….you discover good coffee less than a block away from your office.
Somehow or another, for the past two years I totally missed that there was decent coffee available near my work. The bar at DC’s Hotel Hive is a trendy spot for drinks, but I had not realized it also has an espresso maker going from 7am onward every day. Featuring beans from Vigilante Coffee, it’s admittedly not the best-made cup ever. However, the proximity and the quality of the beans carry the day.
Continue readingThirty five years ago when I arrived at my dorm for freshman year of college, I found out that I had been assigned a single room in a suite of six guys. When I opened the door I was disappointed to find that one of the other five had already claimed the room. Since I was the last one to arrive, I ended up sharing a double bedroom in the suite with a guy named Andy.
Two things immediately caught my eye when I walked in: Andy had a lot of soccer posters, mainly of Juventus – this was back when being a fan of European football in the US took a lot of work – and he had brought a stereo, which in that day and age meant a small tower of components. Andy had a lot of records, which included the entire catalog of the Beatles.
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Today marks exactly one year since I started this wee little mediocrity. I’ve enjoyed it far more than I thought I would, and hope I can manage to keep this going for a while. Thank yous all around, especially to my good friend who gave me the idea and encouragement to start this; to the people who take the time to read my stuff regularly or occasionally or whenever and however they stumble upon it; to the kindhearted folks who give me feedback and encouragement; to my family, for indulging my coffee obsession and compulsion to share about it; and even to the entities (human or otherwise) who trap on the consecutive usage of the letters see-bee-dee and mistake me for a cannabinoid seller who can do all kinds of amazing things with just a little professional help on my search engine optimization. Here’s to many more great coffees, discoveries of wonderful cafes and the fine people who run them, new travels, and continued appreciation that taste is a very subjective thing and at the end of the day your mileage may vary.
this kind of looks like a heart, right?
Last fall I used this platform to whine about the absence of decent coffee at the Delaware beaches, a minirant which ended ” One of these days I’m going to find the holy grail, a decent espresso at the Delaware beaches, and then I’m never going to leave.”
Well, it looks like I may need to call a real estate agent.
Continue readingSome days you hear a song you haven’t heard in ages and are reminded of how much you love it.
Today was one of those days.
If you don’t know it, this one may sound like an odd, loud mess at first. Stick with it. Perfect example of a song that should never be covered by anyone else because the original band nailed it. Listen to it 21x in a row and I bet you’ll agree.
Now that we’ve finished the series on affogato at gelato/specialty coffee shops in the DC area, a few thoughts on ways you can try it at home.
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see my ‘affogato wars of DC‘ post
Our final stop on our tour of DC gelato/specialty coffee shops is the Bethesda, MD outlet of Dolcezza. An area chain that is up to nine locations, including inside the Hirschorn Museum at the Smithsonian, they are noted for producing their own very high quality gelato (they use terms like crafted and artisanal quite a bit), and fitting out their shops beautifully. The Bethesda shop is a spot I know quite well, as for the past two years it’s been the nearest place to home to get a decent espresso.
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see my ‘affogato wars of DC‘ post
Before I start on any details, the name. The name! Gelateria, the Italian name for an ice cream shop, is spelled with one L, derivating from the word gelato. I get what they’re doing here, as the picture above clearly shows – and good on them for trying to make the coffee as important as the gelato, but the pedant in me has an awfully hard time getting past it (kind of like my issues with the kids on my lawn).
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