An Epilogue.

So I've moved to Colorado. And, weirdly, it's here that I finally found the perfect chai. Bhakti Chai, brewed up in Boulder and sold in (veganly-milked) bottles at Whole Foods (as well as by-the-deliciously-expensive-cup in virtually every self-respecting coffee shop I've been to), is THE BEST. It comes in "spicy" and "sweet" at most coffee shops, but even the "sweet" packs the gingery punch I so love. And in its bottled manifestation, there's the option for decaf, and for a version that's mixed with coffee, and even for a decaf version that's mixed with coffee. Utter bliss.

Reviving some Coffeeshop Love

Pannikin (Downtown La Jolla, on Girard Ave.)

The Living Room has officially been displaced, its spot in my heart taken by the much-more-deliciously-grungy/hipster Pannikin. (Not quite winning me over yet, though...it's currently vying with The Art of Espresso for the first place title in my heart. Neither of them are open as late as The Coffee Garden, but at least you can lurk inside of Pannikin 'til just before dinnertime, then venture down the street to The Living Room if you really can't bear the thought of leaving La Jolla. Why'd I leave La Jolla again?)

I love the quirky, artsy vibe of this little coffee cabin. The female servers are (laid-back hotties who also happen to be) really really sweet, and they definitely make the place feel welcoming if you’re a regular. The males tend to have a smug hipster vibe, but they’re cute so I guess they can get away with it.

Speaking of cute! There’s a giant chess set, torn-up pleather booths, folding chairs by a fireplace, plenty of local art, a bathroom-wall mural that informs you how grateful you ought to be for coffee (because it makes you a more interesting person, of course). And a nice outdoor patio with a table where the world record for longest conversation was held (or so a plaque on said tiny table boasts).

Red pleather, giant chess, and a dirty chai. I don't know what happened to my picture of the table-plaque.

Less cute: Finches. The outdoor seating area is teeming with them. They WILL eat your delicious vegan granola bar if you look away for long enough. Scratch that, you don’t have to look away. Those little dinosaurs are gutsy as fuck.

Evidence of gutsy-as-fuckery, as of September of 2012. Also evidence of the most delicious vegan granola bars in existence. And the adorable patio (and patio-dwellers), the tree, the roses, and the fact that I was reading a book and wearing black pants while I sipped my almondy iced chai through a red straw. I miss that.

Soy/almond milk is extra, but you can also get their spicy chai mixture sans any milky addition whatsoever. (The guy I tended to order a just-chai from got a bit incredulous when I do this, but he complies. He also grimaced when I ordered something “dirty,” but made it anyway. Everyone’s entitled to their opinions, I suppose. And part of the charm of the hipstery place is the slightly-unprofessional tone that the servers take with the customers.)

The chai is mixed in-house, I believe, so it’s not syrupy at all. Which is a welcome change of pace from the mouth-coatingly chemical feeling of alienation you might get elsewhere. (Or, you know, just a little more fresh…if you want to be less dramatic about your beverages. I can't see why you'd want to do kill my buzz like that, though. Jerk.) Their chai mixture is decent: not too spicy, but it’s not tooooo sweet either. (A bit sweeter than I'd prefer, but then again I drink this stuff.)

Fair warning for (crazyass) vegans: the lightly-sweetened chai mixture is made with bee-vomited plant-sperm (aka honey).

They also have (yummy) vegan bagels and an assortment of breakfast and lunch items (none of which I’ve tried, few of which seem vegan). And they play a quirky assortment of oldies, indie rock, acoustic/experimental/uncensored stuff, and world music. Depends on whose iPod is hooked up to the (My Little Ponies-topped) speakers at the time, I suppose…

Hours: early-5ish? I don't remember, really. SorryI'mnotsorry.

Service: My favorite combination of snarky and genuinely nice.

Seating: Comfortably rickety, for the most part. Some tall and sturdy wooden stools on the outdoor patio, assorted chairs by the tables under the tree and umbrellas. The indoor booths (with outlets!) are ripping (p)leather, but those wooden folding chairs by the window are pristine vintage nook-fillers. Speaking of nook-fillers, right next door to Pannikin is an exquisitely overcrowded bookstore that you absolutely must visit. If you end up in a car dealership, you went the wrong way.

