Category: coffee

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Coffee at Caffé Veneto

Having had some good coffee at the Portivo Lounge in Gloucester I have for a while been meaning to try out the Pinto Lounge in Banbury. Having some time for lunch, I took a walk down to the centre of Banbury to have a look at the Pinto Lounge and see if it was a good place to have something to eat. Having had a look over the menu, I wasn’t that inspired, not that there was an issue with the menu, just that there didn’t seem to be anything that really took me. Maybe another time…

Having a quick wander around the area, I found the Caffé Veneto, this is an independent coffee shop with an continental feel to it, that only opened in April 2014.

Caffé Veneto

Entering the place you immediately feel that this is a comfortable environment for drinking coffee. There is the bar, but unless you are taking away, then sit at a table and your order will be taken and presented at your table. This is quite an Italian thing, whenever I was in Italy I would often order coffee whilst sitting in a café and was waited upon. The concept of ordering from a barista and then waiting for your coffee, is much more an American way of ordering coffee. The decor is not very traditional Italian, but has wooden floors, round tables and chairs and a range of coffee sacks attached to the walls. It’s a calming environment, and sitting down you feel relaxed and comfortable. Service was friendly and efficient and you were made to feel very welcome.

Sat at the table I looked over the menu, there isn’t a huge amount of choice, a range of sandwiches, panini, lasagne and salad.

I quite liked the idea of a salad, so I went with the chicken caesar salad, along with an espresso.

Espresso

I enjoyed the espresso, but I am not really a fan of drinking out of, what is basically, a shot glass. Glass conducts heat really well, so it’s not easy to lift and drink a hot coffee. Despite that it was a really good coffee, and the little biscotti was a nice touch.

The salad was good, nice plate of cos lettuce, chicken and olives. The dressing was tasty, just the right amount, not too much and not too little either.

Chicken Caesar Salad

Overall I was pleased with the food, the service and the ambience. I think they should reflect on their menu and possibly add more options for lunch, but I may be missing the point, it is first and foremost a place for coffee, rather than a place for lunch.

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Down at the Portivo Lounge

Portivo Lounge

The last time I went to the Portivo Lounge on the quayside at Gloucester I sat outside, on a more recent visit, we sat inside and I was able to appreciate the internal decor. Every Lounge branch is different, unlike other chains where they work hard to ensure that all their branches look alike. The concept behind the interior is to reflect the location in the decor. As the Portivo Lounge is by the docks, they have gone with a maritime theme, which works quite well. The lighting for example appears to be have been taken from the corridors of a large ship (or a submarine). The furniture across the Lounge is all very different, reclaimed probably, but comfortable. I did like the look, it was calm and comfortable and it is certainly somewhere, where you could sit for a while chatting with friends, or working on something.

As for the food and the coffee, I did enjoy my coffee and though you order at the bar, they at least bring it to your table, rather than waiting around for it to be made and then spilt as you try and find somewhere to sit. I’ve not eaten at Portivo Lounge, and I probably won’t have the chance now, but the food did look good as it was taken out to other people.

The place appears quite popular, very full at lunchtimes, and even mid afternoon, when we were there it was buzzing, so it must be doing something right.

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The Green Coffee Machine in Cheltenham

The Green Coffee Machine

A colleague at work had recommended that I visit The Green Coffee Machine, an independent coffee place quite close to Cheltenham Railway Station. I had seen it a fair few times as I travelled to and from work by train, but until recently had never had the chance or the time to pop in.

I much prefer independent coffee shops to the high street chains, I find that they have more personality, the staff care about the coffee and the food is usually better and more tasty.

Having arrived much earlier into Cheltenham than I normally do, I took the opportunity to give The Green Coffee Machine a try. I was pleased to find that it opened early, it was 7:45 which isn’t that early, but I know other places that don’t open until 9:00am or even later. I was on the Gloucester Road in Bristol the other morning and I wanted a coffee, the local independents were closed, so I had to go to Costa for a coffee. The other morning in Gloucester I was going to grab a quick espresso at the Portivo Lounge in the Quays, but it didn’t open until 9am. So to be honest I was expecting The Green Coffee Machine to be closed, so was pleased to find it was open.

