Espresso 77

After a rainy couple of weeks it's good to see some nice weather. It allows us to do some things we might not otherwise be able to do--chill out in Central Park, walk to a few places that we might normally take a cab or subway to. But one of the other phenomena that occur during nice weather is that we can actually get a table and be comfortable in one of our favorite local coffee shops, Espresso 77.

Espresso 77, for those who have never been, is a small coffee shop that also serves sandwiches, pastries, beer and wine. It's been around since late 2007 and is the only hip coffee shop in Jackson Heights as far as I can tell, and to top it all off, they make a mean latte. Often they'll put a little leaf design in the foam. On weekends they offer select pastries from an artisanal bakery called Cannelle Patisserie. Heather might kill someone if their standing between her and a lemon bar. There is a Starbucks a couple of blocks away, but there are Starbucks all over the place in New York. They also won't put a leaf in my latte. Espresso 77 is certainly holding it's own. I like the idea of going to a place that is unique and specific to the community it inhabits.

Espresso 77 prominently displays the work of local artists on its walls. Every couple of months or so a new artist will be featured and will have their works available for purchase. With every artist featured, free postcards are available promoting the artist and his or her work. Occasionally I'll just grab one, fill it out and mail it to someone I know. I like the idea of sending postcards when you're not on vacation. Who doesn't like getting a postcard? I would mostly just send them to my sister. With each one, I would comment on the tropical fruit themed stamp and include various coffee related puns like "thanks a latte," "do you have a lozenge? I'm feeling coffee," or "that's not your chiato, that's macchiato" and so on and so forth.

But when the winter months roll in and it's too cold to go to the park, all of the parents of small children flock to this confined space, strollers in tow. I can't get mad, nor do I have the desire to. The establishment even invites it by providing a basket full of children's books and toys to play with. Most of the children are well behaved, but it is a tiny place--voices carry and there's not a lot of room to run around. Every now and again we'll walk by and see that it looks more like a McDonald's play place than a coffee joint and just keep on walking. Heather sometime fantasizes about Espresso 77 purchasing the adjacent store, expanding their shop and adding more tables just so there's a little more space for these kids to exist.

The nice part about spring and summer coming along is that parents have more options for their children. And even those parents that do need their coffee fix can sip it outside if their kids are wired. There's a nice bench and an awning with more space and less resonance.

Each season has its own perks and drawbacks. Soon the big slab of concrete that we call Manhattan will bake in the sun and become hot enough to fry an egg on. And soon the subway platforms will become so muggy that we might jump on the wrong train just to enjoy the air conditioning. But in these dog days of summer coming our way, at least Heather and I can enjoy a little elbow room at a nice little coffee shop.

When in Dublin

Greetings blogosphere! Oh how I've missed you. When my plane landed, I had 208 items in my Google Reader. Apparently you don't spend much time reading or writing blogs on your honeymoon. The wedding was great, and I wish I could tell you all about the food at my brunch reception, the eggs, the potato dish, the apple crisp, the cake, but I'm afraid I didn't really eat all that much of it. After all the planning and selecting, I was nervous and excited and laced into a corset, all of which equaled not very hungry. I hear the waffles were quite good though.

The second I got to the Philadelphia airport I did one of the things I've been dreaming about in these final months of diet and portion control, I ordered a giant Cheese Steak. It was awesome and gooey and the chipped beef had that almost crispy and not soggy thing going; it was pretty much heaven on a roll. Screw you corset, I'm allowed to eat again. I've bagged me a man and now it's time to gain 30 pounds, wear nothing but sweatpants, and stop washing my hair. That sounds about right.

The honeymoon in Dublin was fantastic and, as with any trip abroad, littered with gourmet quandaries. Ireland is a country nearly devoid of coffee. Espresso drinks, no problem, but the Emerald Isle does not understand the delicate beauty of a simple cup of coffee. I am a coffee snob, I get mine every morning from a French press, but the few cups of java we did come across were instant. Shutter. The first morning we entered a shop called "Insomnia Coffee Company" and I ordered a cup of coffee, without looking at the menu. You generally don't when COFFEE is right there in the name of the place. That name was so intriguing, I like the idea of them hawking their beverages by advertising that it will give you a sleeping disorder. They asked if I needed anything in it, and answered "cream" for which I received a strange look. I was then handed an Americano with whipped cream on top. I stuck to cappuccinos for the rest of the trip. For the most part, to save a bit of money we stuck to pub food, potato wedges, sausages and the like. I could already feel the pounds creeping back, but as it was my honeymoon (and I'm heading for the sweatpants) I choose to ignore. I made sure to order Irish Stew at one point, with its hunks of lamb and potato, which made for a deeply satisfying dish. Will, who is not a soup fan, looked at the gravy based dish and remarked that it was kind of like a lamb pot roast, which with its slow cooking in a bed of vegetables is pretty apt.