Eatables: TRY THE VEGAN GRANOLA BAR. WORTH EVERY DOLLAR.

People: A friendly assortment of older/middle-aged regulars, schoolkids, twenty-somethings like myself, tourists, and your standard hipsterkids.

Music: Baristas’ (hipster) iPod selections.

I meant to post this on my grandmother's 93rd birthday.

I've returned...

So.

This is kind of awkward, but I seem to have closed the La-Jolla-dwelling chapter of my life. Don't get me wrong, I'll still visit. (It's where my favorite person lives, for Chai's sake!) But I'm not going to live in La Jolla. Not long-term anyway. Sure, I'll always love it. And I've made some lovely friends, most of whom I'd be really sad to think I'd never see again...

But I explored the coffeeshops, found my local ambrosia(s), fueled my insomnia...and now it's time to move on.

For nostalgia's sake, here's a little pit stop back in my home town. (It's not a chai place, but this was never really about The Perfect Chai. Surely that's become apparent. The music, the lurkability, the heart-warming heat of the drink-in-hand, the people...No, it was bigger than the chai in my belly--big as that belly may have gotten. It was about Finding Home.):

The Coffee Garden (2904 Franklin Blvd Sacramento CA 95818)

I used to come for the ambiance, but I'd buy a coffee and maybe a salad or a bagel so they wouldn’t kick me out. Even then, I felt like the unfriendly man at the cash register was itching to kick me out for being too happy.

I think I tried the chai, but it left no lasting impression. Similarly with the food. As for the coffee, there are a few roasts, and they let you fill up for yourself so you can even make your own special blend. Or just take a sip of each before choosing the lightest roast and chugging it like water. Or sipping it like your only excuse to be there and wondering if they'll let you re-heat it when it gets past the delicious-tepid-stage and into the unpleasantly-frigid-settling-into-grains. (They probably won't, but the first refill is free and the second is under a dollar...)

Hours: 6 a.m.-11 p.m. every day but Sunday (7 a.m.-10 p.m. on Sundays)

Service: One unfriendly man and a handful of charming barista ladies. And some guys too, probably. Mostly there’s just the one EXTREMELY unfriendly man, who I think owns the place or something, because his presence is inescapable. (I mostly forgive him because once he wore a shirt bedecked with a reference to Me and You and Everyone We Know.)

This one. On a brown shirt.

Seating: ADORABLE. Fairy lights outside and quirky metal sculptures everywhere. Chess sets and barstools! Coffee Garden, you know the way to this girl’s heart! I don't even care if you're vaguely emotionally abusive!

Eatables: Yeah, the use’ (that’s pronounced “youge,” like short for “usual”): salads, sandwiches, quiches, pastries, bagels, packaged overpriced vegan cookies, slightly-overripe and overpriced fruits, etc.

People: Cute, musically-inclined (Like I said, I'd come for the ambiance, which was my favorite on the open mic nights on Thursdays...) Apparently they also host gay-man game nights and atheist nights, if those are your scenes.

Music: Open mic!

Art is better than Magic.

I'm not entirely sure why I thought this was the perfect picture to accompany my review of this coffee cart. Because it's, like, my eternal reward? A diamond in the rough? I think the latter, probably.

The Art of Espresso (UCSD campus)

$2.75 for a single-shot dirty medium soy spiced chai to go (bringing my own to-go mug got me a 25-cent discount)

Ummmm…yummm?

I’ve been to this charming coffee cart a few times since moving to La Jolla, so I can confidently say that the deliciousness I experienced on my first visit was no fluke. The spicy chai is actually spicy. (Not as perfectly, mouth-tinglingly savorable as Chico Chai…but so far I’ve found nothing that is.) And the espresso is pulled beautifully. (I think. I liked the single shot in my dirty chai, at least. It didn’t taste burned, and it had that bitter bite that blissfully induces the heart-buzzing, migraine-distracting jitter I look for in my espresso.)

I’ve only had the spiced chai, so I can’t speak to the vanilla chai. 

I'm pretty sure this is what I paid almost $3 for. You know what, though? I aintevenmad. They added soy and probably some other stuff and made me feel special and gave me a cute place to sit while I drank it. Totally worth it.

