Coffee at Gourmet Cellars

Airport coffee doesn’t actually have to be good coffee. In fact the bar is set very low for food and coffee in airports. I suspect it has a lot to do with access to a captive audience waiting for a flight. When you are boarding in 30 minutes, you are unlikely to shop around much.

Gourmet Cellars in the Sydney Domestic Terminal is actually not too bad. The cafe is located just near a bookshop tucked away from the main concourse. As the name implies, they had a surprisingly substantial wine list, even if they were light on food.

The cafe uses Vittoria coffee and does a reasonable job with it. My long black was more or less OK, and was only slightly too bitter. Considering what some cafes do to Vittoria coffee, this was better than I was expecting. Unfortunately for me, their cake selection was poor to nonexistent and their food selection was just as slim. They did stock some biscuits and a few other nibbles, but nothing that appealed to me.

The seating was OK, but like so many other places in an airport, they were short on power points. The day a franchise makes power points available at the table for their airport locations, they will make a killing. Unfortunately for my phone’s battery, Gourmet Cellar was not going to be the one to start this.

TL;DR

• OK coffee, not like you have much choice
• Very light on food
• I am sure their wines are lovely
• Why don’t airport cafes offer patrons power points at the table?

Gourmet Cellars
http://www.airportretail.com.au/gourmet-cellars

Tea Centre Tea and Cake

This may come as a shock, but I did not get a long black at the Tea Centre’s store in Sydney. It would have missed the point. The Tea Centre is a specialist tea shop. They have a number of stores around Australia, including three in Brisbane, and specialise in high quality loose leaf tea. There is also a Tea Centre store in Sydney, and unlike most of the others, this one has a tea room, with tea. And cake.

The Tea Centre is in “The Glasshouse” just off the Pitt Street Mall. After spending a good part of the day walking around Sydney’s inner city shops it was nice to sit down. Adding a slice of chocolate and almond cake and a pot of tea was a bonus. My girlfriend is a rabid tea fiend and long-term fan of the Tea Centre, so I let her choose.  We ended up drinking Stockholm Blend, which was pretty good.

The store certainly looked like a tea specialty shop. Tea and tea making apparatus filled most of the space, barely leaving room for a few tables and an upright cake cabinet. It seemed to be busy with customers both buying supplies for home and stopping in for a drink, but we were able to get a table and place an order without too much trouble.

Our tea arrived in a generously sized and rather attractive pot. The pot was large enough for four cups in total, and the cake was pretty good. While all three of the the Tea Centre stores in Brisbane carry the same great range of loose leaf tea, only one of them (Albert St in the CBD) has a tea room like the Pitt Street Mall store. I do prefer coffee, but if you drink tea, be sure to try out the tea from the Tea Centre. It really is very good, tastes way fresher than tea bags and contains no artifical flavours or preservatives (unlike rival chain T2).

TL;DR

• I ordered tea, not coffee
• Is mostly a tea shop, the tea room is an addition
• Small range of cake, large range of tea
• Is in Sydney

The Tea Centre
http://www.theteacentre.com.au/
“The Glasshouse”, 150 Pitt Street Mall
Sydney CBD
Ph: 02 9223 9909

VIVO Cafe Coffee

You can never get good coffee on a plane. The tea is tolerable, but the coffee isn’t. Thus, the first thing I looked for after leaving my bags in the hotel was a decent cafe. It wasn’t just for coffee; Qantas’ breakfast was only slightly more adequate than their tea.

As it was a Friday, and the hotel was just on the edge of Sydney’s CBD, finding a cafe wasn’t hard. And this is why I am writing about a coffee from VIVO in Sydney. Like many Brisbane CBD cafes, VIVO had a lot of glass, seating both inside and outside and food, with the main difference being that it’s bigger than most cafes found in Brisbane’s CBD. They also use a recognisable (and Brisbane-based) coffee brand, Di Bella.

The coffee was strong and had a good crema. Due to the amount of tea my girlfriend received, I had two coffees while I waited for her to finish. The food was also good; I had a tasty and generously portioned bircher muesli and they were more than happy to swap the eggs for bacon on my girlfriend’s order.

The cafe also has a WiFi hotspot which worked as well as any other free WiFi I have tried, and the only thing I was lacking was somewhere to charge my phone. But I don’t know of a single cafe that offers that, which is a real shame.

TL;DR

• Nice looking CBD cafe
• Solid menu, good coffee
• Is in Sydney

VIVO Cafe
http://www.vivocafe.com.au/
Facebook
388 George Street
Sydney CBD
Ph: 02 9221 1169

Long Black Coffee at Sip Cafe

Seating both indoors and outdoors, slightly uncomfortable chairs and reasonable coffee. Most urban cafes are very similar and Sip Cafe in Teneriffe seems to fit this description too. Sip Cafe is on Vernon Tce, near the river. It is one of the small cafes at the bottom of the apartment blocks in Teneriffe.