Will and I have a friend from college, Colleen (left), who is doing grad school in Ireland. One night we met up with her, and after a few rounds, I insisted we find a pub that had food, as we had theatre tickets for later in the evening, and it would be nice if we were coherent enough to remember the show. (The Birds at the Gate Theatre by the way. It was quite good, I'd recommend it) We had started to brainstorm about where to go next, when Colleen exclaimed "Chippers!"

Inquisitive looks were proffered her way. She explained that we needed Chippers, or burgers or some such to soak up the alcohol. After she started suggesting places, we realized she meant fast food. Apparently, after I looked it up, the term used to refer to Fish and Chip shops in the UK, but now has come to encompass anywhere that sort of does fast food with fries. Now, here's the thing. I don’t eat fast food. Ever. I gave it up cold turkey almost 5 years ago, and while I occasionally break down and eat a fry that might have been made under golden arches, they really haven't gotten my money in years. I watched Super Size Me and read Fast Food Nation and that was pretty much the end of that. But I was traveling in a foreign country and Colleen insisted that if you've been drinking in Dublin and you need to get something in your stomach, Chippers are the way to go.

Refusing to give my Euros to an American company in this transatlantic adventure we settled on Supermacs, which is basically the same thing except it's Irish so that makes it slightly okay in my head. In we went. Will chose to go with chicken tenders, but if I was doing this thing, I was doing it full tilt, cheese burgers with fries and a soda. It was…. well kinda awful. The beef was flavorless, the tomato was under ripe, the bun less then fresh. The fries (or "chips") were actually pretty decent though, leaning toward that Irish form of potato wedge rather then shoesting, so there was some recognizable vegetable in there, and I of course poured on a bunch of salt. Just like the old days. Will's chicken was a bit more meaty then most fast food, but they lacked crispiness, the breading was just a bit too soft.

It did the job though, and we arrived at the theatre ready for some chilling drama. As we waited in the lobby there was coffee being sold in real china cups, cause the Europeans are awesome with their shunning of Styrofoam. Two Euros later I took a hopeful sip… damn. Instant.

Starbucks VIA

Last week Starbucks came out with an instant coffee--Starbucks VIA. I first found out about it on the internet. The article I read claimed that instant coffee is really quite popular in European countries and only suffers a stigma in the United States. Most likely because the leading brands are things like Tasters Choice. I prefer brewed coffee to instant. Am I just being a stubborn American coffee snob? Fortunately, my friends at Starbucks were there to help me find out.

To roll out the new line, as many of you coffee addicts already know, they hosted a blind taste test at their stores. They were betting that people couldn't tell the difference between that and their regular brewed coffee. I love stuff like this. Anything having to do with innovations in coffee technology is fascinating to me. A few of you might remember my blog about McDonald's "McCafe" rebranding. Don't get me wrong. I prefer a cup of coffee that is brewed simply and effectively. Heather and I use a french press every morning. We do things so simply that we can't even be bothered to plug in a Mr. Coffee. But there is a certain novelty in drinking something that a team of scientists worked on. To know that the flavor was created with meticulous scientific precision. It's awe inspiring and creepy all at the same time.

I'm not a huge fan of instant coffee in general. I have a few packets of decaf coffee in the cupboard. They look like tea bags and you just steep them in hot water for a while. I like them because they keep for a long time and I don't drink decaf very often. It's not instant, but it's as close as we get. If I brought Nescafe into the apartment, Heather might stab me on general principle. She would do some damage too. After all, she's a ninja. But I digress.

