For a $10 meal of iced coffee and a fresh-baked pizza I would go south on College to Espresso Roma.  Further down College Ave. was the great Cole Coffee with its poached eggs, toast, and jam, and way down College, near where College became Broadway, was Hudson Bay Cafe, which with its triangular nook and plate glass windows always seemed to me to be the edge of the world.  Of course, there were a number of other cafes not on College (Free Speech Movement Cafe, owned by the same man as Caffe Strada; the International House Cafe; Nefeli; Au Coquelet; the original Peet’s Coffee on Vine Street).  It’s something I miss in DC, where the only options for me are Peregrine Espresso, Big Bear (which is inconvenient as heck), SoHo (where I was once caught in the crossfire of a transvestite-lesbian catfight), Bourbon, and, thankfully, the excellent and recently-opened Filter Coffeehouse.

But I can add another one to that list: Northside Social, all the way out in Arlington a few blocks past the Clarendon Metro stop.  It opened in April in the spot of the old Murky Coffee, in a two-story wood house that once served as a fire station to the Clarendon Citizens Hall.  There is ample parking and ample seating outside and inside, though it tends to get crowded during peak hours.  There’s a downstairs section with the front seating area (filled with wooden chairs and tables, some couches, stools, and the serving area) and back seating area, which is quieter and seems to me to be a bit isolated.  There’s also an upstairs with more seats and tables and what looks to be a large bar for serving wine.  There’s also free Internet and two restrooms.

They brew Counter Culture beans, which means that the raw product is pretty much exactly the same as at Peregrine Espresso–not that I’m complaining.  They have pour over and a killer cold-brewed iced coffee; they also serve flat whites if you’re into that sort of thing.  They seem to have an extensive selection of teas brewed by the pot, as well as a number of wines they serve in tasting and full-glass sizes.  I haven’t tried the wines yet, but I did spy a Grüner Veltliner that I had tried previously and enjoyed.

The coffee and espresso are unimpeachable, so I want to turn next to what I think really sets Northside Social apart: its food.  Sure, Big Bear serves sandwiches, and SoHo serves sandwiches, but Northside Social serves sandwiches.  Really delicious ones, in fact.  I fell in love with their crisp pork belly sandwich which comes between slices of an Italian feather loaf with brocolli rabe, pesto, and smoked mozzarella.  FREAKING DELICIOUS:

My God, this is everything you could ever want from a sandwich, from bread, from pork belly, anything.  This sandwich, simple yet elegant, was the greatest sandwich I’ve ever had at a coffee shop.  And I’ve had a lot of sandwiches at a lot of different coffee shops.

On another occasion I ordered a leg of lamb salad sandwich, which is served with mint cucumber yogurt sauce, pickled shallots, and olive tapenade on a baguette.  Rebecca, who accompanied me a few times to Northside Social, ordered the Amish chicken salad sandwich, which comes on absolutely fantastic oatmeal stout bread and green goddess dressing.  Their menu is available here.

There are a lot of hipsters, yes, but they’re the gracious kind.  There are also a lot of moms and kids on playdates with other moms and kids, students, and business people–all in all a pretty good crowd.  Go, go, go to this place.  It’s right off the Orange Line, so it’s not far for you GWers.  Yes, it’s Clarendon, but I never thought I’d want to go out there and I can’t wait (figuratively) to go back!

The Broken Bells are a collaboration between Danger Mouse and James Mercer of the Shins.  Their music features electric beats, disaffected vocals, and atmospheric guitar–basically, hipster music.  Music hipsters could like.

You know what else hipsters like?  Artisanal coffee.

Hipsters might tend to congregate on U Street or, if they’re truly hip enough, in Brooklyn, but they might consider coming to Filter Coffeehouse & Espresso Bar, a cool new coffee shop that opened up about two weeks ago in North Dupont on 20th and S Street NW.  It’s in the basement of a rowhouse, as pictured below:

Inside it’s a small rectangular space with a few tables and chairs (according to the proprietor, they will put out tables and chairs once the weather turns consistently warm).  It’s not really the best place to, say, study for a few hours, but it’s definitely good to come and grab a great cup of coffee.

Speaking of which, the coffee is fantastic.  I dropped by last Saturday with my law school friend and fellow wine connoisseur Giri.  We were taking a break from the wine tasting at Ansonia Wines and also waiting for two of our friends to join us.  I had heard about Filter a while ago and had wanted to try it, so this was the perfect opportunity.

The location itself is immediately inviting.  It feels like you’re going into someone’s home, which I don’t know about you but makes me want to drink coffee.  Once you go inside there’s a bar to your left and tables/chairs to your right.  The bar has a glass display case, some ceramic single brew filters, burr grinders, and an espresso machine.