The coffee was OK, exactly what you could expect from Di Bella. It was served with a chocolate freckle, which you need to eat sooner rather than later. As it turns out, chocolate melts when it is too close to hot liquids.

Apparently their breakfasts are not too bad, at least according to one of my friends who I was meeting there for coffee, and according to Sip’s Facebook page. This time we did not get a chance to test this for ourselves; as we had all eaten before we met up.

There actually isn’t anything wrong with Sip Cafe. The coffee is good, it has a fridge with a glass door and the usual drinks, and if you live in the apartments above it, the location is great. It is just that there is no real compelling reason to go there other than convenience.

TL;DR

• The coffee was OK
• The cafe was OK
• There is not much more to say really

Sip Cafe
Facebook
Sip Cafe, 54 Vernon Terrace
Teneriffe
Ph: 07 3257 1799

Fonzie Abbott on Racecourse Road

Racecourse Road is not a good place to go for coffee; there are not many places that can do a passable long black. You can find dining, a Coles Metro and occasionally even large numbers of drunk people with a temporary interest in horses, but finding a good coffee is harder. Unless you go to a small espresso bar called Fonzie Abbott, just next to Vagelis.

Fonzie Abbott Cafe

Fonzie Abbott is named for the first pet and first street that one of the owners lived on, just like the pornstar name meme. I can only assume that this is somehow related to the rooster in their logo.

The cafe is more of an espresso bar, with a small footprint and not too many seats. The coffee they serve is not just the best on Racecourse Road, but compares well against cafes in other areas too.

Fonzie Abbott uses both blends and single origin beans, with the single origin beans changing regularly.  There are a few light meals and a selection of beers available as well, and apparently they also do Espresso Martinis on Fridays.

There are not many places on Racecourse Road that can do good coffee, and fortunately Fonzie Abbott is an exception. The decor tends towards hipster, with its second-hand aesthetic and the mix of blends and single origin beans. It is my pick of the street if you want a good coffee, long black or otherwise.

TL;DR

• Better than the other cafes on Racecourse Road, because…
• The coffee is actually good
• Pornstar meme name
• Espresso Martinis

Fonzie Abbott Espresso
http://fonzieabbott.com
Facebook
Fonzie Abbott Espresso, 1/30 Racecourse Road
Hamilton
Ph: 07 32684293

Long Black Coffee at the Coffeeguy

After weeks of being told about the place, I finally visited a great cafe/coffee lounge in Wooloowin called CoffeeGuy. It was not until a friend and I arranged to catch up on the weekend there that I finally got around to checking the place out.

The cafe is near Rhubarb Rhubarb, a resturant that at least two other guys told me is a great way to apologise to an aggrieved partner, and when you walk in, the first thing you notice is the space. The place is large, and the tables, chairs and couches are spread out, creating a completely different experience from most other cafes. It did not take long for one of the staff to notice my confusion, and with their assistance I ordered a pair of long blacks and found somewhere to sit until Chris arrived.

Yellow Bourbon Beans

Once Chris arrived, I found out that I had ordered the wrong coffee. According to Daniel, the owner, I should have ordered one of the single origins, because that is what Chris usually got, and not their regular blend. Fortunately he saved me and brought out another pair of long blacks to replace the ones I had chosen. It was a dry prepared Brazilian bean they roasted themselves.

In fact they have a small roaster off to the side of the cafe. The owner was more than happy to talk about the coffee he had, including some Yellow Bourbon Camocim Organic he had just got in. Like the other exceptional baristas and cafe owners in Brisbane, Daniel clearly loves coffee, and even has his own cafe recommendations he is willing to share.

The cafe is a great place, the coffee is exceptional and the cafe itself is unique, though a Finnish friend of mine did say they had coffee lounges like it in Europe. There is really only one thing that I can find to pick on, and that is the lack of a kitchen. There are cold snacks and biscuits available though, and that is more than enough to make CoffeeGuy a great place to spend a Saturday morning.

TL;DR

• Open floor plan and a lot of space between customers
• CoffeeGuy is purely about coffee, there is no kitchen
• Good service
• There is a roaster in the corner
• They know coffee and have a changing range of single origins

The Coffeeguy
http://www.Coffeeguy.com.au
CoffeeGuy, Shop 2, 85 Kent Road
Wooloowin
Ph: 07 3357 4440

Black Coffee at Gloria Jean's

I thought it would be best to start with a joke. An Italian, an American and an Englishman were going to meet in the Valley for a coffee. The Italian could not make it. So they go to Gloria Jean’s instead.

