browns while another place has really good biscuits and gravy… there is never a all-in-one delicious place. But I guess that helps to give a little more variety in our lives, right?

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