Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee

Arizona: Snapshots: Cartel Coffee Lab

Even on Christmas Eve, the sun is strong here, and after walking from Scottsdale to Tempe, I'm stinky, though happily not sweaty.  I'll probably walk back in a t-shirt (sorry, didn't mean to throw in that detail).  I've reached my destination, Cartel Coffee Lab in Tempe.  It's in a very unassuming neighborhood of this university town.  I walked around the residential streets briefly, and for some reason, it reminded me a whole lot of Germany.  The houses are very low-slung here (relatively few have second stories) and are made of some different building material that I can't quite identify--they're not frame houses like in Wisconsin.  I'm enjoying a double espresso, which was amazing, and a manual pourover-brewed CZE coffee, which tasted too much like tea for me.  As in February, the prices are mind-bogglingly low: my ticket total was $2.75, which I wankerously put on my credit card.  Sorry, no cash with me on this trip!

Arizona: Snapshots: Flying Food Group

The expanded Starbucks food menu here features items from the Flying Food Group's location in Phoenix.  FFG is primarily an airline catering company.  I'd imagine the food at the Chicagoland stores comes from the ORD facility.

Arizona: Snapshots: Paradise Bakery & Cafe (Scottsdale Fashion Square)

I'm at Paradise Bakery & Cafe in the Scottsdale Fashion Square.  I figured I had to try the drip coffee (Paradise Blend, $1.60 for a small) at least once.  Turns out it's really good.  I just took another sip to confirm...and another...and yowza!  Man, I think I'm tasting some Guatemalan Huehuetenango in here.

The mall's Wi-Fi has Facebook blocked. How heinous is that?  (Same applies to MySpace, of course).

Arizona: Snapshots: Arizona's First Espresso Machine

Having been here for 4 days, I'm finally doing I don't do at home: sitting in a coffeehouse with my back to the wall, facing everybody else, and sitting next to someone with whom I just had a fairly lengthy conversation.  I just met a nice older gentleman named Angelo whose family ran an Italian restaurant here in town.  I overheard him mention, while talking to someone else, that he bought Arizona's first espresso machine. He now works as a greeter at Carraba's Italian Grill here in the area. Incidentally, that place looks really good!

Arizona: Snapshot: Cartel Coffee Lab

I've retuned to Cartel Coffee Lab.  I think I'll be here most every day until I leave AZ.  Today, I'm trying one of the other varietals offered for Clover preparation, the Brazil Fazenda Santa Terezinha.  I'm well-fueled from lunch at Sweet Tomatoes (Lord, do I wish they would open a location in the Milwaukee area!).

Arizona: Snaphshots: Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

I'm back at the Coffee Bean on Miller and Indian School Roads.  I'd been thinking of getting an espresso drink, but I happened to catch a glance of a foil bag of espresso beans that was lying out next to the machine.  It stated that the beans had been roasted on December 6, 2008 and that their expiration date was December 6, 2009.  Just to give you an idea, if I saw that at *Starbucks*, I'd probably find it worth posting. 

I enjoyed the drip coffee here yesterday, but today am finding it wanting.  I started out with a mug of the bold coffee, called Bold Blue Moon.  I then got a refill of the Peru I had yesterday.

Arizona: Snapshots: Died and Gone To Heaven (Pt. 2)

On this Valentine's Day, I've found what has been missing in my life.  It's not in the form of a member of the opposite sex--at least not right now--but rather, takes the form of a coffeehouse: Cartel Coffee Lab. In the space of half an hour, I've gone from "What the hell am I going to do with myself for the next ten days?" to "I only get to stay here another ten days?". Just as incredible as the coffee are the prices. I ordered a double espresso and a small drip coffee--Guatemala Huehuetenango--and was pleasantly surprised when the barista approached the Clover to prepare the drip. However, I assumed that this would come at the usual steep price. Imagine my shock when the barista rang me up and announced the grand total: $2.75. I almost wanted to ask for a receipt to prove I paid so little for such awesome coffee! I'm not sure if this is the official Wi-Fi, but the signal I'm using is called "Bobvilacollective".  I can't provide any pics of my own right now, but here's their Flickr.

Arizona: Snapshots: Starbucks (Fifth St. and Mill Ave., Tempe)

I'm at a crazy busy Starbucks that also happens to be crazy good, if the service and double tall cappuccino I received are any indication.  For those who have never been, this is the home of ASU and basically the Madison of Arizona, and the street I'm on now is the equivalent of State Street.  It's almost as if there were a "big state university town" template--complete with the smell of incense--that were simply tweaked a bit from state to state.

This is the first Starbucks I've been to in a while that has a barista staff that all looks like baristas.  To me, that means college-age, or slightly older, women.  When I see that, I expect better quality drinks.  Very superficial of me, but in this case I wasn't proven wrong.

Arizona: Snapshots: The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

I finally made it here--it was right under my nose, but I still managed to walk past it entirely yesterday and take a wrong turn earlier this morning.  This Coffee Bean location is in a little strip mall that is right on the sidewalk, but actually "faces" an interior courtyard and parking lot.  (Like the Panera kitty-corner from Bayshore back home in Glendale; incidentally, the version of Panera in AZ is called Paradise).  I'm drinking a glass mug of Peruvian coffee; the mug is actually a European beer glass sized to hold 0.3 liters of the sudsy stuff.

Arizona: Snapshots: Bread Basket (Scottsdale)

I'm still trying to find my way around here or, more specifically, find a non-Starbucks coffeehouse.  The sprawlscape here practically makes even the worst Southeastern Wisconsin sprawl look like Greenwich Village.  The inconvenience of walking for transportation is almost unfathomable.  Every major thoroughfare has about six lanes, and crossing is difficult, even at the crosswalk.  There's a hiking/biking path that runs through Scottsdale, but it is a mile or more from the vacation rental at which my parents are hosting me.  Obviously, I'm walking around in a polo shirt and shorts, so I have relatively little to complain about.  It's interesting to note, though, that "paradise" comes at a price--and that Milwaukee's apparent unpleasantness has its upside.  (Maybe that could be a new marketing slogan:  "Milwaukee: Undesirability Has Its Perks").

While erring my way around in search of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, I stumbled across this little bread store.  It's cut from similar cloth as Breadsmith/Great Harvest.  I bought a loaf of Nine Grain bread ($4.25) and an apple cinnamon muffin ($1.28).  The quality and taste are more Great Harvest than Breadsmith, and the prices are a bit lower than either.  Plus, the sliced bread doesn't taste like bleach (seemingly every time I get a loaf of sliced bread from Breadsmith on Downer, it tastes like bleach, to the point where I actually e-mailed the company to complain--they must bleach down the slicer when cleaning).  They have a gas station-type self-serve coffee setup (I recommend taking a pass) and a little seating area with free Wi-Fi.