I received a friendly greeting and I ordered a flat white and some toast. I had considered ordering an Americano, which is usually my way of comparing coffee from different places, but I really felt like drinking a flat white. What was really nice was after ordering I didn’t need to wait around, I was told I could sit down and my coffee and toast would be brought to my table.

Sitting down I was able to take in the asthetics and design of the environment. It’s quite eclectic in terms of furnishing and decoration. It in my mind mashes together two different styles that doesn’t quite work. There is a design asthetic that takes slate with (usually lime green) plastic. If you have ever been to the Tea Monkey in Bath you will know what I am talking about and it works quite well, modern, clean and ever so slightly futuristic. The other design style is what you find in somewhere like Coffee#1, wooden floors, reclaimed wooden furniture, comfortable relaxing sofas (preferably weathered leather). What The Green Coffee Machine has done has mashed those two styles together, so you have the modern fresh slate floor complete with lime green plastic chairs, alongside really nice leather Chesterfield sofas and weirdly cable drums as tables.

The Green Coffee Machine

As a result, for me, it doesn’t work. I think a slate and lime green look would have worked really well, likewise a retro wooden design would have worked equally well.

They are not alone in mashing styles together, Portivo Lounge in the Gloucester Quays has done something similar, wooden inside, and green (and also orange) plastic chairs outside. That doesn’t work either!

So what about the real stuff, the main reason for going, the coffee?

Flat White at The Green Coffee Machine

Well I really enjoyed the Flat White, it was great coffee and the milk was exactly the right consistency, not too foamy and not too milky. There was no feather, but let’s be honest that’s just trying to be flash. I really enjoyed the coffee and it tasted of coffee.

Toast at The Green Coffee Machine

The toast, though nice and hot, with generous portions of butter and jam (and no little packs of butter either, which I do prefer) I was slightly disappointed that they were using a standard loaf of Hovis. They had just bought it from the Tesco next door! Okay, so toast is toast, but some proper artisan bread would have been so much more preferable than sliced bread from the supermarket. It looked like they were using rustic French bread on the menu, so not totally out of the question. In a traditional British cafe (as in caff) you expect them to use sliced bread, but in a place like The Green Coffee Machine I had expectations, especially as it was Cheltenham, that they would use proper bread.

Overall I did quite like the atmosphere, the service was excellent, the coffee was great, if you don’t mind a slighty confused design and decor and avoid the toast, then it’s a really nice place to spend time drinking coffee.

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Portivo Lounge

A new cafe has opened in the Gloucester Docks and it’s rather nice.

Portivo Lounge

I really liked the design of the place. They have taken notice of the building they are in and its location in the docks. The interior, fixtures and fittings reflect that. It’s calming and relaxing. Having said all that I am not sure about the bright orange and lime green chairs outside…

Now I’ve only had coffee and a pastry, but both were very good. The double espresso was strong and smooth, the pain au chocolate was fresh and flaky. What I did like was, I was able to have a glass of iced water with my espresso.

I am not sure which coffee they are using, there were no signs for Illy or Lavazza that you sometimes see at places like this. I did enjoy it and the next time I go I might try an Americano as a taste comparison.

The service was also excellent, well with one minor exception. The welcome and service was friendly, calm and professional. The minor exception was the “keenness” of one member of staff to clear our table. We hadn’t finished our drinks or food, but she wanted to clear some of our cups and plates. Yes this is useful if you are ordering more food and drinks, but we were nearing the end of our drinks. What it felt like was that what she actually wanted was either for us to go… or they had run out of cups in the cafe! As a result we felt rushed and in the way. For me the reason I go to a cafe to drink coffee, is for the whole calm experience, a chance to drink, think, chat and reflect. It has to be said this was a really minor point and the rest of the service was excellent.