(Presumably the vanilla one is better for that large percentage of chai-sippers who prefer their beverages to be tastebud-blindingly sweet. Forget religion—sugar is the opiate of the masses.) It’s pretty thick, with a syrup that gives your mouth a faint chalky coating as you drink and leaves a crunchy-grained residue on the bottom of your mug. Which, in this case, I actually like.

There tends to be a line to the coffee cart, but it moves quickly. Soy is extra, but the bring-your-own-mug discount kind of compensates for it. The servers are nice and don’t flinch at the indecisive and/or hesitant customer with the imposingly specific order (i.e., someone like me).

There are a couple of nearby counters with plenty of options for your stirrer/straw-snagging, re-heating, snack-toasting, and general drink-doctoring pleasure. Plus there’s free wifi, AND the people-watching is pretty sweet (college kids, professors, and professional lurkers like myself…most of whom seem attractively intelligent, not that I’m biased or anything). The only real downside is that the seating area is just a bunch of plastic chairs and tables on a cement “patio” by the cart. Soooo it’s not a place that’s exactly conducive to clutching that delicious beverage as the rain pelts against your window. (Unless you take your drink into one of the nearby academic buildings, I guess.) Also, the cart closes at 4 p.m.

So it’s not the place for pouring fuel into your insomnia-tank. UNLESS YOU GET A COUPLE GALLONS TO-GO.

Hours: 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays

Service: Excellent. Particularly given the fact that I’m a quiet, mumbly, and indecisive person who tends to end up ordering a multi-syllabic drink of prissy high-maintenance specifications. (Only complaint: Their website claims they have a rewards card for espresso drinks, but I haven’t spotted it on their cluttered little ordering countertop. I haven’t looked too closely, though, since don’t exactly want to take extra time when I reach the front of the line…but shouldn’t it be prominently displayed?)

Seating: Baby trees and cobblestones in the midst of a busy campus. A few wooden seats with side-tables attached to them, and an array of plastic tables that are at least half full (I’m an optimist) of lovely fellow-lurkers at all hours.

Eatables: Your typical bakery fare of croissants/pastries, single-serving bags of chips, bananas, candy bars, wraps, sandwiches, oatmeal cups, massive cookies, artisan truffles, and bagels (which I’ve never tried, but which look delicious, soft and not-chewy the way I like ‘em…and they’re generally sold out by 2 p.m.).

People: Lovely. Beautiful. Charming. Fill-me-to-the-brim with college nostalgia.

Music: A healthy mix of hand-clapping and wailing over xylophones/pipes, breathy electronopop, dubstep remixes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, etc. 

Vampires and Cupcakes

My posting title is vaguely misleading, because I'm starting with the cupcakes. 

Disappointed? Me too.

Cups (7857 Girard Avenue, La Jolla, CA) 

I’ve only tried the “Best Chai in San Diego” once, but given the flavor of that pricey little drink, I doubt I’ll give it a second shot (pun?).

Maybe it’s the soy they use at Cups, but there was a distinctly plasticky flavor to my chai. Like…crayons. Or Play-Doh? (I’ve never actually tried Play-Doh, so I’m only guessing here…I hear it’s salty, so maybe not like Play-Doh. Maybe like Legos. Like something childish and bright, to match the contained/structured playfulness of the Cups décor.) Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it definitely doesn’t rank among my favorite flavors in a chai. Nothing spicy about crayons. 

Hours: Disappointing (they were in a temporary, ill-defined, shortened-hours period when I went around Thanksgiving).

Service: Nice enough. I like that their espresso-drink rewards cards have a little filing-box home by the cash register, so you don’t have to carry around a card that you’re only going to take out at the one location.

Seating: Minimal but sufficient, including a couple outdoor tables and a few indoor boxy things. Adorably, there’s a counter with barstools at it; and a chalkboard tent thing outside with the daily specials and “happy hour” advertised. You can’t sell cupcakes and *not* be adorable… 

Eatables: Cupcakes. (duh) 

People: High-maintenance La Jolla trend-followers/children. 

Music: Poppy.

...that was short. 

