Starbucks and Coffee should never be said in the same sentence

Starbucks State & Jackson St in Chicago A Latte and a Muffin…'Tall’ that was anything but tall, it was small. “What size did you want?” “A small” I said *** “Tall Latte!” she shouts back over her shoulder to the ‘Barista’. I don’t know if I should really even call her a Barista, because she really didn’t do much more than push a few buttons on the machine, but… anyway. The seats were comfortable and although the extent of my coffee conversation with the people behind the counter was somewhat minimal, it was pleasant. They didn’t ask if the order was “to go” they just assumed and the woman behind me had already ordered her sugar-free coffee with skim milk or whatever it was before I’d even moved the 2 ft over to pay. My muffin came, not on a plate but in a bag. I’m not sure that I liked this very much. I went to go sit down and found what I thought would be a comfortable place to sit, it was comfortable well, the chair was comfortable and the ottoman was good but there was a horrible draft, or maybe it was the air-conditioning, I don’t know, but it was uncomfortable. I came into Starbucks only because it was literally an assignment for one of my design classes. I was told to write an analysis on Starbucks specifically and that I should order something and stay for a while to really grasp the atmosphere of the space and so on. Conversations in this place are always oddly entertaining, but nothing is more annoying than a cell phone going off. I hate cell phones [in general] they never ring when you want them to or they ring exactly when you don’t. The woman sitting next to me started talking on her phone…something about brunch plans and the like…I will be trying out “The Orange Peel” as soon as I figure out where it is… Ok, after that segue, I’ll get back to the point… which today is the coffee [I’ll forgo the interior description and analysis]. Watery…and too foamy! the coffee that is (I didn’t think that latte’s had foam…cappuccinos yes, lattes no.) Where is the crema? And then there is that underlying burnt taste that would completely obliterate a good latte if in fact this were one. Oh,and lets not forget the ubiquitous paper cup, that was thrust upon me instead of a nice ceramic one, which they didn't even ask about. I dislike being cold and it was so exceptionally cold in that store that I didn’t even unzip my jacket let alone unwind my orange Pashmina that encircled my neck…Ugh! That disgusting coffee aftertaste has set in… you know the bad coffee kind and on top of that my latte which was at first too hot, is now cold. It wasn’t good enough to drink faster. I’ll give my personal coffee advice next time but until then…save your money and your taste buds, forgo the Starbucks.

Food, Coffee etc...

It has been a little while since posting last, and although I have not been anywhere monumental. I will soon be updating with a food/ drink experience I was forced into...not fun, but still good to do on occasion. For the time being enjoy living, and drink good coffee. Go to DoubleShot!

Plum Tart. Who would have thought?

