Sneak Peek Pics

Here are a few pictures of the cafe so far.  Just a little sneak peak, a teaser really :o)
I'll be sharing some photos as the work continues and the finishing touches go on!

Committed

There are baby steps and there are big steps. There are commitments and there are Commitments! Well, another big step and giant commitment made to the Perfect Cup café today.  Father Dearest and I booked and paid for the airline ticket for barista and course facilitator extraordinaire, Dawson. Our lovely Canadian friend will be coming to Trinidad during the last week of September to install and configure the beautiful Evolution.  Looks like we’ve got an opening date coming up; *nervous finger biting begins*…

Café Update

We’re coming, we’re coming. Perfect Cup is on the way! Our opening date, however, has been pushed back from the end of this month to the end of next month. We’ve had the odd, ‘expected but unexpected’ stumbling blocks which have delayed our opening but that’s just all part of the learning process. Work continues at a pace and the shop space continues its transformation. Our counter and tables have been built and installed… and are looking pretty snazzy, if I do say so myself :o). The plumbing and electricals are now complete, light fixtures and mirrors mounted and storage tables all unpacked and set up. Food badges have been obtained and some pastry sampling has begun (and I can tell you we’re off to a very yummy start). Perfect Cup will be up and running soon enough. I’m looking forward to serving you the best cup of coffee you’ll find anywhere on the island!

Licensed to Sell

friday.19.august.2011

Food Badge: check! Another step towards the opening of Perfect Cup. Thankfully this process was not as convoluted as getting incorporated; nor was it as umm… interesting as the procurement of the affidavit that we needed to complete the incorporation process.

Sweet and simple did it. Father Dearest, Mother Dearest and I spent a couple short hours speaking to an inspector, filling out some forms and listening to a lecture on the proper handling of food and food preparation.

Lecture ended; badges were issued; class dismissed!

Happy Anniversary… again!

thursday.11.august.2011

If it was nice, do it twice? Two anniversary dinner celebrations? Sure! The second one was shared with my parents to celebrate their anniversary as well (and Father Dearest’s retirement). We took our celebrations to a new restaurant, Ipanema for a Brazilian Churrasco dining experience. Churrasco is a centuries old method of slowly grilling meat to perfection; and I can certainly say that every cut of meat that passed my way was perfectly prepared, succulent and divinely flavourful. Fantastic meal from salad to meat to sides to decadent desert and coffee. Thanks Ipanema for a delightful culinary anniversary experience.

Back to the coffee, however. I’ve mentioned before that, if you can’t have fresh roasted beans for your espresso, Lavazza produces the next best option. That was certainly the case here with our Americanos. The trick to serving a good Americano (other than pulling a good shot) is to pour the espresso over the water, as opposed to water over the espresso. This ensures that the luscious, golden crema remains intact and is as visually appealing as it should be tasty. As a measure of how well the espresso shot was pulled and how great the Americano tasted, at Ipanema, Husband drank his straight- no added sugar or milk! Now that was a perfect end to a perfect meal.

Move over Prime, I’ve got another favourite restaurant!

Happy Anniversary!

monday.08.august.2011

Today is Husband’s and my 2nd anniversary. Quite different from last year’s celebrations, when we spent an entire weekend away- we only managed a two-hour sojourn away from home and the Coffee Bean this time around. Grandparents and Great Grandparents are such lovely inventions! Great Grandma P kept the Bean for us while we had dinner at Chaud Café (different from the full Chaud restaurant).

Dinner was lovely… we had a tapas style meal so we got to sample a variety of dishes: Divine mango margaritas, Marinated olives; Pesto breadsticks, Chicken Paillard with Pico de Gallo, a Spanish chorizo & potato tortilla and French fries with arugula mayo. Every dish was absolutely delicious. The staff and service were just as fantastic as in the full restaurant. The air-conditioned indoor ambience was a very trendy rustic meets zen type of affair- with glass doors, a brick wall façade, open kitchen, wide mirror and dark wood wine bar all coming together to create a comfortable and welcoming dinner setting. (The outdoor patio looked alright too; although for the life of me I can’t figure out why most of the other patrons chose to sit outdoors on a hot, humid night with the smell of citronella and city corporation mosquito spray assaulting the senses! People it’s hot in Trinidad all year through. No need to sacrifice comfort for “summer outdoor dining”!!!) Moving on...