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Frenetic Coffee

Caffe Nero

I have written before on this blog about how much I enjoy drinking coffee at Caffe Nero. There are a few reasons for this, for example, the coffee is nice and consistent. I have found that when you buy an Americano in Birmingham it is a similar almost identical experience to an Americano in London.

However recently I realised that there was another reason why if given the choice I will choose Caffe Nero over any other major coffee chain.

I was pleased to find out that Caffe Nero had opened a branch in Weston-super-Mare, we had only just got a Costa on the High Street and it was nice to have a choice, especially after my favourite local independent coffee shop had closed and had been converted into a kebab shop!

Recently I was in Weston for a while, as one of my children attended a party on the pier and needed to kill some time. So I thought to myself, aha, grab a coffee at Caffe Nero, use their free wifi and get some stuff done.

I walked on over to Caffe Nero and joined the queue, well there was one person in front of me, so hardly a queue. As I waited, I looked over the cakes and biscuits, convincing myself that, yes they did look very nice, but no you didn’t need any of them. I was then served and the staff acted as though they had drunk eight espresso coffees. They were acting “busy”, jumping around each other, almost running, which when you consider the average size of a coffee counter takes some doing. They were shouting at each other about what to do and what my order was… a short Americano with cold skimmed milk on the side.

My first reaction was they were acting like this as there must be a huge queue behind me, one that must have crept up as I waited. I turned around and saw, that, there was no one. I was the only person at the counter, but here was three staff frenetically, frantically, hyperactively making me my coffee, shouting out as they did, as though they needed to do it really quickly as there was a huge number to make and to reduce the waiting time… checked again, no there was only me.

As I sat down at a table, got the laptop out and started to drink my coffee, I started to reflect. One of the reasons I realised why I really liked Caffe Nero was because of the calm ambience and atmosphere. As I drank my coffee the staff behind the counter continued to be hyperactive, shouting at each other orders, even though they were standing next to each other. It was noisy and distracting.

Yes I can see how such “behaviour” may be necessary in a fast moving establishment, such as at a railway station, where people want to grab a quick coffee and run to catch their train. However this was a high street coffee shop, a place where people want to catch their breath from the hustle and bustle of shopping, a moment of calmness and tranquillity as they drink their coffee and eat their sandwich or cake.

Well as I sat there in Caffe Nero in Weston-super-Mare that wasn’t what was happening. The frenetic, frantic and loud staff ruined the ambience and made the place feel like a fast food burger joint on a Friday night. Slight disclaimer, I don’t recall (if ever) I have been in a fast food burger joint on a Friday night so this comparison might be slightly unfair. As far as I know on a Friday night these burger joints might be calm tranquil places with violins playing. So just to rephrase, “and made the place feel like what I imagine a fast food burger joint on a Friday night feels like!”

As I tried to enjoy the coffee and relax, I found the frenetic activity and loud voices of the staff to be totally distracting and annoying. As a result I left early and certainly did not buy a second cup of coffee.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the coffee, but I don’t go to places like Caffe Nero just for the coffee, it’s also the ambience the atmosphere. This branch had great coffee, the decor and furniture was nice, what let the place down were the hyerpactive staff. Training needs to be so much more than just about how to make coffee.

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My kind of Aero

Anyone fancy a coffee Aero?

coffee Aero

When I was a kid there were lots of coffee flavoured chocolate bars and treats. You may remember the coffee flavoured Walnut Whip?

coffee flavoured Walnut Whip

Of course in any box of chocolate there were always the coffee creams… which always seemed to be the ones that were left at the end, alongside the turkish delight.

So do you miss those chocolate coffee treats? Or are you glad that have been consigned to the dustbin of history?

