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The Village, Utrecht

03.11.2011 //
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Although I have been drinking lots of coffees over the past months, no new ratings have been posted to my blog. The reason for this is simply that I have been neglecting my blog for a long time, but it’s time to step up now. And the place I’d wish to start with, is the Village in Utrecht. Right around the corner from where I live, this place has opened up last February. Right on the first days I stopped by for a coffee, but struggled to formulate an opinion back then. On the one hand, I have always loved the relaxedness about the place, yet I didn’t think their espressos were any good – back then.

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Bagels & Beans, Amsterdam (Koningsplein)

28.04.2011 //
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I am slowly developing a theory, where all outlets of Bagels & Beans within Amsterdam’s city limits provide a rather different quality in contrast to shops elsewhere. Although it’s been high-ranking in various tests with some branches, I get served a really, really bitter, over-extracted espresso machiatto with too much milk (which, in this case, helped partly mask the terrible flavours) and foam of the kind which resembles the surface of the moon. Luckily, the lack of wifi, as opposed to free wifi in other stores, toilets for which you have to pay, as opposed to other stores offering free toilets and unfriendly staff are all in line with the ‘quality’ of coffee. Just stick with the books of Selexyz.

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Marx O’ Larry’s, Almere

18.04.2011 //
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Whenever an Italian ice cream and espresso store pops up, I always wonder what their focus will be on. Although some stores actually choose to sell good, Italian-style espresso, a lot of storekeepers tend to think along the lines of “when I’m selling Italian ice cream, I should also sell coffee: espresso is Italian.” Sure enough, I understand the line of thought, but on the other hand: you don’t expect an ice cream shop to sell pizza and pasta, nor do I expect good quality coffee at most pizza places.

The first thing I noticed when they were building the interior of this store, is the clear and unmistakable separation of the desk from which they sell ice cream and their coffee corner: ice cream along the left of the store, espresso on the right, while the back half of the store is used only for seating. Staff either prepares espresso, or ice cream: not both. A clear plus.

My cappuccino was quite nice. The foam was in fact really good, although it might have been a few degrees too hot. It seems to me, it is the bean used, branded ‘Kimbo’, lacks spice. It more or less drowns in the milk, by which this place loses at least one cup.

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Victor’s Espressobar, Haarlem

17.04.2011 //
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Lacking seats at Anne&Max on this Good Friday, we sat down in this espressobar, conveniently located halfway the train station and the city’s centre. My “double cappuccino” was quite good, but the regular cappuccino was a bland cup of coffee. Besides, from a participant of the Dutch Barista Championships, I’d expect excellent foam, but only got mediocre foam. Together with the somewhat chaotic interior in the store, this place is just missing the beat at everything they do.

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‘t Smelnehûs, Drachten

19.03.2011 //
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After a walk through an uninspiring shopping street in this cold and gray city of Drachten, I arrived at the quite picturesque building housing ‘t Smelnehûs and was pleasantly surprised. Seeing the beautiful Kees van der Westen espresso machine standing in the corner raised my hopes even further.

However, after I ordered my espresso macchiato, it became clear the KdW machine was only there for showing purposes. The actual coffee was made on another machine and, although it looked great with nearly perfect foam, the taste wasn’t nearly as good. An obnoxious sour penetrated the sweet taste of the milk. The espresso I ordered next gave me a better taste, and the espresso seemed to have a strong taste of metal. Not at all pleasant: what a shame. Not at all a reason to travel to this town, which doesn’t seem to offer much other reasons to go there, either.

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Cubico Caffé, Maastricht

07.03.2011 //
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On my second visit to Cubico, my thoughts of the first time are pretty much confirmed. The small cappuccino has more spice to it than the large one, although it seems the beans itself are rather mild, too. That’s not to my taste, but still okay, especially for those who like it mild. Just be sure to order a small, without the added milk. And at eight in the morning, the children weren’t there yet, either. The owner of the store seems to be a kind and engaging person, making some small-talk on the weather.

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Boulevard, Maastricht

06.03.2011 //
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This bar, seemingly belonging to the adjacent hotel, with Segrafredo-beans had a good rating somewhere in the back of my mind, but this time the milk was steamed too hot and thus tasted flat. Judging from the responses from the staff present, they both weren’t properly trained to operate the espresso machine, which also might be an explanation for my better experience last time, as a more experienced person might have been operating the machine back then. This time, even a super-automatic espresso machine would have been better.

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Cubico Caffé, Maastricht

05.03.2011 //
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Right next to the city’s train station is this modern and cleanly decorated store, which even is child-friendly and thus is full of hip parents with their screaming children. Good for them, but I prefer my coffee without children.

The coffee itself is okay, but their large cappuccino seems to be a cappuccino with the same single shot as their single, with simply some milk added to that. It’s a very flat cappuccino, lacking any spice. Perhaps I should try a regular, small cappuccino some day on a week-day, when the children are on school.

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De Koffiesalon, Amsterdam

04.03.2011 //
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It’s been nearly six months since my last visit and review of this place. Back then I was very positive, but this time things are different. The cappuccino lacks spice and the foam contains several large bubbles. The coffee even has a bad aftertaste, as if the machine has not been properly cleaned. Another bad thing is the fact they’ve cancelled their offering of wifi as of March 2010, while at the same time prices have risen compared to six months ago. Canceling wifi is an understandable choice if your store’s being used as an office away from the office, but it also deprives me of the possibility to work on assignments while drinking my coffee. Computers have been banned from the store but for one table. Choosing either to ban computers from all but one table, or canceling wifi would’ve been enough. The store’s supposedly a great enough success to be able to get away with less service for higher prices.

Note: although wifi still isn’t available, I didn’t have any further bad experiences with the coffee tasting off.

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