Giri and I ordered cups of coffee to go: I ordered the Kenya AA.  I forget where they source their beans (I’ll update the post once I find out).  It was delicious and unique.  I wouldn’t characterize it as floral or fruity, nor chocolately.  It was dry, woody, and finished on notes of black tea.  It was also light-bodied and good though subdued acidity.

We ended up chatting with the proprietor, Rasheed, who knows his coffee.  In fact, he was so enthusiastic about coffee that he insisted we try some of his Sumatra.  Sumatra is one of those regions that a coffee lover should love but about which I personally have had mixed feelings.  Sumatran coffee growers often “wet process” their beans, which means they ferment the freshly-pulped beans for about a day or so before drying and washing, which often imparts a mushroomy taste that I don’t quite like.  As a whole–and this characterization varies widely depending on the exact method of processing as well as the producer and region–Sumatran coffees are full-bodied, deep, and earthy, with that mushroom quality I mentioned previously.

Filter’s Sumatra, on the other hand, smells like an Ethiopian Sidamo: just full of berries–strawberry, blueberry.  Rasheed ground some beans, made a batch, and poured us each a taste in ceramic.  Good, bright acidity, but with an intriguing vegetal finish.  Rasheed thought it was like rhubarb.  I agreed, but I also thought I detected alfalfa.  Altogether great, and an excellent present for that coffee aficionado in your life.

I didn’t get to try the cappuccinos or any of their espresso-based beverages, nor did I try their iced coffee (which is cold-brewed).  However, Filter is serious about their coffee: Rasheed participated in the U.S. Barista Championships and if I remember correctly will be sending one of his baristas to the next one.  I highly recommend Filter, and I urge you to check it out very soon.

I had the opportunity recently to tour Intelligentsia’s new LA roasting facility in Glassell Park (near Glendale)–my family might be opening a coffee shop sometime soon, and we wanted to take a look at different coffee wholesalers. Let me tell you: it was awesome! The wine analogy would be like visiting a wine cellar–not the vineyard, where the grapes are grown, but the place where the wine is actually fermented and bottled.

Five thousand square feet of roasting machine, tasting equipment, office space, sacks and sacks of green coffee beans (which are extremely hard, odorless, and tasteless, actually), and bags and bags of freshly-roasted coffee. The air was permeated by a delightful warm coffee smell, as if I were in the middle of a perpetual breakfast. Intelligentsia’s pretty damn serious about their coffee.

For a look at the majesty that is the Intelligentisa roasting plant, click here.

At any rate, we came from the roaster with a few pounds of samples, including:

• Black Cat Espresso
• El Diablo French Roast
• Finca Matalapa El Salvador
• El Machete Panama
• Los Delirios Nicaragua

Previously, we also ordered samples from Bluebottle Coffee Company in Oakland, California: their Bella Donna blend and Mexican Chiapas. We also had samples from Peet’s: their Finca San Sebastian Guatemala, Indian Peaberry, and Arabian Mocha-Sanani.

All in all, we had 10 different varieties of coffee. Generally, the Peet’s coffees were the darkest in roast, with Bluebottle and Intelligentsia much less so.

I’ll have to post exhaustive results, but my favorites in no particular order are:

• Peet’s Finca San Sebastian Guatemala
• Intelligentsia’s El Machete Panama
• Intelligentsia’s Los Delirios Nicaragua

These were all South American coffees. The Arabian I found to be a bit too intense and funky for my tastes, and the Bella Donna and Mexican Chiapas were a bit too insubstantial.

The San Sebastian was the darkest roast of my three favorites–I wrote about it in a previous post. The Los Delirios was mild, with caramel notes and clear, pleasant acidity. I would probably pick the El Machete on any given day because it’s a nice medium-bodied coffee with hints of berry and a slight jamminess, offset by focused acidity. Overall, a very good cup that would be able to ease even the sleepiest man into work.

For those of you wondering if this is a coffee blog or a wine blog, don’t worry! I expect to be drinking a lot more in law school, which is coming up in about a month and a half. Accordingly, I will be moving out to DC for my first semester sometime in the beginning of August. Regardless, I hope there’s room enough in this world for all manner of beverages!

Coffee for me exists on a dichotomy: I love the cheap, quick stuff from Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonalds, coffee that serves as a quick pick-me-up in the mornings. Love it or hate it, fast food and donut coffee is all about drinkability. It’s delicious, inoffensive, easy on the body, and cheap. It’s also probably the healthiest item I’ll be having for breakfast.

I also love the artisanal, “third wave” varietals of coffee, beans that hail from single sources in Guatemala, Ethiopia, et al. These are coffees that have body, that have character, and have a “2″ after the dollar sign.

Despite their price, I still consider artisanal coffees to be a bargain because I view them from a wine perspective. $17.95 for a pound of India Peaberry from Peet’s? Well, that’s about 30-35 cups of joe. $17.95 will get me a nice wine that will yield maybe four or five glasses.