Perhaps I should follow up my little disdainful blurb about disappointing-cupcake-land with a more favorable experience? To pair my cheery, slim-hour-having little disappointment with a dark, always-open place of grand loveliness? Can do!

Lestat’s (3343 Adams Ave, "in the heart of Normal Heights," according to their site)

Kind of pricey. Like five bucks for a modest medium with soy. (I don’t remember the exact price, sorryI'mnotsorry.)

I’ve had it a couple times, and both times I’ve been left ambivalent. Soy is extra (of course), and the servers are a little cleverer-than-thou and impatient if you’re not a decided regular. The chai sippin's were a little grainy, but the drink was nice and hot. And its spiciness came to me in waves, finishing particularly strong.

My main issue was with the tea bag (which was left in the cup via an eye-pokingly intrusive wooden stirrer attached to the lid, potentially leading to over-steeping as I nursed the drink and attempted to evade its Oedipal designs on my face). Being the picky drink-picker that I am, I finished up my drink with an investigation into the tea bag.

 

Pulling apart the little sachet at first released a delicious and spicy aroma, but as I poked at it, the little mix of leaves abruptly released a strange and musty smell that I couldn’t help but associate with the grainy undertones of the drink I’d just consumed. Which retroactively (and unfairly, I guess) ruined the drink for me. Kind of. I’ll probably try it again. For scientific fairness. And because I love me a good vampire-themed coffeeshop. I just gotta test 'em out a bit more before I make any unholy alliances.

Hours: 24/7!

Service: …artsy? I got a soy hot chocolate once, which was poured with arm-stretching gusto and given the pourer’s full attention as it was topped with a precise amount of foam. I was treated with much less care and attention than my drink.

Seating: Quirky, vaguely allusive to the whole vampire theme without being too kitschy. Art for sale on the walls, which are colorful, is a bit stifled by the dim lighting. The front room (with double-screen-doors, which are strangely noteworthy and kind of intimidating for compulsive hold-the-door-open-for-others-ers like myself) looks more like a typical café. The massive side room, with colorful couches/thrones and a family-style table accompanying the typical little tables, seems to have a more thematic décor. The passageway between the two rooms holds an impressive array of postings for events and services, most of which are LGBT/vegan/pet-owner-friendly.

Eatables: A somewhat-pricey variety of quiches, soups, bagels, volcano-macaroons, giant cupcakes, sandwiches, granola bars, bananas, pastries, wraps, eggy/breakfasty things, etc.

People: The patrons are kind of strange, but in a charming and not completely off-putting way. What do you expect from a 24/7 coffeehouse by a “Normal Heights” sign…and one that’s named after a vampire, at that?

Music: Yeah, I think so. I tend to be distracted when I’m here. But apparently soundman Louis Brazier is a big deal.

It should go without saying, but my disdain for sweetness extends beyond the flavor of the chai and encompasses the atmosphere as well. 

So: Cups? Enemy to mine heart's desires. Lestat's, on the other hand? We can be friends. Not that you'll have me, you snooty Vampire refuge. 

Whatever. I can do better, I'm sure...

Living Room? More Like...Threshold

The Living Room (1010 Prospect Street, La Jolla CA)

Open late, serving caffeine and booze and desserts and hookah (so you can have ALL THE ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCES). 

They’re not particularly friendly to me, but maybe it’s because I order mini coffees and sit there for two hours sipping at it as I read a book, then ask them to re-heat it two or three times (until they give up and just get me a new drink…which is actually really generous of them when I’ve ordered something pricier, like a dirty soy chai…though it kind of defeats my goal of warming the remnants of my beverage so I can actually finish it). 

Or maybe they’re less-than-friendly because they’re middle eastern and so am I (middle eastern people intuitively mistrust one another, I think…and it’s not racist if I say it because I’m including myself in there, right?). Really, I think they're just busy and they tend to get a large quantity of student/tourist lurkers, so they're not beaming and farting sunshine at you. It's part of their vaguely-punk vibe. Like their mohawk-piercing-coffee-sipper-cartoons on their coffeecup sleeves...

I don't appear to have hoarded pictures of the lovely Living Room, so here's a screenshot from Freaks and Geeks instead. James Franco's smile makes everything better.

