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Review: Carberry's Cambridge

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Andala Coffee House, Cambridge

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Review: Whole Foods Cambridge (South)

Whole Foods - Cambridge, MA (South, near river)

Coffee/tea drinks: No espresso, but a coffee and tea bar.

Internet: None.

Outlets: None.

Bathrooms: Good.

Chairs: Standard table chairs and booths.

Crowds: Lunch time is packed, but every other time is not too crowded. Very quiet in the morning.

Music: None?

Parking: Good. There's a big parking lot.

Hours: 8am-10pm

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Review: Starbucks Cambridge, Memorial Dr.

Starbucks - Cambridge, MA (Memorial Dr.)

Coffee/tea drinks: Starbucks' standard.
Internet: T-Mobile.
Outlets: Good.
Bathrooms: Good.
Chairs: The tables and chairs are sturdier than a normal Starbucks, which is nice.
Crowds: Depends on the time of day. It can get crowded on the weekends, and in the morning. But usually the evenings are relatively less crowded.
Music: Standard Starbucks.
Parking: Good. Starbucks is adjacent to Trader Joe's and an electronics store, so there is a huge parking lot. However, weekend afternoons can still be very busy and fill the lot.

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Review: Athans Bakery and Cafe, Brookline

Athans Bakery and Cafe, Brookline

Coffee/tea drinks: Their coffee is just okay, and their espresso is not great. (I have not ordered their capuccinos after a couple of bad experiences when they first opened). However, you occasionally get a server that does foam pretty well. So, it's kind of spotty.
They do have some very good teas by the pot, however. Some are very flavorful. (I think the tea is imported from Europe).
Food: Their cookies are an acquired taste...(very crumbly and lots of white flour). But I like the fig sandwiches, and one of the double chocolate cookies. I also like their scones (very flaky -- like a buttermilk biscuit crossed with angel food cake). And they have very impressive desserts, chocolates, and gelati.
Internet: Free wifi. (every once in a while it does not work very well, however).
Outlets: Okay.
Bathrooms: Good. They have three brand new bathrooms. Spotless.
Chairs: Nice table chairs.
Crowds: Good. There are usually places to sit, and it is nice and quiet, in part because they have separated the restaurant area from the cafe area.
Music: Fine.
Parking: Okay. Street parking, but I can usually find a spot.
Hours: The hours are great for evenings. 8am? - 11pm More...

Review: Whole Foods Newtonville

Whole Foods Newtonville

Coffee/tea drinks: They just got a new coffee stand in the front. I have only tried their tea, and it is pretty standard for a Whole Foods. The coffee stand also has gelati, however. (see above). They give you free samples if you ask.
Internet: None.
Outlets: Poor.
Bathrooms: Moderate. There are two unisex bathrooms in the back of the grocery store, which makes them inconvenient when you have already purchased your items and are sitting at a table in the front. Additionally, they are frequently occupied.
Chairs: Standard table chairs.
Crowds: Not too bad. People do not seem to stay very long.
Music: None?
Parking: Good. Somtimes it is busy on the weekends, but you can always find a space in their lot within a few minutes.
Hours: 8am - 10pm
Address: 647 Washington St, Newton, MA 02458. (617) 965-2070.
Map More...

Review: Starbucks Belmont

Inside:

Starbucks - Belmont, MA (Trapelo Rd.)

Coffee/tea drinks: Starbucks' standard. However, their bag-tea selection is the best of any Starbucks I have ever seen.
Internet: T-Mobile.
Outlets: Good.
Bathrooms: Good.
Chairs: Standard tables and a couple of comfy chairs.
Crowds: Not too bad. I've seen the lines get really long here, but there still seems to be a good amount of available seating.
Music: Standard Starbucks.
Parking: Moderate. There is a small parking lot, and another parking lot beside it that looks like it's permit-only (but I've never tried), and perhaps some street parking around the corner. There is also a bus stop right there.
Location map

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Deep Thoughts: Free Samples -- Pancakes

Okay Whole Foods had free samples of mini-bluberry pancakes.

Best. Free samples. Ever.

To see more of my discussion of free samples, see here. More...

Review: C3 (Clear Conscience Cafe)

Clear Conscience Cafe (C3), which is part of the Central Square (Cambridge) Co-Op.

