On Coffee: A Portland Declaration

Around these parts, people take their coffee with absolute seriousness. This leads to a certain amount of pretension and posturing - something I've been guilty of since high school. But let's be honest: most of us do not have any real expertise to distinguish between, say, excellent coffee and really excellent coffee. Hence my Portland declaration: We should just drink what we like.

If only it were that easy.

I recently sent Jeff to a barista class at Clive Coffee, an exemplar of the Portland coffee scene. Clive doesn't sell coffee, they sell the coffee experience - by which I mean $70 old-fashioned coffee mills so you can grind your coffee by hand, $65 Japanese water kettles so you can pour your water with precision, and $170 stands crafted from salvaged wood for your conical filter and glass beaker (to replace your $5 plastic coffee filter holder and freebie mug). I'm actually not being cynical here - this stuff is beautiful. But it's nothing you need, and in that sense reminds me of the Japanese tea ceremony: the beauty of the form becomes as important as the quality of the final product.

Clive also sells $5000 home espresso machines, which then necessitates classes to teach the new owners how to use them. I just thought it would be interesting to learn how to pull a shot. So off Jeff goes, and he brings back this story.

At the outset, the barista-instructor pulled a shot of espresso and tasted it. "Mmmm," he said. "That's good." Then he passed it around to the four students. The first three concurred: this was the good stuff. Jeff was last.

Jeff's first thought: "I don't even drink the communion wine at church, and you want me to revel in four strangers' backwash?" Jeff's second thought: "This tastes like a particularly sour lemon." Jeff says, "Oh. I don't think this tastes good." Everyone laughs, but it wasn't a joke.

My point: Way to go, Jeff! A $5000 machine does not guarantee a transcendant coffee experience, just like a two-hour-long wait doesn't guarantee a transcendent brunch experience or a triple-dose of local hops doesn't guarantee a transcendent microbrew (in truth, it never does). We should be honest with ourselves and drink what we like.

Consider also Jeff's personal mission to score a "real" cappuccino in Portland. In Portland, people love foam art. You know, the leaf/heart/tree/flower that skilled baristas can shape through precision pours of "microfoam." Problem is, foam art is not conducive to old-fashioned cappuccinos - the kind with thick foam you can stand a spoon up in. Baristas' solution: insist that microfoam coffee art does a cappuccino make. Yes, that means a cappuccino is pretty much the same as a latte, but only plebeians insist on a dry cappuccino, and plebeians' requests are easy to ignore. So foam art it is.

This is, however, a good problem to have, this imbibing pretension, because it's a symptom of having wine/beer/coffee worth being pretentious about. Our collective standards here in Portland are high, and human beings generally don't want to end up on the wrong side of public opinion, so we reach imbibing consensuses that sometimes miss the bigger picture: we should like what we drink, especially when we have so many high-quality products to choose from. 

That's all I have to say about that. Here are a few of my favorite coffee drinking establishments, plebeian though I am, for those passing through Portland and seeking something beyond Starbucks.

Barista: The store on Alberta is my current favorite coffee shop in Portland because it is so Portland. The coffee can be exquisite (advanced foam art, ahoy), and its decor nails 1890s hipster, complete with artisanal lightbulbs and wall-mounted taxidermy wearing Timbers soccer scarves. (Meanwhile, their Pearl District store nails the exposed-brick-light-industrial look. I appreciate their neighborhood-specific aesthetic.) Also important: it's a pleasant place to sit.

Extracto: I had the most beautiful espresso at their secondary location on Prescott. Unfortunately, not as pleasant as a place to hang out.

Water Avenue Coffee: I recently had a transcendent espresso experience here. It was so good, I had to restrain myself from jumping up and immediately ordering another. I also like the layout of their space, with a few different types of seating options. Conveniently located next to Clive.

Spella: Tiny storefront right in the middle of downtown that's hardly every open. Like many places around town, they roast their own coffee (one of our favorites), and they hand-pull their shots. It's a little slice of Italy, complete with European hours.

Stumptown: As they like to say on Portlandia, it's OVER! Except it's not. Stumptown is no longer "cool" or cutting edge, but it's still reliably good. I'm a fan. Their shop on Belmont is worth spending time in - and their nearby Annex, which serves only individually brewed cups of coffee (no espresso), pretty much started the whole individually brewed cup of coffee thing. It's worth a visit.

Top 10 Den Haag Experiences

For a friend's visit earlier this summer, I compiled a list of our favorite Den Haag experiences.  As we leave The Hague for more American pastures, it seems a fitting adieu to our year of going Dutch*:

1. Classic tourism, Hague-style

By which I mean, an hour in the Mauritshuis (The Hague's world-class museum), followed by a walk around the Binnenhof (the Dutch parliament buildings).

The Binnenhof. Photo Credit: Lyza D. Gardner

2. An afternoon in Delft 

Take the tram, or better yet, ride a bike down to Delft, a condensed version of all that is charming about Dutch towns: canals with narrow streets and white-railed bridges, churches with tilting towers, big squares and little squares and a thriving market on Saturdays. If the weather's nice, have a beer in the Beestenmarkt, a smaller square lined with cafes and full of Dutch people hanging out under leafy trees. No matter what, have a meal at Rossio - our most favorite restaurant in all of the Netherlands.

Beer on the Beestenmarkt

3. Scheveningen in the summer

Dozens of these temporary cafes line the beach during summer.

