We have here just opened, this week, a Cafe Nero. Why? We already have a Costa and a very good independent. Who are these people who can spend so much time, and so much money on overpriced coffee? Starbucks - when I break my journey at Manchester Piccadilly I used to pop in to them before braving The Hell that is The Metro to Bury. What a load of tasteless foam! Brighton station has a very good coffee stall, £1.20 for a really good cup of regular strong.
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The "restaurant" in our local Debenhams is the site of the execution of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. It was the Bull's Head in those days. Stafford (the king-maker) led a large revolt against his lord, King Richard III in 1483. The revolt failed and he got the chop. People go in hope of catching sight of a ghostly lady said to walk through the restaurant. I might go ghost hunting there but I would not go for the coffee.Originally posted by arancie33 View PostComment
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The chains are all dreadful and only to be used in an absolute emergency. The coffee is weak and tasteless, the crockery ridiculously heavy whilst the staff treat you as if you are a distraction from the job they are paid to do.
Some of my earliest memories are of going into Manchester with my mother at the age of 5 or 6 (this is in the days when trolley buses still ran there) and going for coffee at the Kardomah or a store called Affleck & Brown. A glass cup and saucer were the height of chic in those days.Comment
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No one yet mentioned the old Kenco Coffee Houses ...?
These used to be frequently paired with a Ceylon Tea Centre nearby, which not only sold a huge selection of teas. but provided delicious salads, whereby one could help oneself to as much as one's greed dictated. Then again I've always preferred a nice big mug of P G Tips, anyway.
The only Kardomah that I remember was a very large Indian Restaurant in Glasgow.Comment
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I, too, don't go in for, or understand, these strange codes of lattes or whatever. The standard order for SWMBO and myself is 'Two large black coffees, one with cold milk, please'. It's never failed yet (So they can understand English if they want to.)
Something that annoys me is in the places where you get the coffee in a cardboard cup (already a black mark for them) and they know you are going to drink it on their premises and not have to carry it across the town, they still put a ridiculous plastic lid on, which you have to immediately discard to drink the contents! I thought these progressives were meant to be saving the planet from such needless waste.
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There is an excellent Kardomah coffee house in Swansea, which has been going for over 50 years. It replaced an earlier Kardomah which was destroyed in the wartime bombing of Swansea - Dylan Thomas used to go there a lot and refers to it in the story Return Journey as having been 'razed to the snow'.Originally posted by Vile Consort View PostComment
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My money's on the opening of that new indie bookshop that you mentioned a while back, Anna - as soon as an area gets a new indie bookshop, the kaffee klatschen emerge, like mushrooms, overnightOriginally posted by Anna View Post
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Doea anyone else lament the demise of cafe au lait? I don't want a latte. When I want it, I simply want a hot cup of coffee made mainly with milk.
Lattes have improved but for a long time they were just scalded milk in the scorched goo steamed out from burnt grounds.
The last straw with a formerly favourite cinema - the Curzon Soho - was asking:
I was given a 3 and a half inch paper cup, 2 inches of froth on top of the liquid coffee. And as she put it down on the counter before me, these were her very words:May I have a latte with no froth to take into the film, please?
That's the best I can do.Comment
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Have you asked for a Flat White?Originally posted by hackneyvi View Post
In the modern nomenclature, that does it for me. No foam. Just warmed milk into your coffee. Ask them to make it not too hot. Nine times out of ten, these places make the coffee far too hot - as you say, scalded and scorched. Nothing ****s the taste of coffee like overheating it - it's also dangerous on the tongue. I ask for the milk 'warm, not hot' - it's usually just right.
As they say south of the Channel: 'café bouilli: café foutu'"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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... extraordinary, ain't it? that to get a decent corffee one has to learn to mangle several languages...
At different times of day I require a doppio espresso - a noisette - a cortado - a corretto...Comment
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Precioso? Moi?!Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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You must have been glad that the CPS decided not to prosecute...Originally posted by vinteuil View Post... well, sometimes I prefer a galão...
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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Looks like trouble in my shopping street. We're not too keen on chains here ...
. I hadn't noticed it had opened - where's me banner
It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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