Chinese Broccoli

So I went out of town for eight days and as I was walking home from the subway last night, I thought, hmm, I wonder what opened or closed while I was out of town? Because even though eight days is not very long, I always find something has changed when I leave my city for a little while. And yes, something had. There was a brand new pawnshop in my neighbourhood, next to the one that opened a few months ago. But the really good news was there is also a new cafe! (Sadly not in my neighbourhood, but the need for pawnshops here clearly demands a lot of real estate.)

Dark Horse coffee, which my friend Amber had been mumbling to me about the opening of for a few months, finally arrived at Queen and Broadview. It is awesome. I am happy. All year I have been wondering why someone had not opened a high-end espresso place in Toronto in a sunny room with a huge wooden communal table to read the newspaper at. Ed and Deanna did this (the table looks like they built it out of railroad trestle actually, which is awesome!) Okay so the wireless internet isn't working yet. And they have pendant lamps, which give me butt shivery memories of Starbucks decor. But EVERYTHING ELSE IS GREAT, especially the coffee, and perhaps you can tell that I'm on my third as I write this? Go see them, if you haven't already. I was in here fifteen minutes and already ran into a friend, so this is a good sign indeed.

And let's not forget The Common which actually opened up near me and west of Yonge Street last month, and is lovely and cozy and also run by an Ed and is making me very happy on cold days that are not Wednesday when he is closed. Hooray coffee culture finally coming to Toronto! Life ist gut!

But the real reason for this posting is that Oliver asked me if I was going to blog about all the coffee I drank in New York and Massachusetts. Which I should and I will, but only after I save my car from the parking authorities and rent a movie to show at tonight's Pontiac Quarterly.

Posted by liz at 01:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Rochester Amtrak station]
"It's so much cheaper to go to the movies in Ecuador than here. Here it's six dollars but at home it's only four."

[Lake Shore Limited]
"Ladies and gentlemen, someone has found a cell phone in the train and they have brought it to me. If you could please check your purses and pockets and see if you do not have your cell phone, if you took your cell phone with you when you left your house last night, or this morning, or this afternoon, and do not have it anymore, you should come see me in the lounge car and you can describe it to me and if you describe it correctly I will give you this cell phone. To anyone thinking about perpetrating that this is their cell phone when they never had a cell phone to begin with, do not do that."

[Rao's Coffee, Amherst, Mass]
"No, I'm telling you. The guy who played Colombo killed his wife."

[Amherst Coffee]
"You know how the planes are in the East. They're like buses. They're dirty. I don't even know where Islip is. For all I know it's near Canada."

[Outside "Soup-Er Bowl" restaurant, Amherst, Mass]
"See, it's a joke on the name, because it's soup and they serve it to you in bowls."

Posted by liz at 06:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Green & Black's Maya Gold Organic Hot Chocolate Drink
A fine entry in the ongoing quest for adequately spicy faux-Aztec-Incan-Mayan-Mexican cocoa mixes. The only really crap thing about this hot chocolate is that pretty much almost nothing comes in a cannister of it. It says 7 servings per container, and that's if you're a spoon-measuring stickler. This might be tied with the Lake Champlain brand, but really, I'll need a taste-off for that. TASTE-OFF!

StoryTime Hot Chocolate: Chocolate Raspberry
This suspiciously low-priced "fancy" cocoa from the Brattleboro Food Co-op was too tempting to resist — but it turns out I should have done just that. Good flavour, a good balance of raspberry — but a granular, kind of cloying sugary quality to it that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. A cloying, granular, sugary bad taste. I mean, it's not lousy or anything. But I could do better. Life is short.

Swiss Miss Chocolate Sensation
Can I say I liked this better than the Storytime? Because I did. It's possible these little perforatedly-attached-to-one-another foil packets are infused with a little something extra — memories of fall camping, or perhaps a gas station — but this double-rich blend actually is more chocolatey than even most of the mid-brow cocoas I keep on hand. Could it be that perfect union with spray whipped cream that does the trick? Three out of four stars, in a pinch!

p.s. when are you coming over?

Posted by liz at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)