The Gloria Jean’s shop on the mall in Fortitude Valley has nice chairs, a few couches and air conditioning. They also charge $4.25 for a regular long black. The stores are similar to Starbucks: all coffee is served in disposable cups with an ironic ‘Rainforest Alliance’ logo (take that evil trees!), they offer a wide range of syrups and substances to add in, and if you order a black coffee, it usually is not that great.

The coffee smelled burnt in an interestingly worrying way and was too hot, which was almost certainly the cause. It was also one of the more watery long blacks I have had recently. Even the McCafe coffee compared favourably to it.

Like Starbucks, Gloria Jean’s is not really in the business of serving black coffee. Just one quick look around the store and it is obvious that they sell far more milky coffee flavoured beverages than black coffee. With the market they cater for, and the range of syrups and interesting interpretations on the theme of ‘coffee’ on the menu, maybe a sugarless black coffee is not what they had in mind.

TL;DR

• Nice franchise stores
• Coffee is not really their thing

Gloria Jean’s Fortitude Valley Mall
Gloriajeans.com
McWhirters Urban Market
Fortitude Valley, 4006

Towers in Minecraft Pocket Edition

Just don’t. You will lose hours of your time, run your battery down and if you just get the free demo version, probably buy the full version. Finally the mobile version of Minecraft now works with more handsets. Minecraft, as you probably know, is a popular indie game that features an 8-bit aesthetic and gameplay options that range from vicious survival to peaceful sandbox.

Until just recently, the only mobile version was optimised for Xperia, and as I have a Samsung Galaxy S, that was not very useful. Fortunately this has recently changed, so now if your phone is running Android 2.1 or higher you can run it. Both paid and demo versions of Minecraft Pocket Edition let you build whatever you want in a sandbox mode. Neither version has the survival mode, though the paid version has more blocks to build with, and the ability to save worlds between sessions.

Aside from some very occasional tearing, the graphics looked good, and the game ran smoothly. Minecraft’s visual style seemed to work well for the limited capabilities of mobile. It did kill the battery, which should be no surprise considering the load it puts on both the screen and the hardware, and given how easy it is to lose yourself even in sandbox mode, this is not a game you should play when you are more than an hour away from being able to charge your phone.

Should you get Minecraft Pocket Edition?

If you have an Android mobile, and you enjoy 3D world creation games with a sandbox mode, you should get Minecraft Pocket Edition. If you prefer to not run your battery down at the worst possible moment, because you just had to finish that castle while waiting for the bus, then you might want to avoid it.

TL;DR

• Addictive and fun game
• Devours time
• Murders battery life

Little Big Man Espresso

There is a strong positive correlation between the number of cool suburban cafes in Brisbane and the value of the Australian dollar. This is hardly controversial as any country able to support a growing number of nifty locations serving coffee away from the inner city must have something going for it.

You’ll find one more of these on the corner of Thorrold and Dickson Streets in Wooloowin. Little Big Man Espresso is in a good position for the morning commuters. Dickson Street carries a lot of through traffic, and it is surrounded by houses and near a train station.

Takeaway Coffee From Little Big Man Espresso

Little Big Man Espresso is actually located in a mostly unchanged old corner store. With the counter at the back of the building, there are tables and chairs inside and a number of stools and low tables just outside the door. There was even one solitary drawing on one of the walls, hopefully promising more to come.

The cafe looks very cute and is so new it has no real visibility online just yet. They serve Genovese coffee and do a respectable job with it, and already seem to be attracting the early morning weekend crowd. If you live in Wooloowin, be sure to check it out, a local cafe is not to be ignored.

TL;DR

• Looks cool
• Great commuter location
• Serves decent coffee

Little Big Man Espresso
Facebook Page
86 Dickson Street
Wooloowin

A Long Black Coffee at Bar Moda

It is hard to find a good coffee in the city outside of normal work hours. After 4pm, almost all of the cafes close, leaving just a handful huddling around the mall, nothing like the number of options available during the workday.

Bar Moda is an office hours cafe. Sitting in the foyer at 307 Queen Street and surounded by other office blocks, it is not likely to get much foot traffic on the weekend. During the week is another matter entirely though.

Bar Moda has two counters, one facing out of the building and another inside. There is seating near both, but most importantly, the two counters keep the takeaway orders turning over fast. The coffee is strong and good, though the latest one I had was pretty hot for black coffee. I imagine it would have been fine as a milk coffee.

There is one more thing: they have free WiFi via CafeScreen. The service looked interesting and it ran an image insert/replace in some RSS feeds within Flipboard. Twitter and email were fine, but I did not stay long enough to try it out properly.

TL;DR

• Takeaway orders move fast
• Good coffee, better if you like it with milk
• Free WiFi

Bar Moda
307 Queen Street
Brisbane CBD, 4000
ph: 3221 0101