Gourmet coffee is nice because they have loads of complexity. In fact, some people state that coffees are harder to “taste” because their taste compounds are more volatile than those of wine: this adds to the fun for me.

I’m not alone. “Cuppings”–the coffee equivalent of tastings–are becoming popular in coffee shops all across the nation. I had the opportunity to go to one at my local Peet’s on Sunday, where they were showcasing this year’s Guatemala San Sebastian (apparently Alfred Peet’s favorite) and their Anniversary Blend, which is a mix of different beans from Latin America.

Along for the ride were the original coffee drinkers of my family: my mom and dad. We got to Peet’s just in time to see Ryan, the super-knowledgeable barista, set up two French press pots. My mom was excited about the tasting; my dad went next door to get a cup of the SoHo coffee blend from Noah’s Bagels.

We got two-ounce tasting cups. First, the San Sebastian. I could taste only some chocolate, some bitterness; it was full and round to the point of flabbiness. Nothing really struck me about the coffee. I tried the Anniversary Blend next: huge difference. Bright, lively, with acidity that was quite noticeable after the rounder, softer Guatemalan. There was a lot of citrus in the Anniversary Blend. My mom and I both agreed that this was the winner.

But we spoke too soon. I got refills of both after a few minutes. This time, the Anniversary Blend seemed bland, almost, and the acidity that I had initially enjoyed became detracting. On the other hand, the Guatemalan really started to come together. The flabbiness was gone, with the coffee showing more definition and substance in the mouth. There were many different notes of dark chocolate, like eating pieces of chocolate from 62%, 70%, 82% cacao bars. The finish showed herbs–especially boiled ginseng, which you might never have had unless you grew up in an Asian household!

I wanted a cup of the Guatemalan, but Ryan hooked my family up with a huge 40-something-ounce French press for free instead “as a sample”. Awesome. It’s a coffee that I pair with greasy breakfasts or just take alone on some gray rainy day.

This coffee varietal made waves for being sold at auction last year for $130 a POUND (and you thought Starbucks was expensive!). Groundwork managed to procure some from the same farm and was selling their beans for the slightly more manageable price of around $80 a pound. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many people willing to shell out that much for their morning joe.

Thus, I was super excited to be able to have a taste of this brew. Three dollars might be a lot, true, for a simple cup of coffee, but there were a few factors that made the decision easy for me:

1. I would never buy an $80-a-pound coffee in my entire life. Unless I became incredibly rich.
2. There would probably never be another opportunity in the near future to taste an $80-a-pound coffee for such a reasonable price (it’s like being able to purchase a taste of a first-growth Bordeaux).
3. Two dry ounces of beans go into one cup. There are 16 ounces in a pound. There are, thus, eight cups of coffee in each pound. $80 / 8 = $10 per cup. I was SAVING seven dollars by drinking this coffee!
4. I could write about my experience on this blog.

That settled it. I asked Anna at Groundwork to make me a cup using the single-brew cone filter method. I could hardly wait the two minutes it took to brew the cup.

And?

The “nose” was redolent with citrus and chocolate. The first taste was a shock: it was almost brutally intense. It was NOT strong or bitter, but the flavors were like a punch in the face from a fist in a velvet glove. Very pronounced… um… tannic characteristics without being bitter or overdrawn. There were high notes of citrus and flowers that mellowed out to dark, dark, DARK chocolate–think 82% cacao. The body was medium, with a slight winy, more viscous-than-usual mouthfeel.

It had high acidity that threatened to spill over into the realm of unpleasantness, but the body managed to reign it in. The Esmeralda Especial had a very long finish that ended in, strangely enough, hints of alfalfa and soybean sprouts. Very unusual.

I went again to Groundwork the next day and had another cup. The same. My co-workers who had a taste of it were struck by the intensity of the brew. If I had to liken it to a wine I’ve profiled in this blog, it would be a cross between the Sean H. Thackrey “Pleaides XVI” and the Maipe malbec: a combination of the Thackrey’s acidity and high notes and the Maipe’s deep, dark, animalistic intensity.

All in all, I feel that the Esmeralda Especial was worth three dollars a cup. It might even be worth four or five dollars a cup. I still wouldn’t buy it by the pound.

A LITTLE PLUG FOR GROUNDWORK COFFEE CO.
I write food reviews on Yelp (click here for an idea of what my food reviews are like), of which one is on Groundwork. Check out the review, and check out Groundwork. They take their coffee very seriously.

I was joined by my college bud Jonathan Lewis, who seems to split his time evenly between Berkeley and Los Angeles. The plan was to visit Silverlake Wine, where I was to pick up four bottles of the Ampelos Rosé of Syrah for myself and some co-workers. I also wanted to visit Intelligentsia Coffee, a Chicago institution that had just recently headed west.