They were doing this Starbucks promotion from Friday, Oct 2nd to Monday, Oct 5th. You could go in at any time and try it out. Whether you were correct or incorrect, you got a coupon for a free tall coffee. We made sure to build it into our weekend schedule. I spent half the day talking about it. We were going to be part of history. We could tell our grandchildren someday, "Hey young whippersnappers, you know that Starbucks VIA that took the nation by storm? You're grandmother and I participated in that national ad campaign." They won't appreciate it though. They'll just roll their eyes and fly off on their hoverboards. They're probably on space drugs.

The Starbucks had a little station set up by the register with two pitchers of coffee--one with instant and one with fresh brewed. This is a departure from the television commercials that showed people drinking from full cups marked X and Y. I guess thats TV for you. They say it adds ten pounds. The staff was busy so we poured our own samples. Let me say that neither sample was bad, but one tasted very distinct from the other. Because I drink Starbucks coffee on a somewhat regular basis, I was easily able to identify the fresh brewed coffee from the VIA. I glanced over at Heather and she figured it out easily as well. Perhaps I'm biased because of familiarity, but I prefer the fresh brewed. It's a little stronger, which I like. You might get the same result from using two packets of VIA, but that's already too much work. A product like that markets itself on convenience. Life's too short.

So Heather and I proclaimed victory and redeemed our free coffees. We took up one of their tables for a while without having spent a dime. Sorry Starbucks, but thats the risk you run during a promotion like this. The packets cost three dollars for a three pack and ten dollars for twelve. I do not believe I will be purchasing any, but at least I got to be a part of history. Hey, I still talk about taking the Pepsi challenge.

My Lazy Sunday

This past Sunday marks the first time in quite a while that both Heather and I have stayed in the borough of Queens for an entire day without leaving. We had a couple of things that we could have done--we talked about going to Governor's Island and hanging out, then we talked about perhaps heading over to the High Line on the west side of Manhattan and winding up at Chelsea Market. Heather made a very involved breakfast that morning using apples she bought at our local farmer's market in Jackson Heights. I'll spare the details in case she decides to post about it, but it was very, very good.

By the time breakfast was over, it was early afternoon. Heather was a little beat from cooking breakfast and I was beat from the previous work week so we decided to bag all that stuff we talked about and keep it local. It was time for an official Lazy Sunday. We walked to Espresso 77, the really cool local coffee place and read the newspaper for a little while. She got a normal, boring coffee and I got a New Orleans iced coffee. We then hit the bakery to pick up buns for turkey burgers (turkey meat also purchased at local farmer's market) and headed home.

We could have gone out to one of the bars we like in Queens--maybe a Dutch Kills or a Studio Square--but we had kind of a pleasant home bodies thing going and we didn't want to ruin it. Heather wanted to challenge me to do something different for pre-dinner cocktails. She visited the website of a bar in Manhattan we both enjoy, Death & Company, and found that they publish some of their drink recipes. Many of them are pretty basic and a lot of them involve gin--a spirit both Heather and I find repellant--but we found a few that we both found appealing and had the ingredients for.

The first one was a drink called 8. It involved whiskey (we subbed bourbon for rye,) orange juice, lemon juice and grenadine. It seemed like a lot of citrus, but it worked out pretty well. The grenadine and orange juice did a fine job of tempering the tartness of the lemon. Heather commented that it seemed like a cocktail that the folks at Death & Company would make. I took that as high praise; those bartenders are pretty skilled.

Our second round was a sidecar. This is a pretty classic drink that you see advertised on drink menus all the time. It may seem odd that an eighty year old like me has never tried one, but for some reason I thought there was gin in it. I learn new things all the time. It has Cognac, orange liqueur (we used Grand Marnier,) and lemon juice. This one wasn't nearly as sweet as the first one. The mild sweetness that it did have came from the Grand Marnier so it was a more complex sweetness than say sugar or juice. We had a drink in mind for a third round but we decided to cap it after two. We don't drink hard; we drink smart. Also Heather doesn't like to go into work with a hangover. I'll never understand women.

As smart as we drank, I realized by the end of the day that I really didn't drink anything without either caffeine or alcohol. I don't know whether to feel shame or accomplishment. Probably a fair amount of shame. But all the drinks were prepared with care and careful consideration. I wasn't just cracking Bud Light Limes all day. That would be too classy for me.

