Welcome to another addition of Barista-in-review, were I get to espresso my views on coffee! (Hmm, bad pun, I know I know, promise not to use it TOOO many times!)It is a custom of some of us from the Holy Trinity community to find ourselves at the Crème Café and Espresso bar at the Gardens Centre after church. This is a favourite haunt, not only due to its proximity to our church, but because, as is most important, the coffee is pretty good!
Firstly, let me apologise for the wild antics of my friends in the photos. They are not normally like this, but it does seem that good caffeine has a certain effect!Crème’s location is probably on the busiest route in the Gardens Centre, so it is hard to miss, and normally very busy. We normally add to the chaos, as the large number of people that follow in this Sunday tradition need to be catered for. This is normally not a problem. They boot customers from one table to another to make space for us, and eventually 10 of us are comfortably seated at the suddenly created large seating space.
Unfortunately today was not one of their best-foot-forward days, as the service was awfully slow, but the coffee did make up for it. As usual, the normal round of Americano, Cappuccino, Hot Chocolate and normal filter coffee orders when in. I normally try to educate my friends in the difference between filter coffee and Americano coffee, and today was no exception. Steve was a little disappointed at the bland looking filter coffee that arrived for him, when our Americano had such delectable coffee crème on the top! The final straw was in the tasting, and after Steve had tasted the Americano, I think he will put filter coffee behind him for good, and come over to the flavour side!
The Americano was delicious, with lovely caramelly chocolaty flavouring. Probably an Italian roast of a good bean.The Hot Chocolate had a few jaws dropping too! A mug of hot milk is brought, with a plate of Belgian chocolate for you to add and stir into the milk. Raoul was definitely not complaining! There were a few murmurs of appreciation for the cappuccinos too.
Breakfasts were mediocre – I don’t know why people cook scrambled egg in the microwave – it is just yugg! But I guess my tummy didn’t know the difference. Irene dug into a cheesecake, while Lisa enjoyed her deep rich chocolate muffin.The engineers let rip building a tower of jam ‘n butter, which “accidently” collapsed in Irene’s lap, leading to a torrent of flying marmalade. Fortunately there were no passersbys or patrons injured.
All in all, I think we’ll give Crème a 9/10 for coffee, but today a 4/10 for service.Barista Frank
4 comments:
I'm not so sure about the jam landing "accidentally"in my lap!
The cheese cake, however, only got a 3/10 for flavour, since I did have better (hmmm actually, I MAKE better). I did like the fact, that the crust did not stretch all the way up the side, because that often leaves a very hard bit at the bottom to stick your fork through.
Overall the cake gets about a 5/10.
Irenenene
as delicious as the hot chocolate was, i felt the milk wasn't hot enough. i think part of the blame lay with me enthusiastically throwing ALL the chocolate in at once... perhaps if i'd stirred it in little by little it would have melted better, but so be it. if the milk had been a bit hotter, it would have made the chocolate melt better...
8/10 this time round.
when I first arrived no muffins were available, but then suddenly some appeared. One has to wonder where these random muffins originated...possibly they were the leftovers from last week and then warmed up in the microwave so one could not tell the difference:) Despite the uncertainty the chocolate muffin was quite tasty. I'd give it a 6/10.
Sounds like an all-in-all must have experience to me!
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