Isn't This a Cute Coffee Shop? Let's Go In!

Look at this picture from a cute, hip coffee shop in a newly-gentrified neighbourhood:

Cute, no? That's two espressos and a caramel brownie right there. 

The place had a children's corner where all the newly-moved-in hipsters could let their kids play with educational toys and read educational books while they had their coffees and cakes and paninis made with natural, locally-sourced, organic ingredients and only the best roasted beans.

The brownie was good. 

The coffee though...what can one say about the coffee?

How about: OMIGOD THIS WAS THE WORST COFFEE I EVER HAD!

Seriously, it was disgusting. Neither of us could drink it. It tasted like when you accidentally put Taster's Choice coffee into a stovetop espresso machine (yes, this has happened to me). In fact, it tasted worse than Taster's Choice instant coffee.

This was surprising since the entire coffee-making process was automated. They had a fully automatic push-button espresso machine. The grinder and doser were automated, grinding and dosing out the exact amount of coffee for a single shot at the push of a button. 

The only variables were the beans and the tamping. They over-tamped the coffee, but that couldn't explain the awfulness of the stuff. No, the awfulness had to have come from the beans or the grind. My guess is that the beans were bad/stale, and the grind was too coarse. 

But that doesn't really matter, does it? Because the fact remained that we paid $5 for undrinkable espressos.

In which we eat out with Irene

The beauty of the holidays is that you can go out for lunch to places that aren't the place next to your office.  I mean, that panini place is awesome, but I've had enough chicken-and-goat-cheese sandwiches.  

The other awesome thing about the holidays is that I actually get to see Irene in person instead of over dodgy cellphone connections.  

My parents had the day off and offered to take care of The Toddler while my Spousal Unit and I did some last-minute Xmas shopping and went out for lunch.  The last minute shopping went very badly:  there was a line-up in the bookstore that made us despair and leave; the liquor store was so packed, we couldn't find anything; and we totally forgot what we went into the fancy soap store for.  But we had a nice lunch at Gordon Ramsey's rotisserie!

On the table, there were pickles.  Instead of bread, you get pickles.  I didn't have any, but Spousal Unit said they were really good: crunchy, not too salty, not too vinegary.

Then we had our mains.  Spousal Unit had a 1/4 white meat rotisserie chicken with fries and coleslaw and I had tourtière.  Spousal Unit ate the salad that came with my tourtière and I had his fries.  They were damned good fries and it was a damned good tourtière.  It had cherries in it!

Throughout the meal, we kept seeing these slices of lemon meringue pie passing us, so we ordered lemon meringue pie for dessert.  Damned that was good!  The lemon part was a thick, creamy lemon curd.  I don't think I've ever had such a good lemon meringue pie.  This is like the time I was in Florida and had key lime pie at this upscale restaurant and then I could never have key lime pie ever again.  

The End of The Meal

After our lunch, we went next door to meet Irene for a coffee at Juliette et Chocolat.  We had a cappuccinos and a brownie ("Le Balsamico").  Again:  Damned that was good!  

Irene and I both took pictures of the cups.  Guess whose picture is whose.

Cappucino Study

I took a picture of cups.