If you’re a high-maintenance vegan, probably don’t come here for a meal. I asked if there were dairy or egg ingredients in the pitas that come with their baba ghanoush and the (unfriendly middle eastern) serverman told me: “They’re...pitas. I don’t know.” Geethanks. I guess I’ll stick with the overpriced vegan cookie-crisp-things by the register. Or an overpriced banana. You get away with the overpricedness because of your beach view and your antique/genie-whose-bottle-just-exploded-all-over-a-café décor, and the punk-rockers on your coffeesleeve logo.

Again, sorry for the lack of actual pictures. Here's William Carlos Williams in his underthings. Isn't the internet fabulous?

Aaanyway, their chai is not very remarkable: kind of grainy, kind of cinnamony, decent when dirty but otherwise a bit of a sugarbomb that leaves its sweet sweet shrapnel all over your teeth. BUT their vibe is getting close to what I'm looking for in my lurking-while-clutching-a-chai scene. So...close? So close.

Hours: 6 a.m. to midnight

Service: You have to ask for an actual ceramic mug (otherwise you get a to-go cup, even if you say it’s for dine-in). The cashiermen tend to be frowny but not unaccommodating. I’ve had my order messed up a couple times, but I’ve also had free refills and excessive friendliness from a few of the staff members sooo I guess it balances out.

Seating: Downstairs café-like ambiance, upstairs hookahlounge and bar. The ocean is just visible out the windows, and there are also TV screens by the bar-region for you to catch football games or whatever. (Go Vikings!)

Eatables: Pastries, sandwiches, middle eastern stuff, fries, etc. More excitingly: honey packets! Full of honey! On the counter with the other drink-doctoring supplies! Including cinnamon(!) and cream and sugar and fakesugar.

People: Wifi-(ab)using students, adorable old people, families/tourists, hookah-smokers.

Music: Slightly less charming/quirky than other area coffee shops (with a cleaner, more uptight vibe than Pannikin...which is a charming place a few blocks east, which I shall review at a later date), but a similar ambiance from the medley of oldies, top-forties, and random hip hop or whatever seems to be on the baristas’ iPods.

Einstein Bros: Guided by a Familiar Love

Einstein Bros Bagels (everywhere…kind of)

The first time I visited an Einstein Bros Bagels, it was my pre-vegan days and I had a chocolate chip bagel, toasted, with cream cheese. I fell in love. I loved the clever turns of phrase they used (they wish you "Seasons Eatings!"; their "Darn Good Coffee" is "Darn Hot!"; they have "Egg-citing Creations" on the menu!). I loved that we abbreviated their name to "Einstein's Bagels," which combines the name of a famous physicist with the name for a delicious round piece of bread. I loved the black-and-white cartoon representation of the eponymous Einstein brothers on the company's logo. I loved that they used the word "shmear" for their cream cheese, and I loved how abundantly it was shmeared on my bagel, and how perfectly the shmear added a tart coolness to the melty chocolate chips nestled in the bagel beneath it. Einstein's Bagels also enlightened me to the fact that such a thing as a "chocolate chip bagel" existed, and I loved them for that.

Most importantly, I loved the fact that my grandmother took me there. She's a woman who knows what she likes and who's never given up on getting what she wants out of life. Which sounds like a cliche and a sweeping generalization, but rest assured that since emigrating from Wales/England/Canada/Oregon/NorCal (in that order), she's learned what she likes and how she likes it, and has very purposefully settled in mild, beautiful La Jolla. 

I mean, if you saw this out your window as you were passing through California (on your honeymoon, perhaps), wouldn't you just fall in love (with the place, not the man who would become your ex-husband, with whom you'd already presumed yourself to be in love and hence married)? Raise your kids nearby (in a less-affluent neighborhood, so they wouldn't be alienated by having rich La Jolla peers) and then buy a condo to move into with the love of your life (and leave those kids' father for said love of your life), staying there with the cats and the boyfriends who'd keep you company after your greatest love died (of heart problems), making friends with your cleaning lady and your neighbors and your hairdresser and pretty much everyone else because of your stunning, expansive, captivating, and otherwise epic-beach-view-like personality? Wouldn't you? You'd at least snap a picture out the window, right?

