Archive for August, 2009
Coffee and Tea at Le Panier
Tea at Le Panier, originally uploaded by andai. Le Panier, the French café, is one of several French eateries one can find at Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Though I don’t often go here, one thing is for sure, Le Panier which is actually a French bakery is extremely popular with the visitors to the Pike Place Market. It seems like whenever I pass by, and especially during the weekend mornings, there is consistently a long line within the shop, with people placing their orders and looking for seating. Le Panier, despite being a French bakery and café, serves Caffé Umbria, the Italian style coffee from, Caffé Umbria Coffee Roasters. And as you know by now, I do generally like Caffé Umbria’s coffees. I think Le Panier does a decent job with the espresso and I do go there once in a while. Sometimes however, I will be hungry for something a little more than just an espresso drink. In such cases what I will do is order a tea to go with my croissant or brioche since I generally do not like to eat [...]
A Tad Bit Uptight at Cafe Pettirosso
Pettirosso, originally uploaded by andai. Ok. Right off the bat I have to say, of all the cafes, coffee shops and coffeehouses I have been to, just after a couple of visits, this has quickly risen towards the top of my 'least favorite places to visit' list.This is sad because it was a place that I actually had high hopes when I first found the place. Why do I feel this way? The baristas here are simply way too uptight and this reason alone is more than enough to discourage me from coming back. That and the fact that coffee I ordered from there wasn't that great. Now the problem here is that normally, if I visit a place and order my espresso drink, and the drink is not that great, I would go back at least a couple more times to see if that is the norm or whether I just happened to be there on a day when the drink I got was out of the ordinary. But in this case, I really do not have any desire to go back there and try another espresso drink... and this is many due to the fact that I do not feel that the [...]
Fonté Coffee on 1st Avenue
Fonte Espresso Lounge, originally uploaded by andai. For a while now, I had been hearing rumors about Fonté Coffee Roasters opening their own retail location somewhere in downtown Seattle. Other than the fact that they would be having a retail location, I didn’t know anything about where this location would be, or even when they would actually be open. I guess I could have been a little more proactive and done some investigating but whatever… Be that as it may, yesterday evening, I just happened to stumble upon the Fonté flagship retail coffee shop downtown, right on 1st avenue. They are located directly across the street from the Seattle Art Museum, next to a pretty famous Seattle landmark which I prefer not to mention. Since I was looking of a place to get dinner and not coffee, I decided that I was going to have to come back another day and check out the place. But I was pretty excited to have found this location. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first being that Seattle’s [...]
Pike Place Market’s Café Campagne
Cafe Campagne, originally uploaded by andai. I am not quite sure what to say about Café Campagne other than they are a great French restaurant that is located in Post Alley at the Pike Place Market. They do serve great French food I will be the first to admit. What they don’t serve however is great espresso drinks, or maybe more specifically, they did not make me a nice latte when I ordered one this morning. They do serve Caffé Vita coffee and if I was to take a wild guess, I would probably say that they use the Caffé Del Sol blend. Unfortunately, I was really not impressed with my drink and I ended up wishing that I had simply ordered a glass of orange juice instead. I thought long and hard about going to Seattle Coffee Works and getting a latte to go, but I didn’t think the good people at Café Campagne would be impressed if I walked in with a latte from elsewhere. The other thing that I thought was a little odd was that the espresso drinks came in what looked like was either an 8 oz or [...]
Victrola & Seattle Coffee Works Inspiring Starbucks
15 Ave Coffee & Tea Coffee Cup, originally uploaded by andai. I have been going to Victrola coffee for a while now and as I have mentioned before, this is one of my favorite coffee shops here in Seattle. Personally I think these folks do a great job with their coffees. I really enjoy passing by every so often to get my espresso fix and once think I would certainly love to see is more coffee shops in Seattle serve Victrola Coffee beans. I also thought it was rather funny that in addition to Seattle Coffee Works and I don’t know how many other places, that Starbucks sent a squad of observers to go scout out Victrola Coffee just to see what an independent coffee shop looked like and operated. One of the baristas at Victrola challenged 15th Avenue coffee and Tea aka “The Starbucks that’s not a Starbucks” to an espresso smackdown. I would love to see that happen… but I am certainly not holding my breath..