pistachio Archives - Time for a coffee

August 17, 2026August 17, 2026

Double Pistachio

I do enjoy walking around Portishead Marina, it’s a lovely place. There are quite a few places to get food and drink. Reality is that I don’t go to many of these, as lots of other people like the marina too, and a lot of places are very busy. I also seem to be there in the afternoon, so too late for lunch and too early for dinner.

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon in August, so I was expecting places to be very busy, however when I got to Cafe Mokoko I was pleasantly surprised that it was busy, but not too busy, no queues.

I ordered a pistachio oat latte and a pistachio ganache pastry. So, I had one drink and one pastry and even I was a little surprised that the total cost was £9.90. So nearly ten pounds. I know it sounds like an old man complaint, but it did feel a little steep to pay nearly ten pounds for essentially a coffee and a snack!

I am guessing that I have been spoilt with the Three+ app where I was getting £1 coffees from Caffé Nero for the last couple of years. When it was sunny I would often have a pistachio latte, so having to pay full prices was unusual.

I went with the oat version of the latte as I don’t normally have milk in my coffee, and I rarely have milk with cereal either. It was almost an impulse decision to go with the oat milk version, I think it was partly as it was on the sign next to the till.

I did enjoy the latte. I could tell it was made from oat milk, but it worked. There was a good taste of pistachio, and it wasn’t too sweet either. Nice and cold as well. Certainly, would have this again, on another visit to Cafe Mokoko.

The pastry was a croissant style pastry filled with pistachio ganache.

I did think this might be too sweet and sickly, but actually it worked well. The pistachio ganache was not too sweet and was absolutely lovely The combination of flaky croissant style bread with the soft flavourful ganache was perfect.

This was a lovely drink and pasty. Often Cafe Mokoko can be really packed and busy, but today it was just about right, there was a lovely atmosphere. They have outside seating, but I chose to sit inside (it was cooler) and had lovely views of the marina. I will be going back there again.

July 31, 2026

Mozzarella, tomato and pistachio salad

This was a quick and simple salad I made. I took some Dolce Romana lettuce leaves and some sliced heritage tomatoes. I then added some ripped mozzarella before topping with pistachio nuts. I dressed the salad with olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper.

I do like the Dolce Romana lettuce from Marks and Spencers, it has a great flavour and texture. It has echoes of romaine lettuce, but has more crunch and is sweeter. I quite like nuts in my salads, these were ready shelled pistachio nuts.

July 29, 2026

Iced Pistachio Latte

It was a hot summer’s day, and I had a special offer for Caffé Nero. I went with an iced pistachio latte.

This is pistachio syrup, milk, ice, and coffee.

A nice refreshing drink on a hot sunny day.

January 3, 2026

Mokoko Mortadella Sandwich

It was a nice sunny day, so I headed to Portishead to have a walk around the marina and I also stopped for coffee.

I went for a coffee and a sandwich at the Mokoko Bakery. I went for a flat white and an interesting mortadella, pistachio, and mozzarella focaccia sandwich.

Though I have had cakes and pastries from the Mokoko Bakery, however this was my first sandwich from the bakery.

It was an interesting sandwich, with thin slices of mortadella, fresh mozzarella, and some chopped pistachio. The bread was quite oily, so much so, I needed more napkins to wipe my hands with. The sandwich was nice and fresh and you could tell it had been made that morning.

I enjoyed the sandwich and the coffee was great as well.

March 2, 2025March 2, 2025

Pistachio Danish

One of the things I like about getting a Too Good To Go (TGTG) bag is trying out new places which isn’t going to break the bank. New places open all the time, and sometimes you think, should I try it out, or should I go to my usual haunts. For me the TGTG bag gives me a way to try out their food and not spend loads of money.

For instance I got a TGTG bag from DoubleShot Coffee – Barbers in Bristol. This is an independent, well I want to write cafe, but they also cut hair.

My TGTG bag was valued at £9.00 and cost £2.99.

In my bag I got

Two pistachio danish pastries
A maple pecan danish pastry
A croissant

By my reckoning that was worth £9.

Have to say the pistachio danish was rather tasty.

I will certainly try and get future bags from them, but I think I might also visit them for a coffee another time (probably won’t get a haircut though).

February 22, 2025

Pistachio laskiaispulla

I had seen the delicious laskiaispulla on display at Gateau Kamppi in Helsinki quite a few times as I walked from my hotel to the Metro station. I decided I would go against tradition have try to the pistachio laskiaispulla. This was a sweet bread roll, the top removed and a sweet pistachio paste added, fresh cream and chopped pistachio on top. It was rather nice, fresh roll, tasty pistachio, the sweetness offset with the fresh cream. Delicious.

July 31, 2024July 31, 2024

Delicious French Eclairs

This summer we were staying at Le Grand Paris in Nesles-la-Vallée, close to Paris, in France. The campsite didn’t have a shop, so we were dependent on going into the village for supplies. Nesles-la-Vallée had a couple of small supermarkets, in addition they were two boulangeries and a charcuterie. It was nice to buy baguettes and breakfast pastries from the boulangerie.

