Achiote of the Border

This is a post that should precede Babycakes but since it was skipped over, I shall fill the gap. We are wonderfully non-linear and atemporal today.

Supposedly, men do not ask for directions and women cannot drive (also, smoking is cool and hipsters will save the world). But you can depend on google, right? Mais, non! Google maps led us astray. Astray into San Ysidro aka Last Exit Before International Border GET OUT NOW ELSE YOU BE IN MEXICO. Which the boys would have been fine with, since they are all-American (and slightly Puerto Rican, respectively) but the girls being exotic non-US passport holders might have gotten in trouble with. But we managed to take that last exit, so everything is okay! And if we did not, that's another story for another time.

Since everything bad happens three times or some such thing, we did manage to try to find two other coffee places through google maps and failed to find any of them. But there was something in San Ysidro that emitted the rich aroma of Californian consumeritis.

San Ysidro is the magical land of Outlet-Mallness. JPS got excited about kitchen stuff. But first, coffee. Achiote looked like a nice place and we figured we should do Mexican considering how close we were to it. Achiote was filled with customers of the "suburban-family" genus. It also had cheesecakes. But that's not what is special about it.

Mexican coffee! Ahh, the soft tones of cinnamon with the roasted fragrance of coffee. How have I not about thee for so long. Everyone except the Purveyor of Wise Things otherwise known as Kamakuras ordered Mexican coffee. Delicious, aromatic Mexican coffee. K ordered regular. Did I mention free refills? :D

And then we ate and shopped.

Aninsomniac found and suggested a coffee shop in the mystical hills of crest. It was truly a once upon a time establishment called Babycakes. The environment was the brown as I noticed that there was a lot of wood around. Probably due to the restaurant being a converted house from ages past. Try as I might I couldn't find any cat people or Babycakes himself, however all was not lost as my phone was able to bring up his work http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APrBdP0bBJM&feature=grec_index

Alice was mystified and happily set off without following proper supervisory protocol to the bar. This bar was no ordinary bar, well it was in that it looked like an ordinary bar with ordinary people sitting on its stools. But it was all a facade as it was known to some of our adventurer's in the party beforehand that this bar made specialty drinks that taste like a mixture of eggnog and perfume. I'm not clear on what purpose this elixir served but it provided us with mirth at the expense of Alice who happened to like it. All was right in the world.

The coffees that our merry band ordered were delicious to put it mildly. Aninsomniac ordered vietnamese coffee while Kamakuras got the bianca. This short trip certainly made up for the fiasco that was the Sunday trip to the border (turns out cafe de olla is pretty good though)

Yours skitteringly,

Kamakuras

Kapee Kulture

 Aninsomniac showed me this article on how filter coffee became popular in South India- it was a shock to me to know that there hadnt been coffee in Madras since civilization arose there!If you see how integral a part of every day life the famous South Indian filter coffee is , its hard to believe that after cultivating it for the British for years, we finally discovered the joys of coffee only as they left.
The addiction caught on pretty fast though- theres a story in my ancestral village goes about the cow that was accidentally fed coffee and then got so addicted to it that she would be bad-tempered and difficult to milk in the mornings until she had had her daily dose. I must say she's a creature after my own heart!
Indian coffee is a fine espresso-like blend of a  dark roast bean cultivated in the hilly regions of South India with the chicory plant bean - its prepared in a special stainless steel filter and then mixed in equal parts with hot milk and lots of sugar.Marriages, religious ceremonies of all kinds, pretty much any occasion in South India have a constant supply of coffee in little stainless steel cups being served to the entire participating population
JPS introduced us to the joys of Puerto Rican coffee, after he himself got addicted to it - the Puerto Rican coffee is also a dark roast blend but is generally more coarsely ground. In Puerto Rico, it was used to be made in the old-fashioned way with a cloth filter but it tastes just as good in an Italian-style percolator...cant wait to experience it when I go there in September!!!!!!
I appreciate drinking coffee with just a drop of cream or half-and-half after I started drinking the Caribou filter coffee Kamakuras makes in his house- milk masks the flavour of a lot of coffees that are not very dark-roasted.
Over the past few months we have exchanged our tastes for coffees which has contributed to an increasing appreciation of the good stuff  and a decreasing appetite for commercialised mediocrities. Some of our updated rules of membership:
1. Never go to Starbucks unless you are getting a free drink
2. If you see a Starbucks in a  neighbourhood you are not far from a good  coffee place - don't stop till you find it!

The Italian Experience

Our first coffee trip was to Caffe Calabria in NorthPark.
It was a warm Sunday morning - Sipping our espresso drinks and basking in the gentle sunshine, we felt like we were in some quaint European city.....what I imagine Italy to be actually. It seemed like our PhDs were far far behind us -  which is another reason that atleast some of us like to get out of La Jolla looking for coffee places.
I tasted my first real Espresso Macchiato and it was delicious - most of my experience with American coffee so far was the regular coffee from coffee carts at school that you serve yourself .... Not at all as strong or flavourful as the South Indian filter coffee I am used  to- so the espresso was a very heartening experience.The lattes that we got were also quite good.
Not much of a selection as far as food is concerned - just a panini or two and some bakeries...they do plan to open a pizzeria soon and I am definitely going back for that - there is a gigantic open oven at the entrance that looks promising....meanwhile, theres a lot of good pizza happening on the same street.(One of which has been attested to by an Italian acquaintance) .
So if want, you can have yourself  a complete Italian brunch experience!