 The  Hague's beach along the North Sea, Scheveningen is a surprisingly popular destination for German tourists, who like to dig holes in the sand.  (Not only is this in fact a stereotype that Dutch people harbor against Germans, it also appears, based on our limited observations, to be true.) The most fun aspect of the beach scene - even more fun than watching Germans dig holes - is the seasonal bars and cafes that pop up along the sand during the summer months.  These are neither permanent structures nor make-shift encampments, but full-on restaurants with stylish outdoor lounge seating that magically appear sometime in May and then magically disappear - entirely - sometime in September.  You have to see it to believe it.

Feeling peaceful yet?

4. A tour of the Peace Palace

Andrew Carnegie's gift to the world, the Vredespalais is stunning on the outside and full of equally stunning treasures on the inside, presents from grateful countries around the world. The Palace is the seat of the UN's court, the International Court of Justice, which peacefully resolves border disputes, fishery fights, and other heated arguments between countries.  We take it for granted these days, but it if weren't for the ICJ, countries would still be going to war every year over the shifting courses of river boundaries and over-depletion of cod stocks.  Unfortunately, the Peace Palace is largely closed to the public, but if you plan in advance (or know someone who knows someone), you can schedule a tour.

5. Biking in the Wassenaar dunes

This activity combines two ultimate Dutch experiences: bikes and the sea.  An awesome bike path leads north from Scheveningen; at the top of the tallest dunes, you can look back at The Hague in the hazy distance.

(Already missing our Dutch bikes...)

6. Coffee at Zebedeus and/or ice cream at Florencia 

Florencia is an institution in The Hague, serving cheap coffee and cheaper ice cream to pensioners, motorcycle gangs, children, and everyone in between for something like 40 years.  It has the interior decoration of a smoke-filled Italian cafeteria from the 1980s, but any aesthetic doubts are quickly soothed by the 70-cent icecream cones. Based on a significant sample set ;-), I can strongly recommend the caneel (cinnamon), gember (ginger) and stroopwafel.  

Hanging out like Dutch pensioners at Florencia. 
Photo Credit: Lyza D. Gardner

As for their coffee, you're much better off going down the street to Zebedeus, which serves - we have officially concluded - the best coffee in town. Plus it's built into the side of The Hague's Grote Kerk (literally, "Big Church"), which is kind of cool. Zebedeus also has very good food - indeed, it's my favorite restaurant in The Hague.

7. Beer in the Grote Markt 

Particularly recommended for a sunny afternoon, when the square is packed with people sunning themselves.  We are particularly fond of De Zwarte Ruiter, which has an atmospheric interior for those colder, darker days of winter.

At the height of summer, the tables are twice as thick. 
Photo Credit: Lyza D. Gardner

8. An off-beat museum

If you've made it this far down the list, it's probably time for some more cultural amusements. Among The Hague's more unusual museums, I particularly like the Panorama Mesdag and the Museum Meermanno (a.k.a., the Museum of the Book). (I've previously described both here.) 

9. Shopping at the Turkish Market 

A massive open-air market that runs Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, De Haagse Markt (it's actual name) is what we call "a slice of life."  (See also my brief description here.)

10. Lunch or dinner at Simonis

Hit up the main branch of this local institution, amongst the unromantic docks of the Scheveningen port, for the freshest seafood in a no-frills setting and at surprisingly reasonable prices.  (The Dutch like a good value.)  In fact, their raw herring is so good, I had to revise my initial opinion of that ultimate Dutch delicacy.

Photo Credit: Lyza D. Gardner

 * Yes, Dutch couples really do split the bill on dates.

Looking for more Hague ideas? Check out my map of all our favorite places: Our Hague.

A Top 5 List of Roman Food Moments

What I love: Food, lists, Rome.  Hence, a Top 5 list of the little food moments that made our Rome weekend so perfect:

Overheard in PDX

I'm checking out my favorite double-fried old fashioned doughnut with the dark chocolate frosting in the pastry display case when I first notice the anxious strain in the voice of the woman in front of me. She's just turning down the slightly stout barista's offer of her usual americano, her voice trailing off lamely as she explains, "I saw a woman who had like a cup with all this whip cream, and I thought ... I need ... to have one of those..." 

The barista, black beard and black clothes with one tasteful tattoo on his right forearm, busies himself with the espresso machine. After a pause, he offers, "How's your day going so far?"

"Well, I just woke up actually, so I'm just like going to work now, so... my day's, I guess, not really going yet..." She fusses with her purposefully mussed-up hair. "I was on this date last night," she states. "With this guy I used to talk to all the time when he worked at Whole Foods." Just like we talk, every day - shit, but don't think I actually like the Whole Foods guy: "But it was like a total clusterfuck. Yeah, I thought he was cool when he worked at Whole Foods, but you know, it turns out he's a total douchebag." 

The barista is staring out the window over the top of the machine as he pounds the ground espresso and locks it into place to pull. He looks down briefly as he shifts to start steaming the milk. "Where'd you go?" he finally says.

She leans into the counter, as if invading his personal barista space will force him to turn around, and takes out her lime-green wallet. "To [somplace]. I mean, he just talked about himself all night, like for 3 hours." She pauses. "It was a total clusterfuck," just so we're clear.

"Maybe he was nervous." He shakes the whip cream cannister as if whipping it by brute force.

"Oh, yeah, maybe... But whenever I tried to say anything he'd just interrupt again..." 

The barista waits several beats before capitulating. "I'm sure he was a tool," he offers as he swipes her credit card.

"Yeah," her voice sounds relieved, "it turns out he's, like, a super-famous Feist fan." Air quotes and forced giggle.

"What does that mean?" More interested, but still avoiding her eye as he slides her the credit card receipt and pen across the counter. "'If you check out issue 52 of the Feist Fanzine, bottom of page 4, you'll see my latest piece'?"

She giggles again, "I know!" Her hand trembles as she signs.

"Later." "Later." And she leaves, unrequited crush.