Lula Café (Logan Square) “Hmmm…Wonderful”, really that says it all. Margarite and I went out the weekend after my Birthday, to celebrate and catch up with each other after an eventful summer for the both of us, and Lula Café in Logan Square, Chicago was the perfect place to go for a mid- evening desert and coffee combination. This café is going on my ‘ Comfortably Chic’ restaurant list. I enjoyed it immensely. Lula’s is on Kedzie at Milwaukee and Logan Boulevard, it seems to be a neighborhood staple for a comfortable, laid back neighborhood café. This laid back atmosphere is not to say that this is…. Lets put it this way, Lula’s is the perfect blend of the casual and the sophisticated, without being stuffy or pretentious. Because the evening was a warm one, bistro tables ringed the door outside Lula’s, and as we approached, were greeted by a smiling hostess, dressed in an exceptional, lipstick red, a-line shirt-dress. The hostess let us through the outdoor space into the entry of Lula’s companion bar and after a moment hurried off to find us a table while we walked out past the patio seating to wait. I must say, that I’ve never really seen a slow day at Lula’s the several times I’ve walked by failed to stop in. And when I say failure I really mean it, this place is one that I plan on going to much more frequently and wish I’d discovered sooner. Well… that was a bit of a rabbit trail if I do say so and with that I think that I should move on to the food, the service and the interior. After waiting about a minute, maybe two, the Hostess returns motioning us to come closer as she asks if we minded sitting at the counter, and since neither Margarite nor I had any particular preference we said “sure! The counter is fine”. It was completely perfect, the counter stools weren’t too high and although some people might not enjoy sitting in front of the service counter, I enjoyed having a voyeuristic view into the inner workings of Lula’s kitchen, not to mention the fact that our waitress always checked in on us whenever she came through from assisting the many other satisfied people filling up every other table and chair in the whole space. I especially appreciated the fact that, although Margarite and I were only indulging in some coffee and dessert, we were given as much attention as any other party in the place and were continually met with smiles and friendly questions and conversations. As I just mentioned, Coffee and a shared dessert were what was on the plate, and since neither my friend or I’d ever been to Lula’s we decided to be a little daring and try something we’d never had before and after a bit of discussion and menu reading we decided on the Ricotta Plum Tart that is prepared with Klug farm plums and a limoncello zabaglione. Zabaglione- as I have learned, is a dessert or sauce made from egg yolks, sugar and whine or liqueur that is beaten until thick and is served hot or cold and apparently has Italian roots… and Limoncello is a sweet lemony Italian liqueur, which makes up the Liqueur portion of the dish. The crust of the tart was perfect… the plating was wonderful, and the presentation close to exceptional and with a plate that looks that good, it would make perfect sense that the dish would taste as good as it looked, if not better. The smoothness of the ricotta paired with the slight tartness of the plum was a wonderful thing. My only complaint was the coffee. It’s sad. Maybe I’ m biased, But given the fact that Intelligentsia Coffee is supposedly the best coffee place in the Chicago area, with 3 locations and a roasting facility where they roast their own ‘fresh’ beans, one would expect them to have the most amazing coffee, but unfortunately they didn’t impress me. In fact I did something that I’d never even think about doing at my coffee shop in Tulsa, I put cream and sugar in it! I know, I know. Most people wouldn’t bat an eye at this statement, but if you’ve ever had coffee at Doubleshot Coffee Co. you would know that it is almost sacrilegious to even consider putting these things in Doubleshot coffee, yes, it’s that good! Anyway, so the coffee was sub par, but… don’t let that stop you from being blown away,by Lula.

Sweet Thang!

Sweet Thang! : Bakery. I was walking along North Ave in Wicker Park the other day. I was going to a job interview, which, fortunately I did not get; thank goodness I didn’t have to tell them I wouldn’t be taking the underpaid, high-stress job surrounded by snobby people, but that is beside the point. Anyway, while walking by the day before, I noticed the Eiffel Tower shaped sign for Sweet Thang, a somewhat trendy little bakery that I’d heard good things about from several local news publications and city food/culture guides which made me want to go in and try it out. Well… just to give a little foreshadowing, I might have to try it again sometime. Let me explain myself, I went into the bakery and it’s a café of sorts as well. Nicely set up, except that the front display-case, for a bakery, was a little spartan, yes, I said Spartan, look it up! It has some unusual implications. Needless to say, there wasn’t much to choose from and all I wanted were a few cookies and something a little special for a friend. I did noticed a few fun-looking desserts and in doing so, lit upon a cute dome shaped chocolate tiramisu cheesecake with what looked like a chocolate graham cracker crust and a dusting of cocoa powder on top...This, was what I wanted, it would be the perfect thank you gift for my friend who loves anything chocolate. I also wanted some oatmeal raisin cookies to take back for everyone at work but unfortunately, things didn’t go as I’d imagined them. Oatmeal raisin is a pretty standard cookie, like Chocolate chip, just not quite as popular, in the mainstream, if of course you consider the mainstream the way to go. I try avoiding the mainstream although I do exploit the convenience of it more often than not, but my preferences are not really the point. Well, I take that back, because the only reason I am writing this is because I have certain preferences so…there you go. So, the cookie... it was a decent oatmeal raisin, and it was a nice 2-3” in diameter and I loved the fact that there were regular raisins, and what I thought looked like dried green grapes along with them…I’m not sure if they were in fact grapes that had been bleached to achieve their lightness, as one of my co-workers’ said, or if they weren’t raisins at all. And if they weren’t raisins, what are they, and why were they in my oatmeal raisin cookie? It terms of cookie consistency, these were nice, but not spectacular. The texture was just about right, it didn’t fall apart when you bit into it and it wasn’t brittle, but…it still wasn’t quite right. I’m not sure what it was exactly that made it seem a little “off”, maybe it was the fact that it was just a little too brown on top, not that the color varied on the surface or was burnt, it just had this strange sort of glazed quality to the surface, as if they contained more than the traditional amounts of sugar or that they were possibly brushed with a sugar-water solution while they were baking. Either way, it made the cookie good, but not great. Do you recall the lovely tiramisu mini cheesecake that I described previously? Well, I didn’t get it…nope, I asked for it and pointed at it and when the girl asked to clarify which cheesecake I wanted, it apparently wasn’t clear enough for her and what did she do? She picked up the one next to it (the more expensive one) and put it in the little box. So instead of getting a chocolate tiramisu I apparently got a strawberry cheesecake with a pink musical clef note. Very cutesy…but not what I wanted. It was apparently “more strawberry than cheesecake” I don’t know if that was good or not. When my friend took a bite, the look on his face… well it wouldn’t be one I’d like when I was eating a dessert. Notwithstanding the cookies and the mistaken cheesecake, I would still have to attempt this bakery again. Hopefully they’ll do better next time, especially in the customer service area, they were nice, but not the level of service one would expect when you are shelling out $10 for a half dozen cookies and a mini cheesecake (the wrong one, no less). Better luck next time. I’m skipping the review on the Mexican Bakery, but hopefully will return to it later. Next, I’ll be describing my first trip to Lula’s in Logan Square.