I just finished a two month long sketch writing class that ate up a lot of my free time. This is my first week off from that and, while I love writing sketches, it feels good not to have a deadline staring me down. Every now and again you need to take a personal day to just screw around, have fun, mix drinks and spend time with the person or people you love. That and playing Mario Kart for Wii--that's what's important.

McCafe

McDonald’s recently came out with a new line of coffee beverages to meet the ever growing need people have to pump themselves full of caffeine. I suppose the goal is to compete with Starbucks. They market the new line of coffee as McCafe. I am constantly amused by McDonald's marketing. They just take a word and add "Mc" to it and get a new word. It's not a nugget, it's a McNugget. It's not a muffin, it's a McMuffin. I think the McGriddle amuses me the most.

“This bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich is good, but it seems too heathy?”

“What if instead of english muffins, we used Pancakes?”

“I like it but something’s missing.”

“What if we injected the pancake with sugary syrup?”

“Find a way to etch our logo right into the sandwich itself and we got ourselves a hit.”

I haven’t been in a McDonald’s for quite some time. Don’t get me wrong, I am not above eating things that are bad for me. If Heather weren’t around I would be living off a steady diet of:

Pizza—if you add pepperoni, all four food groups are represented, right?

Doritos—how many different flavors can they spray on a chip?

Capri Sun—If I can get the straw through that little plastic spout.

What makes McDonald’s (and the other major fast food chains) unappealing to me is their particularly egregious business practices. I’ve seen too many documentary films to stomach fast food. I recently saw Food Inc. at an independent movie theatre and a lot of the imagery of animal abuse and poor working conditions is heartbreaking. Some other good resources are documentaries like Super Size Me and books like Fast Food Nation and Don’t Eat This Book. Above all I just don’t want to hand over my hard earned money to a corporate system that stresses quantity over quality. I'm sure this all reeks of East Coast Liberal Elitism. Well I apologize. I guess it's just the type of media I'm surrounding myself with. If you think I'm annoying, you should spend some time with Heather. She's twice the food snob I am.

Against my better judgement, I wanted to try McDonald’s line of premium coffee drinks just to see how they measured up. I wouldn’t let myself do it though. I figured if I caved and spent the buck or two on the drink, McDonald’s would just use it to euthanize a kitten or bludgeon a panda to death with a giant Big Mac. It’s an irrational assumption but it seems like something they might try.

While scanning through my weekend circulars, I came across an ad for McCafe with several coupons for drinks including a free latte or mocha and a free iced latte or mocha. I logically worked through this new development and came to the conclusion that if I used the coupon and got the drink, my conscience would be clear. I wouldn’t be giving McDonald’s my money; if anything, they would lose money. Not much, but some. I ran this theory by Heather (she’s more contemptuous of fast food than I am) and my logic checked out. QED.

After work, I strolled into the nearest McDonald’s (1st ave. and 69th st. Manhattan) and stood in line. The place was particularly chaotic. I felt the urge to walk out but if I did that I probably wouldn’t come back. You only have one chance to win me over McDonald’s; make it count. I finally got to the front of the line to the surly lady taking orders. I can’t say I blame her. I can’t imagine she’s making much more than minimum wage. It didn’t help her mood any that I’m just some punk coming in with a coupon, but I didn’t care. I’ve been waiting fifteen minutes for my iced latte and I’ll be damned if I’m not getting it. So I order.

I’ve worked with automatic espresso machines before but I found the one they used to be very strange. Not only does it spit out the espresso shot, it also spits out the milk. The lady just filled my cup with ice and pressed a button and out came my latte—perfectly measured and ready to go. It even spit out the little bit of froth that comes on top. McDonald’s fascinates me. They will take lattes and cappuccinos, which are traditionally craft beverages, and streamline the process to the push of a button. It represents the good and bad of America.

The lady handed me my free beverage. I thanked her and bid her good day. Then I tried my drink. It was fine. It didn’t knock my socks off, but it was fine. It was on a par with something you would get a Dunkin Donuts. The thing that took away from the experience was the fact that I was drinking through a regular McDonald’s straw—the kind with the circumference of a dime that are designed to bring sugary soda and shamrock shakes from the cup to your face in record time. I tried to sip slowly and analyze objectively but the straw made it hard.

