Intelligentsia Update

The Pasadena Intelligentsia is going to serve food!  At least according to LA Eater.  I think that's a great idea!  Of course, only if the food is going to be good.  The pastry stuff they serve at the Silver Lake Intelligentsia is pretty blah.  And often stale.

Talking about Intelligentsia, I finally got to try their Venice Beach location.  Having been a regular at the Silver Lake location, the VB location seemed very strange.  Totally different feel and decor, which was all wood and high, exposed pipes ceiling aesthetics.  The pastry counter was also much bigger and the pastries looked really good (didn't get a chance to try any :( ).  The crowd was very different too.  No Hipsters.  Couldn't identify any writers.  Very dressed up in that 90210 way.  And every fifth person seemed to have those bulky SLR pro cameras around their neck (girls too).  Was it Bring Your Camera To Work Day?  The only thing the two locations had in common was their bathrooms — totally out of paper towels.  Who had the better cappuccino?  I'm going to have to say Venice Beach.  I think that was the best cappuccino I've ever had.

More Java

Just wanted to add one last item to the cafe landscape. In the SGV, you can find Vietnamese cafes which have an atmosphere all their own. The clientele is almost exclusively Vietnamese and male. You'll find people playing cards and mahjong. Lots of TV and computer screens, mostly for online gambling. Cigarette smoke. At each table, you'll find forms to play lotto. The bathrooms aren't as clean as you'd like. And you can order really good Vietnamese iced coffee.

The Java Dance

Coming to LA, I was a little surprised that it was mostly a land of Starbucks and The Coffee Bean. If you want to get a good cup of coffee, you kinda have to work at it. Here's some of the places we like.

Intelligentsia
3922 West Sunset Boulevard

Located in Silver Lake, it's one of our favorite places. It would be our favorite place if it wasn't a twenty minute drive. If the parking situation wasn't pretty bad. If they weren't always so crowded. If they didn't close so early. What we do like is that the coffee is individually made in a Clover machine. I'd pass on the teas, though. And I didn't really like their hot chocolate, either. But you can pick up a cute t-shirt here.

There's also a great cheese shop next door that has sandwiches, so you can get a bite, sit outside Intelligentsia with a cup, and enjoy a sunny day.

LA Mill
1636 Silver Lake Boulevard

Also in Silver Lake. Great coffee. I actually had a cup with no sugar, no milk. Only, it's really a restaurant and no one can figure out if you can sit down with just a cuppa. (The food is okay but pricey.) The atmosphere is a wee bit formal and at least one person has told me they're too intimidated to go in. They do have their own parking.

Groundwork
Several locations: we always go to the one at 1501 N. Cahuenga Boulevard

For us, a Sunday morning isn't a Sunday morning without a trip to the Hollywood farmers market and then a relaxing cup of coffee at Groundwork. The atmosphere isn't much, the service can be slow and frustrated, but the coffee is good and very cheap. Unfortunately, if you get just the regular coffee, it's not individually brewed. There's a table with a selection of coffees in big containers that you choose from. In the mornings, that's okay. The coffee is fresh. But in the late afternoons, the coffee isn't so fresh... The selections are nice though. I like the Angel blend, which is organic, and the Viennese Melange.

(I guess Groundwork is a little upset about Clover being bought out by Starbucks because they threw out all their Clover machines and now they have a drip system for their more expensive coffees. They even had a sign on their drip station that read something like, "This is our new Clover!" Only, I think it was something a bit more angrier.)

Aroma Coffee
4360 Tujunga Ave (Studio City)

One of our favorite cafes. Staff is friendly, good food, lovely outdoor place, good coffee, iced tea, lemonade. Just a great place to hang out. We'd love to make this our local. Oh -- if you go, check out the Portrait of a Bookstore which is right next door. Great books and great gifts. I got a bag made totally from buttons there. Buttons.



Now the thing about most coffee shops and cafes is that the atmosphere is pretty blah. If you want atmosphere, we're finding you have to go to Koreatown. Yup, Koreatown. Of course they make you pay for the atmosphere: mediocre coffees and overly sweet teas cost around $6.00 - $7.00. But where else can you have coffee in a building that looks like a ship? I'm talking about Cafe Jack.

Coffee, tea, live music, waiting staff in sailors' uniforms. Hey!

Another Koreatown cafe we liked was Cake Salon Bosco. Totally different to Cafe Jack. Stylish and quiet, they offer good fluffy confections like the scrumptious sweet potato cake.

And we also liked Heyri, mostly because of their outdoor space, which is pretty big for L.A. Large tables, pretty lights, palm trees, and on cold nights, wood-burning stoves dotted everywhere. They even provide red blankets if the stoves and heat lamps don't do it for you. We had hazelnut latte and a strawberry cake, both pretty good. One thing I found unusual for a late-night Koreatown joint was the median age of their clientele. There were just as many older Koreans, both women and men, as young high school kids.


Cafe Jack
508 S Western Ave

Cake Salon Bosco
3465 W 6th St Ste 80

Heyri
755 S Hobart Blvd

The Tunnel of Love

I'm talking about the McDonald's at Sunset and Crescent, near Laurel Canyon. It's located at a particularly torturous strip mall. To get to the McDonald's drive-thru, you have to enter a dark, narrow tunnel and drive through a maze. My husband, the Grumpy Dachshund, had christened it "The Tunnel of Love" and was always saying, "We should try out the Tunnel of Love."

Well, this morning, we finally did it. Our incentive? A flyer with tons of coupons. We went for breakfast because it's about the only thing at McDonald's we can eat without blanching. I'm still a great fan of the hash browns. (I also loved the cherry pies -- are they still around on President's Day?) With the coupons, we got

1 Cinnamon Melt
1 Egg McMuffin
1 Sausage Egg McMuffin
1 Hash Brown
1 Medium Premium Roast Coffee

all for $5.70! That's a lot of food for TV Kitty & Grumpy Dachshund -- we're still digesting.

Here's how I rate the experience.

Tunnel of Love: very claustrophobic.

Service: friendly but faulty -- gave us the wrong change but chased us down to get us the right change; cash register didn't work so we had to wait five minutes and then reorder everything.

Food:

Cinnamon Melt had the prerequisite sweetness and goo but the bread was awfully dry (it was more like a Monkey Bread, really)

Egg McMuffin and Sausage Egg McMuffin were as good as always

Hash Brown was fabulously brown and crispy

Premium Roast Coffee was too bitter and flaccid -- I don't think Starbuck's has anything to really worry about. It was strong, though. Still have a buzz. Probably why I'm bloggin'.

Total experience? We're Luvin' It.