Cafe MG 538

This is a small Newport Beach café that does breakfast like it matters. The breakfast burrito with avocado is worth detouring for, especially when Leo's salsa arrives in a squat plastic cup and flips the whole equation. Tables spill onto a sunny patio beside the Hoag parking structure, where nurses, visitors and locals eat the same honest plates. Food comes fast, unpretentiously made and still warm when it hits the plate. Prices are low enough to feel wrong in a good way; portions do not skimp. There is a freshness to the eggs and potatoes that suggests someone is paying attention at 6 a.m. The staff is unabashedly sweet, the kind that remembers names and orders. Sit outside, order the burrito with extra salsa, and watch the hospital crowd cycle past.