People Lounge Part II ~ Chicago

The second excursion to People Lounge was for my Birthday. Upon hearing that my Birthday (Aug 12) was upcoming a friend of mine who is a waiter at People, mentioned that he would be working that very same day and that it being a Sunday and not super- busy, would be the perfect time to come by. I will forgo the description of my entire day and skip to the meeting of my friend Danielle and I. Outside of People Lounge about 9:20pm on a steamy evening in August the night was already a busy one…I had just got off the phone with Danielle who was biking to the restaurant from her house in Humboldt Park, when not 2 minutes later she came around the corner of Damen / North Streets onto Milwaukee, even from half a block away I could see the searching expression on her face as she looked side to side in search of me and/ or the restaurant, this operation was not excatly the safest thing to be doing when biking on a busy street, but... you do what you have to. Finally after a minute of searching I caught her eye and she rolled up to the curb next to me. After securing her bike to a street sign and assessing the patio seating outside we decided to venture into People with me leading the way. Upon entering the space the door was opened by Daniel (My waiter friend) who took us directly to a table situated in the middle of a long narrow space. Narrow being about 25 ft. wide and the length, possibly about 45-50 ft. So let me lay it out for you. The entire front façade is glass, be it in the giant picture window, or in the glass door that leads into the close, but still airy interior. This airiness is attributed to the soaring ceilings, exposed ductwork and the white ceiling juxtaposed with the faux finished buttery latte colored walls. Please note the fact that although I said buttery colored latte this is in no way indicative of the actual existence of such a drink as a butter latte, although I have seen one made [on a joke] and consumed it is not something you should try, at home or abroad. The atmosphere of People Lounge is somewhere between loungey and a more upscale Bistro…both are sure to please, if the expectation is a comfortably intimate restaurant with the trendy, bar vibe going on. The walls are contrasted by dark espresso stained wood elements that are manifested in the bar, and the long wooden trestle tables that take up much of the front half of the restaurant and the 5 ft dividing wall/ banquets that housed additional small tables and chairs. Oh, and did I mention the several wrought iron round chandeliers? Well all I can really say about them is that they hearken back to a more ‘rustic’ Spain, which may or may not be a good thing. Well, enough about the décor, on to the food! Since both Danielle and I’d eaten previous to going to People we both opted to do the whole dessert thing. I got the Pastel de Chocolate AKA the Chocolate Cake (5) and Danielle got a new dessert that hadn’t even made it to the Menu yet, while my first choice [the apple cake] had drifted away. But before she had a chance to drool over the description given of the caramelized banana with pistachios and vanilla cake batter ice cream, Daniel came out with a pitcher of Sangria with red wine and fruit , along with a very large glass for me and a more manageable wine goblet for Danielle. Apparently birthdays are taken seriously here because when I received the cake I ordered…It was amazing, in more ways than one, I mean, what would you think if you got a plate roughly the size of a platter that was a deep shade of ocean blue almost navy but not quite, and on top of this plate directly in the center, was a little cake about 3” in diameter with rings of berry and cream sauces encircling it, not to mention the entire plate being sprinkled with confectioners sugar and to top it all off, coming out of the center of this personal sized cake is a spiraling piece of crystallized sugar that is several inches tall. Beautiful! And the same goes for Danielle’s dessert, the presentation was spectacular and given the glowing reviews from her, I’m guessing it tasted as good as it looked. All in all, this place is so good that no matter what I say about it, it won’t be enough. So go, enjoy! The next post will be my latest foray into local Chicago bakeries, starting with one called ‘Sweet Thang!’ and then hopefully do a retrospective review of a Mexican bakery I stumbled upon about a month ago…