I had some time to kill beforehand, so I decided to take a trip down the 134 to Colorado Wine Company in Los Feliz first. Specifically, I wanted to pick up a bottle of “The Third Bottle” red from GustavoThrace. I paid my $9.99 + tax for the bottle and headed up the 2 to Silver Lake for my rendezvous.

This was the first time I ever visited Silverlake Wine. I was very impressed. The store is large and very well-laid out. The workers there are courteous, funny, and very helpful. There seems to be a steady flow of customers, and many of them have questions about wine pairings that the attendants seem to nail right away. They also have wine tastings, including one I just missed featuring Maynard Keenan, lead singer of Tool and A Perfect Circle. Apparently Maynard is a huge wine buff and has his own vineyard, where he makes his own wine!

I was a bit early, so while waiting I had a bottle of the White Rascal Belgian white ale from Avery Brewing Company:

It’s fuller than that other famous Belgian white ale, Hoegaarden, but has the same light, refreshing taste punctuated by orange zest and spice. Also, it was only $1.75 a bottle at Silverlake Wine, which makes for some good drinkin’.

Jonathan showed up and we got a bottle of the 2006 Martín Códax albariño. Albariño, for those of you who haven’t tried this delicious wine, is perhaps the most famous white wine from Spain. It hails from Rías Baixas, an estuary of the Galicia region of Spain.

I love albariño because it is crisp and acidic like a sauvignon blanc but is generally fuller bodied. It is tart and fresh. There are bright citrus and pear notes and a seaside minerality. Albariños are great with seafood–shellfish, white fish, squid.

Morgadio makes a good albariño, and I’ve had albariños from other producers. It seems that you can’t find a truly bad albariño. The Martín Códax was no different. It was a decent wine and reasonably priced at $11.99. It was lighter bodied than the Morgadio and had a more pronounced tartness that I found a bit distracting. I could imagine it would be better paired with food than as an aperitif.

Jon and I couldn’t finish the bottle right then (as neither of us had anything to eat!), so we decided to visit a place he had passed by on his way to Silverlake. Coincidentally, the place happened to be the newly-opened LA MILL Coffee boutique, which I had wanted to visit as well.

LA MILL is an Alhambra, CA coffee merchant that had for years provided gourmet coffees in bulk to consumers. The Silver Lake location was its first venture into an actual sit-down cafe/restaurant.

Great place–very well decorated, faux-leather chairs, huge numbers of hipsters (some wearing sunglasses indoors, most others wearing at least one article of clothing from American Apparel). They have not one but TWO Clover coffee machines that make one cup each at a time. Jon had a vanilla latte and I had a cup of coffee: the coffee was good–very, very smooth, very light–but also like… $2.50. We also got a free orange cappuccino (apparently, they add orange zest to the foam or something!) because the baristas had made extra.

I had soft-scrambled eggs with dungeness crab, scallion, and tomato with four halves of brioche. I think there were like… two, maybe three eggs, tops. This was $12.00. I also had a glass of iced coffee with plenty of half and half and Splenda. The cream was served in a beaker, which was a nice touch. The iced coffee was strangely… flat… not as good as that of Buster’s in South Pasadena.

After “lunch” we went back to Silverlake Wine, finished the albariño, and split a White Rascal. Then, we went to Intelligentsia Coffee in two cars (yeah–true L.A. carpool fashion).

Or tried to. We got lost trying to find Sunset Boulevard but, after ten minutes or so of driving, managed to get back on track. This turned out to be a fortuitous development.

After he had parked and was walking down a hill to get to the cafe, Jon was approached by some guy who asked to use his cell phone because he was mugged by two dudes with a gun! This was like… one block from Intelligentsia! This man was telling Jon his story when some other guy came down from an apartment and was like, “Yeah, man, I totally saw you get mugged! Do you need a witness or something?”

At first, Jon thought this was one of those tag-team deals, but it turned out to be legit. Jon let the guy use his phone to call 911 then joined me at Intelligentsia for a cup of joe. I can only imagine that had we not gotten lost, Jon might have needed a new wallet! Close call, right?

At any rate, Intelligentsia also uses the Clover coffee machines. Cups of coffee were anywhere from $2.50 – $4.00. Again, a lot of hipsters. Really nice ambience, with covered outdoor and street side seating.

Silver Lake is a cool place: a strange mix of rich and poor, Latino and white and Asian, shabby and chic. It’s where you can get a $4.00 cup of coffee and, on the way back to your car, get mugged by two armed thugs. I’d give it… 91 points. Complex, with a gritty mouthfeel. Notes of chocolate and vanilla, cinnamon. And it can quite possibly get you messed up.