Posted by TheShot on 18 Jun 2010 | Tagged as: Add Milk, Barista, Quality Issues
Coffee talk in the mainstream press these days looks a bit like the telenovela: short-lived serials from specific writers with an individual point of view. One of said serials comes from Giorgio Milos of illycaffè in The Atlantic, and his installment today is on milk frothing: All You Need to Know About Steaming Milk – [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 09 Apr 2009 | Tagged as: Café Society, Local Brew, Quality Issues
A couple weeks back we visited this café with Tim of espressophile fame. Approaching its North Beach location, you wouldn’t think it would be much different from the others nearby — but you’d be wrong. The espresso here is a real standout in the neighborhood, coinciding with the ownership change in late 2008 to Alex [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 08 Jan 2009 | Tagged as: Local Brew
This classic, lively North Beach dive café serves espresso, sandwiches, alcohol, and simple hot plate dinners. It’s a very social place where the customers and staff engage in random conversation. They cover their dark walls (since made bright by new lighting fixtures) with photos of friends, family, and the occasional local celebrity visit. There’s also [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 05 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: CoffeeRatings.com, Local Brew
Given that our headaches with our Web hoster are resolving themselves at a snail’s pace, we’re itching to get back to business as usual. So we are carefully returning to publishing here (saving copies of our databases as frequently as possible) — even though we risk a future “blackout” at any given time. How better [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 30 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Local Brew
This Italian bookstore and import store has been a long-time favorite of ours — but not for espresso. That is until just recently (Fall 2007). It first opened its doors in 1880, making it the oldest store in North Beach. It has changed owners a few times since then, and its newest owners just added [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 21 Aug 2007 | Tagged as: Local Brew
This combination pizza parlor (they serve square pizzas) and wine bar has numerous small café tables indoors and counter seating at the bar/pizza ovens. There’s also limited sidewalk seating out front. The décor is their namesake Roman film studios of Fellini’s 1950s, complete with movie posters (plus an AS Roma kit on the wall by [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 18 Aug 2007 | Tagged as: Local Brew
This bakery has been in operation since 1914. While today it is Italian in name, like much of modern North Beach it has a distinctive Latino flair in how it is run today (even if its immediate location is more Chinatown than North Beach). There’s limited outdoor seating along Vallejo St., a wide array of [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 16 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: Beans, Local Brew
Located in the original Bank of America (née Bank of Italy) building on the corner of Broadway and Columbus, this café/bar/restaurant opened just last month as a nicer alternative. It is a refreshing change from many of the North Beach Italian cafés and restaurants: they use particularly high quality ingredients for the neighborhood, and thus [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 25 Nov 2006 | Tagged as: Café Society, Consumer Trends, Local Brew
This old school, Calabrian-themed Italian pastry shop once had a touch for good espresso under its longtime ownership. They owner had been using Graffeo beans religiously since 1985. However, by 2006 they switched to Lavazza beans and began making inferior espresso (though the two aren’t exactly cause-and-effect). I’ve been unable to confirm with certainty, but [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 22 Nov 2006 | Tagged as: Local Brew
Yes, this is the San Francisco legend — a meeting place for writers of the 1950s Beat movement; where Francis Ford Coppola wrote the script for The Godfather; where espresso was first introduced to the West Coast in 1956. This café is rather old-school Italian to the core — one of the fewer and fewer [...]
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