Coffee/tea drinks: I have not tried their coffee or espresso, but they have some nice teas.
Food: If you include the Co-Op grocery store, the food options are very broad and include lots of fruits and veggies. But I have had mixed experiences with the cafe's food. The spinach salad is very heavy on spinach and light on everything else, which is fine, except for the fact that this makes it seem overpriced. The pastries are fine, but not always fresh-seeming.
Internet: Free wifi for 1 hour.
Outlets: Good
Bathrooms: Okay. They are between the cafe and the Co-op, so they are not too exposed. But they seem heavily used.
Chairs: Nice. They have a range of table chairs (with plenty of cushioning) and couches.
Crowds: Not too bad, but it can fill-up after work.
Music: Okay, but sometimes you notice it.
Parking: Moderate. There is a 2-hour metered lot behind the Co-Op, but it seems to fill up despite its large size. There are also occasional open spots on the street, but it would be unwise to rely on this unless one has 20 minutes or so to circle. More...

Review: Starbucks Central Square, Cambridge

Starbucks Central Square

Coffee/tea drinks: Starbucks' standard.
Internet: T-Mobile.
Outlets: Okay
Bathrooms: Moderate. There is one unisex bathroom, and you have to ask for the key.
Chairs: Standard tables and a couple of comfy chairs.
Crowds: Not too bad. This is more of a get-it-and-go morning Starbucks, and then an after-work and weekends meeting place. There are usually seats in the early afternoon and early morning.
Music: Standard Starbucks.
Parking: Bad. Basically there is just street parking. However, the #1 bus stops right there.
Hours: They close slightly earlier than most places. 7am - 9pm? More...

Guess the Panera Breakfast

Hot herbal tea and a pecan braid. More...

Review: Panera Bread

Panera Bread:

• Coffee/tea drinks: their coffee sits out in canisters, and their espresso is okay. Their chai tea latte in a mug is a sweet treat, but not especially refined. Their bag-tea is marginal.
• Food: arguably the best food options of any coffee shop because they bake pastries, bread, bagels, and have a full restaurant. If you get something that looks fresh, it's usually pretty good.
• Internet: Free unlimited wifi!
• Outlets: Approximately 10 cords can be plugged in (5 outlet plates)
• Bathrooms: nicely private because they are down a hall. A little cramped at the sink, however.
• Chairs: not too bad. There are table-chairs (pictured above), booths, stools, and comfy couch/chairs. However, a few table-chairs could stand to be restuffed.
• Crowds: easy to find a table in the morning and evening, but it's crowded and noisy at lunch.
• Music: usually nice classical music.

Parking: Limited. There are about 5 or so street parking spots for Panera, and about 5-10 1 hour parking spots (which they very rarely monitor). It's real hit or miss with these. Early and late there you can probably find something, but lunch time is pretty much out of the question. There is also a large parking garage, but it fills up entirely on some days. It may be tempting to park in the nearby bank parking lot, but they are sticklers about Panera customers (one time they hired someone just to stand there and ask you if you were going into the bank or not). More...

Review: Whole Foods' New Containers

Whole Foods has discontinued plastic bags at checkout and introduced super-biodegradable containers at the salad bar. I think it's fantastic that Whole Foods is pushing customers to use reusable bags. Granted, paper bags are still an option, but Whole Foods' efforts are commendable.

But there are a few kinks to work out with the containers at the salad bar (pictured above). First of all, they are insanely hard to pull apart! I mean come on. Removing them from their stacks is a three-hand operation, and still results in ripped corners and discarded pieces. Secondly, they are enormous! They look like shoe boxes. I mean, if I wanted my salad to fly around loosely, I'd just grab a paper bag and skip the container. Then you could really throw everything in and eat it with your hands like a huge bag of popcorn.

For more on Whole Foods' new policies, see environmental-expert.com More...

Coffee Break: Nature's Spendors

Sunset over McDonalds

This is the same McDonalds that I featured in the earlier post.
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Guess the Starbucks Drink

Okay, this one is easier.

Tall non-fat no whip hot chocolate. A nice late afternoon treat. More...

Website Construction

I just want to apologize for the occasional "More..." red herring. The only code I could find for collapsible posts is a 'permalink' which means that it always appears, even if there is nothing more to be said. I'll try to always have more, but sometimes a few sentences really is enough.

This time there really is more though --> See here for a great explanation of how to make every blogspot post a collapsible post. More...

Drink Orders, and How!

Okay, so he looked a little like this:


Since I just wrote on drink orders and personal identity I couldn't help but notice the order following mine this morning. A man steps up wearing a door-to-door salesman suit with a cellphone pressed to his ear, but he wasn't talking or listening to anyone. He then orders a "large hot milk". Yes. He had to say it twice. "A large hot milk, please". Wow. He really seems to like holding business-person-like things, even if he uses them as mere props. The barista placed it on the bar and politely called it out as a venti steamer, but everyone within earshot already knew its birth name. So now I'm thinking that it's not just your drink order that reaveals something about you, but how you order it.


