Entries from The Amateur Gourmet tagged with 'coffee shops'
Ninth Street Espresso
One of the best things about working at Food Network, which is located in the Chelsea Market, is that the elevators that get you up there are directly across from one of the best coffee bars in the city. That coffee bar is Ninth Street Espresso which many of my barista friends (including those that work at my favorite coffee shop, Joe) speak of with such great reverence there's often a coffee glow in their cheeks. Ninth Street Espresso takes its coffee seriously, as evidenced by its menu which does not allow for sticky, gloppy, blended coffee drinks but, instead, sticks to the classics: espresso, cappuccino, latte. They only come in one size, so no "super grande iced mocha latte with a twist of vanilla"--this is coffee as philosophy, as a spiritual exercise. And, correspondingly, patrons of Ninth Street Espresso gather around the bar like worshippers at temple: there's a calmness in the air, a peacefulness and community cheer that's unusual in this fast-paced city. It doesn't hurt that the drinks are outstanding. The cappuccino, as shown here, is an artful marriage of frothy milk and deep, dark espresso. Normally, I put a packet of sugar in my cappuccino but the balance is so right-on here that such an act would be criminal. It's as if a cloud floated down to earth and landed in your cup--if you let go, the whole thing might float away. Working at Food Network has been a very happy experience thus far, but Ninth Street has made it that much happier. If you plan to judge Iron Chef or guest on 30 Minute Meals any time soon, don't miss Ninth Street on your way up. It'll make your day....
Don't Make A Mess-o of Your Espresso
The man didn't know what he was doing. I was at a Brooklyn coffee shop whose name is synonymous with donkey and I ordered an iced latte. The man (I'd call him a barista, but he clearly wasn't) took a glass and filled it with ice. And then--this was the crucial error--he pulled two watery flavorless shots of espresso which he poured on top of the ice. The ice melted a lot. Then he topped the whole thing with a splash of milk. It was insipid. The next day at my favorite coffee shop in America (including Seattle) I paid close attention to how the baristas at Joe make their iced lattes. Ice in the glass: check. Then they fill the glass almost to the top with milk. "Whoah," you might think, "there's so much milk. How can this taste like a latte?" The answer lies in the picture you see above: they pull a really strong shot. Not just a strong shot, an expert shot. It infuses the milk with magic coffee flavor and produces the best iced latte I can imagine. The secret is in the espresso. Lucky us, one of Joe's most prized baristas has a blog. Welcome to the world of Erin Meister and her blog Meet The Press Pot. I stole this post's image from a post in which Meister writes: "To say an espresso is good is sort of like saying a girl on the street is pretty: Every good shot of espresso and every pretty girl may share this or that characteristic, but if you were to line them all up, one hopes one's taste is varied enough that they would all be rather different piece by piece. Right?" She concludes: "So how does one train one's pupils to pull good espresso? By making them taste, taste, taste and taste again. This is a people-driven industry, and a taste-bud driven industry. And if there's no way of standardizing 'great' espresso, the least we can do, I guess, is create great baristas. One hopes." Let's hope the Meisters of the world outrun the donkeys. Or, at least, that more people learn how to pull a good shot of espresso. I know where I'm headed for my next iced latte!...
In Praise Of Simple Syrup
Coffee drinkers in summer do well to ice their drinks--an iced latte is my summer coffee drink of choice. Smart coffee shops (Joe in New York, Victrola and Vivace here in Seattle) understand that raw sugar doesn't dissolve in a cold drink. So iced latte drinkers are normally left with two unpleasant options: grainy sugar crystals up your straw or chemical sweetener (which dissolves better) but ruins a perfectly good coffee drink. Enter simple syrup. Equal parts water and sugar, my favorite coffee shops keep a tall glass bottle of it near the other sweetening options and for a cold coffee drink, nothing is better. Just a little drizzle and your drink is naturally sweetened without being grainy. Three cheers for simple syrup!...
