Another café review (and some zine action!)

I love cafés. They’re my happy place. So really, I can’t help that this is another café review. It’s for C1 Espresso, on High Street in Christchurch which, during my weekend spent trying out a possible vocation as a cowgirl, I managed to visit it twice. That’s how good it is. (And yes, you may have noticed that I like to only review cafes that I’ve already decided are superdooper cool – why would I bother wasting words on the dodgy ones?)

C1, just being cool

Like most of my favourite cafes, C1 does an excellent long black, the décor is funky and alternative (they fill the holes in their brick walls with lego, people!) and there’s a large range of fresh counter food options (I tend to be too impatient to order off the menu – but their menu options do look great). Although I had a brief Oh Noes! moment when I realised they didn't serve date scones, their tasty, baked-on-the-premises sweet or savoury muffins are more than adequate replacements (the spinach, feta and tomato relish one is especially good) (so good in fact that I ate it all before I remembered to take photos).

Lego-filled brick wall. For the win.

When I went to C1 in the afternoon for a hot Lemon, Honey and Ginger drink, I brought along an issue of a very charming zine, Story To…Pod People (Issue Two) which I bought earlier that morning at a groovy handmade, design-y shop (I’ve completely forgotten the name of it… fail), just off Litchfield Lane.

Story To’s collection of public-transport themed musings range in tone and in style from the amusing to the grotesque to the quaint to the grim. It’s interesting really worth trying to find a copy. Story To… is produced in Melbourne, and though it’s currently on hold, its creators are working on other interesting projects, so hopefully we should again receive more interesting compilations of words and pictures from them.

Esther xx

Cubans and Coffee

As mentioned in my post earlier this week (a not so subtle way to say: "look! I'm posting twice in a week!"), one of the things I was looking forward to in Wellington was the cafes. I'm not sure what it is, but Wellington has a ridiculous number of quirky, interesting cafes that produce fantastic coffee.

Because I haven't been here long enough to visit all the centrally located cafes, I'm not yet up to anointing any particular one with a "Best Coffee" award (give me another week though...). However, what I can say at this stage is that Fidel's cafe on Cuba Street is all kinds of awesome.

A nice start to a morning? A long black, date scone and The Dominion Post.

I'd say that was pretty damn nice.

So, why is Fidel's awsome?

Their long blacks. They're strong, not too long, the beans are never burnt, and the they're served hot enough to boil the inside of your mouth. So, they're pretty much perfect.

They produce excellent date scones. Oh yes they do. They're so damn good that I bother getting up early so I can ensure I get one (and, if it weren't for the similarly tasty (but very different) scones at Finc, I'd be prepared to declare them the best in Wellington).

There's a variety of inside/outside seating options - they have two (two!) different groovy courtyards!

And the staff are friendly. Always.

Mad props go to Fidel's.

Beess and co. café

After becoming quite lax with my posting (I encountered some major technical difficulties – I lost my clearly vital camera cord), I thought I should resume my blog activities with a post that fitted quite nicely with my recent state of laziness – lazy summer lunches.

Specifically, I’d like to write about one of my favourite Canberra cafés – Beess and co. at the Yarralumla shops. I’ve eaten both breakfasts and lunches at this fabulous place – and all have been pretty snazzy. But for some reason, (probably because you have to get up so early in the morning for breakfast), I've eaten a lot more lunches here. So a lunch review this is.

Back in the days when I was gainfully employed, I used to work in Deakin and really, the only benefit of my soul-crushing data entry job (except for the fact that it allowed me to pay giant central heating-bills… stupid Canberra winters) was that it positioned me to regularly buy lunch at Beess and co.

The first time I had one of their smoked salmon, avocado and salad sandwiches, with an olive oil vinaigrette, I was so impressed that I had to call my sister off my work phone (ok, another benefit) and tell her how I was blown away by the best sandwich I had ever had. She didn’t quite share in my amazement. Also, their long blacks are so good, that I used to wait til lunch to have my first coffee just so I could really appreciate their baristas' skills.

The amazing smoked salmon sandwich

Last week my fellow blogger, the charming Miss Grace and I decided to go to Beess and co. for an aforementioned lazy summer lunch. It was lovely, except I did see the CEO of my ex-work having a power lunch their with some board members. This was a little awkward so Grace and ate inside rather than under the trees (this was actually quite nice because it was air-conditioned inside).

For lunch Grace had the vegetarian lasagne – which she reviewed as quite a tasty dish. I branched out from smoked salmon sandwiches and ordered the coconut prawn and soba noodle salad. The prawns and salad were fantastic, though I thought the salad dressing could have been a little sweeter.

Vegetarian Lasagne

Coconut cream prawns and soba noodle salad

I have a lot of time for Beess and co. and hope that they can continue to be a quality urban café. At mine and Grace's lunch, as ever, the table service was prompt and friendly and the coffee fantastic. The prices, while not extraordinarily cheap, are really quite reasonable. It's often quite busy at lunch there, so it pays to book - this way you can also reserve one of the many tables that are located under some enormous leafy trees which provide some nice dappled shade.

xx Esther