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Breakfast, wasn’t much better…

I recently wrote about my dinner at the Holiday Inn Express and I wasn’t that impressed. You can imagine that my expectations about breakfast weren’t that high, but how badly can you cook a hotel breakfast. As it happens quite badly!

Even though I certainly don’t travel that much, I think you can tell a lot about the way a hotel cares about it’s guests by how it prepares and serves breakfast. When attending events and conferences I like to have a good breakfast so that I am set up for the day and it won’t matter so much if I miss lunch or dinner. To be honest it is also really quite nice when someone else cooks you breakfast.

Most hotels I have stayed at have the breakfast buffet model, you come down, queue, hand over your room number and help yourself. There are variations, in some places you get toast served to you at the table, at other hotels you can burn your own toast!

Once I was staying at the St David’s Hotel in Cardiff and having breakfast in your room didn’t cost anything extra! There was (at the time) no tray charge, usually hotels charge another £5 to bring you your breakfast. So I took advantage and it was a really nice breakfast, still warm too!

Attending meetings in London, I stayed at the Ambassadors hotel in Bloomsbury London a few times I was always impressed with their service and food. The first time I had breakfast, though there was an element of help yourself, if you wanted hot food, you placed your order with the waiting staff and they served you at your table. The breakfast was also very different to your typical full English breakfast.

Breakfast at Ambassadors hotel in Bloomsbury

Not so sure about the lettuce, but the rest of the breakfast was cooked to perfection and tasted delicious. They used “proper” sausages that had been grilled and not deep fried. Too often when eating breakfast the sausages have been cooked in a deep fat fryer! The breakfast I had at Bloomsbury was so very different and was delicious. This was so much more civilised than trying to fight with others around the buffet table.

One piece of advice I would give is don’t leave it too late in going to breakfast, there are two key reasons. Firstly the food is not only fresher and hasn’t spent ages under the heat lamp or in an oven. Secondly, there are usually a lot less people. The other piece of advice I would give about what time to go to breakfast is that people usually go on the hour or half-hour. Most people will say let’s have breakfast at 8:00 or 7:30, no one every says 7:48. Of course what this means is that there are large crowds, and so long queues, just after 8:00. Arriving twelve minutes before means that the 7:30 rush is over and you get not only much better service from the staff, but the experience doesn’t feel rushed and hectic.

One disappointment about the breakfast buffet are the eggs, they have usually been under a heat lamp or on a hot plate. As a result they can be dry and overcooked. I personally prefer my eggs to be freshly cooked, so nine times out of ten I ask for poached eggs, these are cooked to order, so though I have to wait, I get freshly cooked eggs.

As you might expect I am virtually always disappointed with the coffee at breakfast, so much so, that more often than not I will have tea instead!

So what about the breakfast at Holiday Inn Express in Burnley? When I arrived for breakfast, I could just walk in, no checking by staff. Probably because they were dealing with the smoke from the burning toast… I wasn’t that enamoured with the breakfast, the hot buffet was very limited, sausages, scrambled egg and baked beans; that was it, no other choices and certainly no possibility of a freshly cooked poached egg! You could also have fruit and yoghurt, as well as cereal. There were croissants and you could make your own toast. The coffee was from a machine (using instant) so I had tea.

However this isn’t the worse cooked breakfast I have had (it came close though), the worst was at a Travel Lodge in central London. So bad that on the second morning, I went out to get breakfast.

So a rather disappointing breakfast all in all.

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Single Espresso please

Single Espresso please

More and more I have been disappointed with places that sell coffee that can’t get the simple Americano right. It’s not difficult is it, just take some espresso coffee and add some hot water.

I think part of the issue is I quite like a strong Americano, but don’t want to pay for an extra shot, so I ask for less water, doesn’t always quite work. Also the other issue with have too much water, is it is quite difficult to drink or carry a cup filled to the brim without spilling it. Or am I just clumsy?

As a result I have moved much more over to drinking espresso, sometimes a single, usually a double.