We finished up our dinner with a scrumptious, melt-in-your-mouth Apple Crumble pie topped with Dulce de Leche ice-cream. Husband also sampled of their coffee. All of Chaud Café’s coffee drinks are made with Britt Café coffees (which we had previously sampled at Hyatt). Not bad… but nowhere near as good as a fresh roasted Social!

Verdict:  Lovely anniversary and great cafe... Maybe I'll send them some fabulous fresh coffee to make it even better ;o)

Cuppa tea, anyone?

sunday.07.august.2011

That’s the title of an article I’ve been meaning to share with you all since I saw it about a month ago. The article ties in very well to the mini-tea-series I did a few weeks ago on a selection of the Social teas we’d been sampling for the café.

Kiran Akal is a Trinidadian who has lived, studied and worked in several European countries and the United States, where he is currently based. He is an avid tea drinker (one might even say addict) who consumes around 11 cups a day! Mr. Akal decided the Caribbean lacked a luxury tea brand and set about to fill this void. Read all about his tea making experience in this Trinidad Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.tt/node/18164

For those of you in Trinidad, these very high end teas are available at Smaks in Valpark and at the Carlton Savannah hotel in Cascade. Hopefully I can do a review of a couple of these teas soon!

Back to Kay’s

sunday.31.july.2011

Almost a year to the weekend, we took a beach day trip back up to the north coast. (Refresh your memory on that post by clicking here). It was Coffee Bean’s first trip to the beach- not that he noticed much as he slept through our visits to both Big Bay and Grande Rivere beaches.

We made Kay’s Kitchen and d Arthur’s Guest House our breakfast and (very late) lunch pit stop in hope for some excellent fish broth, salt fish and fried bakes and Cocoa Tea. We got the broth and bakes but Kay only does the cocoa tea to order- We’ll just have to plan another trip up and call in advance!

Wonder if I can convince Kay to provide the coffee shop with some authentic Cocoa Tea...

Panama Estate Select- Elida

friday.29.july.2011

The Social coffee stocks have been depleted and so we’ve moved on to some freshly roasted Panamanian coffees. The website http://www.coffeefrompanama.com/ offers a one stop shop for coffee beans from a variety of Panama’s leading coffee estates in the Boquete region. These coffees are labeled by estate and not individually named. I haven't been able to figure out why it works that way; but it does seem that each estate produces just one or two coffees every harvest. This same Boquete region is home to the famed Esmeralda coffee, which comes from the Geisha coffee plant variety. These Geisha coffees grow extremely well in Boquete and are the feature coffee beans of the region.  As a result of the focus of Geishas, coffees from these estates are classed as either Geisha or non-Geisha varieties.

The Elida estate coffee is consistently judged as a top 10 non-Geisha coffee. In 2007 it was actually chosen as the top non-Geisha in the Best of Panama competition.

Over the last week, we’ve been using these beans for our espressos and regular drip coffee. This medium roast coffee has a mild yet full and rich flavour, which is more floral than fruity.

The Silk almond milk has been able to complement the Elida’s flavour quite well. In other coffees the almond simply presents as a different aftertaste. Although, I’m still taste testing to figure out whether the brand of almond milk also affects the taste.  Will follow-up on that at a later date.

The Proof is in the Rosetta

thursday.28.july.2011

The components of a first-rate latte: a well-prepared espresso shot and good microfoam.

The proof of well-formed microfoam: pretty latte art holds its shape from first sip to last.

Just as I’d given up hope of getting a good latte until I’m back on regular milk, Father Dearest pulls off a great Almond milk based one! Yummy! Firstly he had to pull an excellent espresso shot, which he did thanks to the Elida Estate coffee (more on that in another post); then he had to manipulate the milk into the perfect microfoam. As I’d mentioned before, the Silk almond milk is a thicker, creamier milk than the Almond Breeze. This therefore made it much easier to achieve the desired microfoam. Also, the Silk has a less pronounced flavour, which makes it less likely to overpower the coffee flavour. However, it’s still a new flavour to the coffee and what I ended up with could be compared to an amaretto flavoured café latte; and it was topped with a little rosetta too. Not bad at all!