She's the delightful opposite of the sweet old lady who knits sweaters and cooks homemade treats for her grandchildren, so my fond childhood memories of visiting my grandmother involve restaurants rather than recipes. Breakfast at The Cottage. Lunch at The Sheraton. Dinner at Sammy's. (Not all on the same day, of course.) There'd be outings to check out a new Chinese restaurant that opened up, or to have lunch at a newly-discovered Mexican restaurant (one that actually makes chile rellenos good enough for my grandmother's seal of approval).

And every meal, at every restaurant, comes with coffee.

My grandmother drinks an abundance of coffee. She abhors drinking water, even though doctors keep telling her that staying hydrated is particularly important for her 92-year-old body. There's water in coffee. Cream is a liquid. She likes her drinks like she likes her opinions: strong. 

So it is with warmfuzzies associated with my first exposure to this place that I make it my home base.

The bagels are just meh, and definitely not too good for you because they’re loaded with preservatives and high fructose corn nonsense (a fact I’ve elected to overlook since I’ve decided to consider the chocolate chip and the sesame seed bagels vegan). And they don't really do ceramic/for-here/non-wasteful packaging...but look how cute the disposable stuff is:

The packaging is red and wintery! It says "CELEBRATE DARN GOOD COFFEE," which I find adorable! And look how cheap it all was!

Totally worth getting a bagel and a cup of bottomless coffee for $1.75. The coffee is surprisingly delicious (and, did I mention: bottomless cup?). Plus, if you fill out their online survey for each visit, your next visit’s coffee is FREE (with purchase…so what I do is pretend my bagel is the free part, since what I really come there to get is the delicious coffee, with the mediocre bagel as kind of a bonus). 

Oh, and in case you were worried that my previous picture showed an empty cup of bottomless coffee: evidence that there were still-steaming remnants of the holiday flavor I was sampling before committing to making it my first cupful. (Good thing too, because it was too vanilla-y for my taste, and I went with the Neighborhood Roast instead of the Winter Roast.)

The lighter/flavored roasts are excellent when consumed black, and the darker roasts are palatable (good, even, if you’re into the whole sugar-and-milk-additions scene). If you do dairy, I’m sure the assortment of flavored shmears is exciting, too. If memory serves me. Which it ought to, judging by the fact that my nostalgia for La Jolla has definitely been vindicated in other ways since moving here.

I love Einstein Bros Bagels, with its connotations of intelligence and of family, and with the way that this perfect combination of coffee and bagels happens to remind me how to have an opinion. An educated, passionate opinion. Which is what I like to think I have about Einstein's.

It's nothing special, really. But it's a more local chain than the Starbucks next door. (Einsteins can be found in SoCal, Arizona, and the southern bits of Nevada...if I read their map correctly.) And it's a place that reminds me of my maternal legacy of decisive opinions, uncompromising tastes, and (sometimes irrational) quirks. A no-nonsense home base, where I can set up camp with a bagel and a bottomless cup of steaming coffee as I plan my next chai-searching adventure.

Hours:
Closed by 5 p.m. Definitely a breakfast-and-lunch stop, not an all-hours oasis of vegan chai delight. Also, parking is obnoxious (you have to pay, and the parking lot is tiny).
Service:
I love them. Irrationally, since all they do is take my order and then tell me how much to pay. My order's been bungled more than once. They frequently forget to hand me my coffee cup. But they're so...lovable. I love them. Completely, and with abandon.
Seating:
Neither eclectic nor squashy, but not uncomfortable either. Highly functional: tables and chairs, some stools at counters.
Eatables:
Bagels. Some fruit cups and pastries or whatever, and plenty of sandwich/wrap breakfast and lunch options, if your into eggy/creamcheesey/loxy things.
People:
Older people, students, and working types just popping in for bagels and coffee. There can be quite a line, but the workers are always friendly and earn the happy regulars' definitional happiness.
Music:
Nope.

Oh, and they do have a "Chai Tea Latte" on their menu, but if you're nursing a hot beverage here there's no reason to let yourself get distracted from the BOTTOMLESS CUPS OF DARN GOOD COFFEE. Forgive my internet-shouting; I'm just a wee bit caffeinated.