People Lounge ~ Chicago

Mmmmm, food… Why is it so wonderful? That is what this discussion is all about. I think that my first real food post should be concerning the Wicker Park Restaurant that goes by the name People Lounge. It is a Spanish Tapas Bar & Lounge in short…it is amazing. I have been to this place twice now and on both occasions it has been memorable. My first time at People, was at the end of July, the day had been quite hot and the day long. I was meeting an old friend for a light dinner; neither of us was exceptionally hungry so a Tapas restaurant in trendy Wicker Park seemed like the perfect choice. It was. We walked in on a Monday night around 6:oo pm or so, the guy who seated us was a trendy fellow with an interesting faux hawk- mullet thing going on with his light grey t shirt and dark washed skinny jeans with the hem turned up in a 2” cuff. Water was brought to our table at once by the smiling and friendly wait staff, and within 2min of our being seated we were joined by a cute and friendly waitress who was more than helpful with food and drink suggestions at the beginning of our evening and this was accentuated by her bubbly personality stopping by to see that we were taken care of throughout our whole evening. I have to take a moment to describe this most lovely individual, whose sense of style was most appreciatively commented upon by my friend Amber and myself, several times throughout the evening, and culminated in our stating it to her at the close of the evening. Our waitress had her hair pulled back behind an elastic headband of sorts and was shorter, dark brown and curly. She had on a dark neutral colored flowing sundress, a chocolate patterned, ‘V’ necked empire waisted, if I remember correctly. And a pair of stylish brown knee-high leather boots and several appropriate necklaces about her throat. We ordered the Shirtsteak - that comes in a pristine white serving dish in a sherry glaze with manchego and tomatoes. (8) Manchego, as I’ve found, is a Spanish hard cheese made from sheep milk. Along with the steak we also ordered the Flan - which is a custard that is baked in a caramel-lined mold and served chilled with the caramel side up. (5) It too was served on top of another of those creamy white plates and encircled with a ruby-red berry sauce. I can’t praise this food enough. The steak was so tender and moist that you just had to touch it with your fork and it just fell apart and if that wasn’t enough, the moment it touched your tongue it just burst in your mouth, filling it with a warm and flavorful infusion of the juices created by the meat and sherry mixing with the tomato and manchego cheese. It was beautiful! It would be perfect for a light dinner, with an appetizer of their assorted Spanish olives, or their grilled vegetable platter in sherry & herb vinaigrette. For dessert we shared the Flan, I had never had this dish before and tried it upon the urging of my friend, who promptly declared it to be the best she’d ever had. We discussed the reasoning behind this statement, and she told me that oft times Flan is overdone, in that the caramel ends up crystallized and more than occasionally the custard is rubbery…but this was definitely not the case at People. It was smooth and rich, but not heavy, the caramel was a warm note to the creaminess of the custard and the berry sauce added just the right amount of tang. Amber said that it was too bad that my first taste of Flan had been so spectacular because, as she said, “you will be disappointed from now on…[by others who cannot make it as well as was had at People]”. After all that…and I haven’t even discussed the interior or my second visit. No worries! I will post a second installment of my experience at People Lounge.

My First...

My first food blog. Not of all time of course, just the here and now. I am amazed at the wonders of food and drink and their capability of adding to human interaction on so many levels and in so many different ways. I tend to critique everything, and I mean everything, it is in my nature to analyze so I am hoping to coherently lay out the quirks and qualities that I find in culture and in the places I go, namely establishments that serve food and drink… Fashion is a whole different beast of culture so I will try to leave it for another blog, but don’t be surprised if a little bit of fashion found in the aforementioned establishments, creeps into these posts, because people are followers of fashion and it in turn seems to follow them wherever they go. But I will do my best to stick to the food, drink and the interiors of said establishments.