One day I also bought some delicious fresh eclairs from there as well.

I got four versions, a vanilla eclair, one chocolate, a pistachio, I also got a Paris Nesles, which a local speciality eclair with almonds.

I had the pistachio eclair and the Paris Nesles. They were both delicious. My son had the chocolate and vanilla eclairs. The chocolate version had a chocolate cream, which was different to the usual fresh cream. The vanilla one had vanilla cream, and as you might have guessed the filling of the other two. The Paris Nesles did though also have a layer of chocolate ganache as well as an almond filling.

These were delicious and lovely patisserie. I could have bought loads of cakes from there.

May 31, 2023May 31, 2023

Ô Craquelin Pâtisserie

As I walk around London there are quite a few posh looking pâtisserie shops selling exquisite cakes and pâtisserie. I might look in the window, but I rarely spend my pennies (well pounds) in there.

I was having a look around the TooGoodToGo app and saw that Ô Craquelin Pâtisserie had a magic bag. £18 of cakes for £6. I checked their website and quite liked the look of their offerings. I saw this magic bag as an opportunity to try out the cakes without spending a large amount of money.

Ô Craquelin Pâtisserie is a specialist pâtisserie close to Covent Garden. It describes itself as a micro-pâtisserie offering modern, hand-crafted desserts.

I had to wait around a bit to pick it up after work, but it was a nice sunny day.

I was given a warm welcome and went inside and told them I had a TooGoodToGo deal. After tapping and swiping, they popped into the fridge for a box, for a second I thought that was all I was going to get, then they picked up another box. I got a bag and placed them both in there.

Overall I got four cakes. Two chilled fresh cakes and two ambient cakes.

Now I actually have no idea what I actually got, as there were no labels. Now checking their website I can check what I had.

This was the Matcha Orange canapé.

Orange Madeleine enclosed within matcha mousse with white chocolate sable. It was quite nice, and you could taste the orange.

This was the 100% Pistachio canapé.

Pistachio Financier, pistachio cream and pistachio sable. This one I did guess as pistachio and was similar to the Matcha Orange canapé. I didn’t feel it had that intensity of pistachio flavour I would expect from pistachio pâtisserie.

I also got these two pâtisserie, which I have no idea what they were.

This was very nutty.

This had nuts and ganache.

Both were very nice.

I did enjoy the pâtisserie, but I am not sure I would go out of my way to get them again. They were good, but maybe I had high expectations, I was expecting excellence, what I got was delicious, great looking pâtisserie. What I didn’t get was an amazing pâtisserie experience. Maybe it might have been different if I went to the cafe there and had the pâtisserie with coffee, soaking in the atmosphere and the ambiance.

I quite like TooGoodToGo as a mechanism to try places out, see what they sell and how good it is. So in this instance, yes I felt I got a good deal, nice cakes, but would I go back, probably not.

June 25, 2022June 23, 2022

Coffee and a pistachio swirl

I decided to drive to work. Well there was a train strike, so the train was out of the question. I drove down the M5 and headed into Bristol on the A369. As I approached the junction with Bridge Road, I could see that Rownham Hill wasn’t moving due to loads of traffic, so I headed down Bridge Road to cut down Burwalls Road, with no luck. So, I turned around and headed back to Bridge Road and crossed the Suspension Bridge. There were lots of police and fire crews. There were signs saying the bridge was closed, but it was open when I crossed it. I headed down Sion Hill and then hit more traffic.

Later I found out that there had been an issue, the police were concerned about the welfare of a man, so had closed the Portway and other roads around the Cumberland Basin, which was causing all the issues I was having.

Having given up at this point, I parked and headed into Clifton Village to get some coffee. I went to Spicer & Cole and at the counter ordered a flat white. They had some nice looking pastries so I added a pistachio swirl to my order.

I had my pastry, took a seat and waited for my coffee. I did seem to be waiting for a fair while, so much so, I went back to the counter to check. They had been prioritising takeaway orders over my coffee.

The coffee was actually rather good and I enjoyed it. The pistachio swirl was quite nice, I did feel that it was slightly dry, and there was an excessive amount of icing sugar, but there was a nice taste of pistachio.

Overall it was nice place for a coffee break, a little more pricey than other places I frequent, reminded me of London prices. If I am back in Clifton Village I would certainly visit again.

May 1, 2020

Coffee and Pistachio Croissant

On one of my last visits to London I stopped for a coffee on the way to the office, to check e-mail and catch up on other stuff.

I had been meaning for a while to try out the Sourced Market on Wigmore Street in Westminster. Before I didn’t have the time, or there was too much of a queue and I hate queuing…

This time, I had the time, and there was no queue, even though it was crowded. I was going to just have a flat white, but liked the look of the Pistachio Croissant, so I got one of those as well.

Sourced Market has a basement, it was quieter so I was down there (and could still get a 4G signal).

The coffee was excellent, and maybe a little too sweet for me, I did still enjoy the croissant.

Certainly if I ever get back to London and it’s open, I will go again.