That 'portrait' was penned by me, but I am completely indebted to the creators of jacksonpollack.org Their site is amazing.

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Under Construction!

Apologies for the roughness of the blog today. More...

Guess the Starbucks Drink

Hint: it's the same as yesterday.

Tall nonfat green tea latte.

I ordered this yesterday morning as well, so I guess I've revealed what Starbucks drink phase I'm going through.
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Review: Rice Bowls

Café Cakes is a very cute little coffee shop in Watertown, MA (Boston). Sometimes they have rice bowls at lunch, which are wonderful. On one side of the bowl there are crisp cold tomato, lettuce, and hard boiled egg slices. The other half has a full-flavored hot dish (I had chicken curry). It is a wonderfully textured, multi-dimensional meal.

Café Cakes has free wifi, but the number of outlets is limited. So charge up your batteries before stopping by.


(photo from flicker) More...

Wow, McD. I've never seen you this way.

Outside a McD I visited recently.

I'm starting to reconsider what I said on another blog...

I dare you to sit in a McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts for 3 hours. Even the thought of this freaks me out. Starbucks wins the friendliness award hands down.

Posted last week on Table de Cafe

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This McD has stools in soothing colors...

(are those seats green with a little Starbucks-envy?) More...

...free newspapers

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...and flat screen TVs!

I'm speechless. Seriously. I never knew McDonalds was capable of feeling like an airport, but I guess I was wrong.

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Coffee Shop Wars: Quantity of Writing Produced (part 1)

It is well known that coffee shops attract writers. But what coffee shop produces the most writing?

Starbucks, 2 points:

1. Recently it came to light that Diablo Cody, Academy Award winner for Best Original Screenplay, wrote her winning script "Juno" in a Starbucks inside a Target (From seattlepi.com)

2. Margaret Seltzer, just came out with a "non-fiction memoir" about child abuse, drug dealing, and and everything else, under the name Margaret B. Jones. But her book was recently exposed to be a completely fictional story that she wrote “at the Starbucks in South-Central [LA]". (From turtletalk.wordpress.com)

This Coffee Shop War is not delving into the quality of the literary work (that can be looked into after we start getting some sense of quantity), so it appears that Starbucks is off to an early lead.

To Be Continued...

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Barrrrrrrista

The sandwich board here in Starbucks says they're looking for "Barristas". Um. Especially ones that can spell?

I'm far from a perfect speller, so perhaps all of us could benefit from this spelling game I found online. (funbrain) More...

SBUX Stock

It's looking up today! Yay.

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Guess the Starbucks Drink

My morning Starbucks drink. Guesses?

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Cafe Voltaire

Check out this cafe inspired blog. It seems like he/she needs an audience. cafe-voltaire.blogspot More...

Stats: US Coffee Consumption

From barista-success.com

Among coffee drinkers, the average consumption in the United States is 3.2 cups of coffee per day.

Americans consume 400 million cups of coffee per day making United States the leading consumer of coffee in the world. More...

Coffee Break: Read More About Coffee!

50 Websites on Coffee More...

Coffee Health and History

From coffeeuniverse.com

Did you Know?
Coffee is a seed of a berry. A common myth alleges that coffee was originally discovered by a goat herder named Kaldi. After watching his heard of goats become frisky after eating berries from this unknown bush, he ate them himself, and found these berries gave him a renewed vigor.

Coffee + Health Issues
Coffee has been studied for more than a century. For every report that alleges a potential health risk, another may discredit or show benefits. It is generally agreed that pregnant women should limited their coffee consumption. Did you know that drinking a cup of coffee can help calm an acute attack of asthma? Coffee has many positive effects.

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Coffee Break: Eye of the Tiger

This is a funny Starbucks commercial:


"Eye of the Tiger" Trailer for Rocky 3:


"Eye of the Tiger" clip in Persepolis:
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Deep Thoughts: Cadenza International

Wow. Usually when I say "deep thoughts" I mean the opposite. But this website seems to really take coffee seriously. See Cadenza International's projects page: Cadenza. More...

Personal Touch: Starbucks Oasis

From Mike M:

Not only do I like the metaphor of Starbucks as an oasis, but I feel close to this photo because I've seen one very similar. I mean I literally see one now. I am sitting in a Starbucks, and a very similar photo is framed on the wall along with a personal letter to this very Starbucks location.

The internet is a very strange place. Sometimes you look in the void and see what's right in front of you.

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