The whole experience was pretty much what I would expect from McDonalds. I give them a lot of credit for their ad campaign but as a coffee consumer in their key demographic, I don’t want to go out for coffee to a place that reeks of burgers and fries. I still have another coupon for a free hot beverage, but I’ll probably just let it expire. I’d rather spend my money at a smaller place with a more skilled staff that knows a thing or two about crafting a decent beverage.

Time to get Grumpy

A while back, Heather turned me on to a coffee place in Chelsea called Cafe Grumpy. There are lots of things about the place that I like. The first is that it's called Cafe Grumpy. The image I get in my head is of an old surly grizzled man--someone like the late William Hickey (right)--being annoyed and contemptuous with me for daring to come in and waste his time. I would tell him what I want and he would thrust it into my hands, the coffee sloshing and burning me. I would go to fix my coffee and this man--I'm going to call him Abe because I made him up--would go back to reading his periodicals or applying his ear medicine or whatever old people do. How on earth could a dank establishment like this stay open in a competitive place like Manhattan? I would be really pissed off, but all would be forgiven when I took my first sip. It would be the most delicious cup of coffee imaginable. Suddenly I would realize why a place like this would remain in business. It wouldn't be because of its dank decor or its awful customer service. It would be because the Abe can make a damn good cup of coffee. I would leave feeling a sort of kinship with this lonely, misunderstood man and as I leave I would doff my cap and Abe would flash a brief, faint, knowing smile.

Unfortunately none of this is real (although if any of you out there are interested in optioning the screen rights, I'm willing to negotiate.) Cafe Grumpy is a tiny establishment that has a fairly good rotating menu of coffees from around the world. There's no sign

out front indicating that you've reached your destination with the exception of its logo. The logo for Cafe Grumpy is a face that looks suspiciously like the logo for lemonheads. I don't want to stir up controversy. I'm just saying that the similarity is striking.

The part that I think is noteworthy--and I'm sure there are other places that also do this--is that each cup is made individually. There's no giant industrial vat or seven gallon drum of coffee. This overworked staff uses state of the art machinery to grind the beans seconds before brewing. The result is a cup of coffee that is remarkably strong and fresh with a mild bitterness and fruity undertones. The other day I bought a cup of Brazilian coffee. It was really good, but it ran me a cool six dollars. I don't know if I've ever paid six dollars for a cup of coffee in my life. I ordered it, they rang me up and by the time I realized how much it cost, it was too late and I didn't want to look like an idiot.

With this type of quality comes a price. The coffee takes close to an eternity to be ready. I once walked in to Cafe Grumpy clean shaven and walked out with a sexy Van Dyke (right.) Another time I was able to file my 2008 tax return. Let me put it this way: If you've got Broadway tickets and are looking for a quick cup of coffee before the show, Starbucks might be the way to go.

The cool part about the whole production is that by the time I get my coffee I feel (deservedly or undeservedly) like I've been on a journey. I feel invested in the brewing process. The only way that I can be closer to the process is to sleep in the fields where my favorite coffee beans are grown (currently Indonesia.) I've got free time but not that much. Also I don't care for nature. There are too many insects and often the weather's no good.

Cafe Grumpy has recently instituted a policy of no laptops. I like it because the tables aren't taken up by dicks writing their screenplays. I don't like it because very often I am one of those dicks. Occasionally Heather and I will meet there for coffee because it's only a subway stop away from her office. Here's a blurry polaroid from one of our visits. There's also a Whole Foods a couple blocks away. Walking from a cool coffee joint to a Whole Foods with a New York Times under my arm and earbuds in my skull is enough to make me think I've reached the heights of hipster douchebagery. All I need now is an apartment along the L train and an unearned sense of entitlement.

Like many coffee establishments, Cafe Grumpy's business card also acts as a punch card. There are eleven slots along the top and eleven on the bottom. If you buy ten coffee beverages, your eleventh is free. For those of you keeping track, that's a combined total of twenty-two coffee beverages. I say this without pride or ego: I have filled an entire card. Every now and again I'll think about all the stuff I could have done with that time. I could have written a witty novella or taught myself to juggle. But I suppose--in the end--a decent, carefully crafted cup of coffee is worth waiting for.