(no subject)
Over the past year or so apricotica and I have nurtured and developed a benign chemical dependence on coffee. These days, she usually makes herself a mocha au lait in the morning while I grab some of the free stuff at the office, wondering what would happen if I used a 16-ounce mug and pressed the Coffee and Hot Chocolate buttons successively.
The local heat wave is continuing, so we decided this morning that we'd like some iced mochas like the kind we got at Tucson's own Coffee X Change. Neither of us cares much for Starbucks, so we decided to sample some of the local non-chain coffee shops. A Google search for San Jose coffee shops turned up a promising name, and I went out with Kavita in search of yummy sleep substitute.
We arrived at our intended destination; the sign overhead proudly proclaimed the name of Dolce Espresso. A somewhat larger banner underneath encouraged us to buy lottery tickets. The upper sign turned out to be a damn lie. Several things about Dolce Espresso struck me as I walked in, adorable toddler perched in the crook of one arm. It was dim. It was large for a coffee shop. It was packed with about 50 or 60 customers, all Vietnamese men as far as I could tell without taking a more careful census. I didn't want to take a more careful census, because at any given moment at least a third of the customers were staring at Kavita and me expressionlessly. It was loud with the sound of a soccer game playing on several big-screen TVs and the buzz of conversation in a language I didn't understand. Behind the bar there were a number of hard-faced young women covered with too much makeup and not enough clothing. The overall vibe was of a seedy Hanoi club as it starts to get busy at night, except that it still wasn't yet 8 in the morning. To complete my confusion, the women behind the bar were serving coffee.
I mustered my reserves of awkwardness and stupidity to ask an older man behind the bar whether there was a menu.
"No menu! Vietnamese coffee! Very strong!" he not-quite-shouted over the din.
If I ask for a blended mocha there is a tiny but non-zero chance that I will be stabbed. To the best of my recollection this thought had never before crossed my mind.
I carried the girl out with as much grace as I could muster and headed off instead toward a place apricotica had remembered that looked like a French cafe/boulangerie. We hadn't been able to find it on Google, but at this point it seemed worth it to hunt the place down. It turned out to be Coffee Lovers, Featuring Vie De France Cafe and Delicatessen, or some such thing. The presence of spring rolls and similar items on the menu didn't quite match the French theme they were going for, but I didn't mind. This place sold me a couple of pre-blended mochas topped with whipped cream impaled on a couple of half-inch-wide neon blue and pink straws. Not quite what I had hoped for when we set out, but good enough for now. There was a table of Vietnamese men by the door that quieted down and stared each time that we went past, but after Dolce Espresso they might as well have been smiling, hula-ing, and passing out leis.
When Kavita and I got home, apricotica noticed that the whipped cream was a bit curdled. We could deal with that, but we were a little less inclined to deal with the pube that I noticed on the bottom (outside, fortunately) of mine. We're still not inclined to try Starbucks next time, but maybe Peet's wouldn't be out of the question.
Later this morning I picked up the car from the body shop. I wanted to deposit my first paycheck on the way home, so I pulled out Garmina and asked her to find me a branch of my bank along the way home. She directed me to a location that did not house a branch of my bank, but did have a sign overhead that proudly proclaimed the name of Dolce Espresso. I don't know what this conspiracy is about, but I'd like it to stop, please.
The local heat wave is continuing, so we decided this morning that we'd like some iced mochas like the kind we got at Tucson's own Coffee X Change. Neither of us cares much for Starbucks, so we decided to sample some of the local non-chain coffee shops. A Google search for San Jose coffee shops turned up a promising name, and I went out with Kavita in search of yummy sleep substitute.
We arrived at our intended destination; the sign overhead proudly proclaimed the name of Dolce Espresso. A somewhat larger banner underneath encouraged us to buy lottery tickets. The upper sign turned out to be a damn lie. Several things about Dolce Espresso struck me as I walked in, adorable toddler perched in the crook of one arm. It was dim. It was large for a coffee shop. It was packed with about 50 or 60 customers, all Vietnamese men as far as I could tell without taking a more careful census. I didn't want to take a more careful census, because at any given moment at least a third of the customers were staring at Kavita and me expressionlessly. It was loud with the sound of a soccer game playing on several big-screen TVs and the buzz of conversation in a language I didn't understand. Behind the bar there were a number of hard-faced young women covered with too much makeup and not enough clothing. The overall vibe was of a seedy Hanoi club as it starts to get busy at night, except that it still wasn't yet 8 in the morning. To complete my confusion, the women behind the bar were serving coffee.
I mustered my reserves of awkwardness and stupidity to ask an older man behind the bar whether there was a menu.
"No menu! Vietnamese coffee! Very strong!" he not-quite-shouted over the din.
If I ask for a blended mocha there is a tiny but non-zero chance that I will be stabbed. To the best of my recollection this thought had never before crossed my mind.
I carried the girl out with as much grace as I could muster and headed off instead toward a place apricotica had remembered that looked like a French cafe/boulangerie. We hadn't been able to find it on Google, but at this point it seemed worth it to hunt the place down. It turned out to be Coffee Lovers, Featuring Vie De France Cafe and Delicatessen, or some such thing. The presence of spring rolls and similar items on the menu didn't quite match the French theme they were going for, but I didn't mind. This place sold me a couple of pre-blended mochas topped with whipped cream impaled on a couple of half-inch-wide neon blue and pink straws. Not quite what I had hoped for when we set out, but good enough for now. There was a table of Vietnamese men by the door that quieted down and stared each time that we went past, but after Dolce Espresso they might as well have been smiling, hula-ing, and passing out leis.
When Kavita and I got home, apricotica noticed that the whipped cream was a bit curdled. We could deal with that, but we were a little less inclined to deal with the pube that I noticed on the bottom (outside, fortunately) of mine. We're still not inclined to try Starbucks next time, but maybe Peet's wouldn't be out of the question.
Later this morning I picked up the car from the body shop. I wanted to deposit my first paycheck on the way home, so I pulled out Garmina and asked her to find me a branch of my bank along the way home. She directed me to a location that did not house a branch of my bank, but did have a sign overhead that proudly proclaimed the name of Dolce Espresso. I don't know what this conspiracy is about, but I'd like it to stop, please.