Things that make us go Ewwwwww - part 1 · Saturday December 6, 2008 by colin newell
I do not eat out a lot… but when I do… I like to check out the loo.
Because the loo is the window to the food-safe savvy of the place. If the john is filthy, I can only imagine the microbial army that is massing for another attack on the kitchen tiles.
So… when I was at a local Victoria Greek deli (there are a few in town), I was horrified to run to the lav for an pre-victual ablution. Only to find… the dreaded continuous roll recycling cloth towel thing.
And I thought to myself – have I entered a bathroom time tunnel? Do people actually still service and install these germ dispensers? Does this same time paradigm also hold all you can eat buffets without sneeze guards? Or self serve bakeries without tongs? Yeah – I can name a few of those in my Universe.
Folks. I would rather rinse my hair in a public toilet bowl than dry my hands on one of these disease treadmills. And yet here it was… in one of my formerly favorite Greek joints.
It makes me go Ewwwwwwwwww. How about you?
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Fall Colors - shades of cool and great coffee at Street Level Espresso · Saturday October 25, 2008 by colin newell
Ken Gorden, owner and chief barista at Street Level Espresso on Fort Street, Victoria B.C. Canada leads me down a winding and mysterious staircase into a catacomb underneath the city. Life in the Victoria underworld is a semi-connected circuit of storage areas, utility wiring, plumbing, tunnels… and intrigue.
In Ken`s case, it is his storage locker for Street Level Espresso – the latest addition to the modest collection of great cafes in Victoria. I have lived in Victoria a long time and if memory serves me correctly, I have never been down there – it was cool and fitting for a first impression of this new cafe and the sacred ground it sits on.
Ken Gordon is well known in Victoria B.C. coffee circles as master class espresso brewer who previously held court at Cafe Fantastico and Habit Cafe. But when you are as good at the coffee game as Ken is, there is no cafe that is going to hold him back – unless it`s his own.
Street Level Espresso is the creation of Ken Gordon. At less than 400 square feet, it packs more caffeine sex appeal per square inch than any place I have been to recently. But how does he do it? Ken takes the best practices he has learned in some of Victoria`s hottest joints – added his own design ideas… and then plunked it as close to Victoria`s own Ground Zero (Douglas and Yates). At 2 blocks away from the cities center, Street Level Espresso could arguably be called Espresso Central.
In the 40 minutes that my wife, Andrea, and I were there (near closing time actually), there was an endless parade (no, pageant) of hyper beautiful people – Apparently Ken has some interest and connections to the arts and music scene and it shows – all his friends and admirers were all coming in at once… and were they hot!
Well. Add me to that list. His coffee (Origins from Vancouver) is prepared to perfection. He knows how to pull a wicked espresso and is a great story teller. His interest in cafe culture and coffee history is thorough. So be prepared to talk story while he prepares your favorite drink.
I am a pretty harsh coffee critic (at times) and I give Street Level Espresso top marks for knocking the ball out of the park in short order.
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Fall Colors - Cafe Artigiano comes to Victoria · Wednesday October 22, 2008 by colin newell
People tell me that the cafe market in saturated in Victoria B.C. Canada. Nonsense! I keep saying that there is a lot more room for coffee in Victoria. And with that…
Caffè Artigiano President Willlie Mounzer has announced the opening
of its first Victoria location – 1140 Government Street.
The Piccolo family created Caffè Artigiano which opened in Vancouver, BC in December 1999 – their branding included “Latte art” on their sidewalk signs. On some level, few people took much notice. It was the actual quality and consistency of the beverages that sold Vancouver residents.
Like the Girl next door that we do not always pick up on right away, Artigiano slowly built a following looking for quality joe, a comfortable environment with a bite of sass built in. In my many trips to Vancouver in the first part of the 21st Century, a stop at an arti used to be absolutely necessary.
Within the last two years, the Piccolo brothers sold off the enterprise to Earl`s creator, Willie Mounzer – and with that, speculation that the success and sexiness of Arti would tank. Did it? Not for me to judge. I still pop in from time to time when I am in Van – and yes, some of the jive is off the vine – and that could possibly be a psychological effect of something beloved being tarted up and branded out – Mini-Starbucks style. I mean, this is what Starbucks used to be; sexy and tasty.
Anyhow – Cafe Artigiano is finally coming to the city of Victoria B.C. – and yes, we might be some of the first caffeine-addled in line – if only to criticize what we had come to love – Caffè Artigiano will be located on Government Street – Victoria… in the lobby of the Bedford Hotel. They will be brewing premium cups of joe with the Clover single cup brewer and churning out at least some of the energy that has taken Vancouver by storm.
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Canadian Color - Mousse abuse self-help clinic · Tuesday October 21, 2008 by colin newell
Popped by the Chris and Steven show webpage – linked here.
The CoffeeCrew maven of all things caffeinated, Sara Lee Spector, did a really nice spot on their show and the video is now online. How to find it?
-Head over to the Steven and Chris page here
-Click on Watch more Videos over on the right.
-Click on All Video Clips under categories
-Click on Shopping as a category
-Click on The Smart Shopper Coffee Episode
Yea. Sara is hot and turns up the heat on great coffee.
When it was originally telecast a month ago, we were shocked and dismayed that there was no credit for Sara, her cafe roastery or the CoffeeCrew website. They fixed this oversight and we thank them. My faith in the CBC has been, at least, partially restored.
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Canadian Color - The unmeasureable hipness of Habit Coffee · Saturday October 18, 2008 by colin newell
I sat in Bubby Roses Bakery Cafe this morning and chowed down on a spectacular serving of Challah French Toast – a half-order in fact. Baker-owner and Socratic master, Mark Engels and I mused… “I wonder what the average age of your clientele is?”
I continued, “I figure there is a big block of kids in their mid-twenties… a gap… lots of 50-somethings and then those over 60s-young and beyond…”
Mark injects, “I wish I knew that information…”
Truth is, there are some remarkable looking young people that hang out at Bubby’s on Saturday morning. A young lady in particular stands out – she has the face of a child and is obviously in her twenties – her buff stud dude has biceps twice the size of my legs and they cuddle in the warm October Sun. They are a picture of youthful and unspoiled purity – at least on some perverse level…
Flash forward a few hours. If Bubby Roses is the sanctuary to youthful maidens with gorilla sized gentle giant boyfriends, Habit Coffee and Culture is a missing chapter out of a modernized Hunter S. Thompson novel. Habit Coffee and Culture oozes an impossibly rich sap of hipness and has caffeinated beverages brewed to heighten already jaded slackers to unheard levels of awesomeness.
As a reasonably jaded 40 something on the eve of my 5th decade on Planet Earth, I watch with muted amusement the funky social dance performed by these naive critters of the Z and Millennial generations. We are on the leading edge of an economic crash – where we will pass from an era of excess and endless employment opportunity – where a slacker job (high paid) incorporates chill time, face book time, spa time and, well, simply not showing up for work if they do not feel like it… and like whaddya gonna do about it anyway?!?
The Z’s and Millennial`s fail to realize that once this current bubble bursts, they will be ill equipped to deal with the realities that us 30-somethings and 40-somethings survived so well 10, 15 and 20 years ago.
I laugh. Ha. Ha.
Kids these days remind me of growing up on the farm in the 70’s and eying giddy fatted and rambunctious lambs gamboling from one stump to another…
moments prior to the slaughter. They have no idea. None.
Pass the mint jelly.
