Tag:

coffee

Santral Cafe – 3rd Wave Coffee House

by gezielciniz February 4, 2016

Previously I already declared my relationship status with coffee and mentioned how things were getting even more serious (aka Famous Coffee Cities). Today I’m gonna introduce you to my new favorite café house – Santral Cafe – in the city of İstanbul! Though some part of me wants to keep this place as a secret so it’s all for me, as a blogger I feel the calling to write about it 😀

At first sight, this café gave me vibes of the cute cozy café houses I saw in San Francisco, and that’s probably one of the best things I can say about a coffee shop décor! Luckily coffee taste matched décor so I immediately knew I’ll be a regular here.

For owner Ebru, coffee is a passion, so much that she left her plaza 9to5 job and opened this place. But she didn’t opened here immediately, first she wanted to learn from scratch and she applied to Starbucks. Alas with a CV like hers, people in Starbucks didn’t really think she was serious about working there so they refused her. She didn’t give up and thanks to smooth talking of her friends she got the job. After a while, she left there and started working in a Third Wave coffee house in Nişantaşı neighborhood. And finally she got her own café house.

First thing you will notice when you enter here is the giant wall paint that shows a voltmeter for soft to strong coffee. Obviously with an energizing name like Santral, connection between volts and coffee beans are obvious J. You can select how strong you want your coffee with this image, yet you should really have a look at the menu.

Along with classical choices, Santral café offers Third Wave coffees and house specialties. For instance, one of the most demanded coffee is their house specialty Santral coffee, which is also known as winter coffee since it has honey and cinnamon flavors. Another thing to point out is that they blend their own espresso with 5 different coffee, though they say formula is secret! Also check out how cute some of their cold coffee packaging, it reminded me elixir potion bottles!

You can also find fresh sandwiches and cakes to go with your coffee. But I have to mention their breakfast special, 3 cheese casserole! It is a good alternative, especially for us 9to5 workers to eat something good for weekday breakfast! They put three types of cheese into a pan along with olives, tomatoes and peppers, after 10-15 minutes you are served this beauty in the picture!

Another cozy place indicator, small library is also a tick for Santral coffee and a very important criteria for modern days café houses which is having plugs conveniently all over the place is also a big tick for this place! Also for those who want to sit outside in cold weather there are heaters on the outside.

So, since most of third wave coffee houses in İstanbul are located in European side posh neighborhoods like Karaköy and Nişantaşı, I found this place a good café house in Anatolian side.

In case you are in the area, do drop by…

Address: Atatürk Caddesi 72A , 19 Mayıs Mh (It is located in the very beginning of famous Atatürk Street, Near a bank named Akbank, just across a Starbucks!

February 4, 2016 0 comment

Food-Drink Travel Guides

9 Famous Coffee Cities – I dare you to read it without coffee!

by gezielciniz January 11, 2016

written by gezielciniz

Coffee is love, coffee is life! In some cities more than usual! I gathered 9 famous coffee cities for you and described their coffees. So get a cup of coffee yourself if not already and enjoy 🙂

I’ll argue that we, Turkish people, has a special place for coffee. I mean we even have a proverb saying “One cup of coffee is worth 40 years of remembrance”! But clearly it is not just Turkish people, everywhere it is part of daily routine. Whether you are starting your day or ending it, when chatting with friends or taking a break, the first thing that pops into our heads is coffee! Also it is widely preferred among us, travelers, as well, because when you are wandering in a city, one of the best options is to take a coffee break to refresh and feel the vibe of the city. Add to that a delicious dessert and there you are not tired anymore and can continue exploring!

However, as I mentioned there are some special countries / cities, where getting to know the local coffee is a part of feeling their culture. I have made a list of these cultural coffee capitals of the world for coffee-lovers and travelers. There are so many therefore I could not include all the coffee producers and special coffee having cities but I believe I have made a good list for at least a good portion of famous coffee cities.

Please note the order of the cities is random. The taste? All delicious!

Brasilia (Brazil):

Alright lets start famous coffee cities listing with Brazil. Why? Because for the past 150 years, Brazil has always been the producer of one third of the world’s total coffee production! Unlike most of the other producer countries, the consumption within the country borders is also high. Most Brazilians like the black hot coffee, called cafezinho, served in tiny (really tiny) cups the most. Normally, they like to drink this coffee very sweet but recently, you can also find less sweet versions as well. For Brazilians, cafezinho has become what tea is to Turkish people. It is served as a sign of hospitality as well as a treat after you have lunch or dinner at places, just as Turkish people serve tea for free at restaurants once you have done eating. Brazilians like their coffee simple and of quality. In this context, their coffee is rather plain and there are only some basic variety to it, meaning they do not have pumpkin blend cream coffee but they will have good black coffee. 🙂

Bogota (Colombia):

Of course capital of Colombia will be in famous coffee cities list! Because it is not a coincidence that Colombia is seen as the best coffee producer. There wasn’t a single coffee that I didn’t like drinking at this place and it actually took my “casual relationship” with coffee to a serious level 😀 The different types of coffee are plenty and all affordable. I especially suggest that you build a stock of the locals’ favorite brand Juan Valdez and bring it back home with you. The variety is wide, with different filtered and flavored types, which are all really tasty. However, pay attention to those on the menu that say “fuerte”… Normally, Colombian coffee is soft and balanced but “fuerte” means strong. Your heart might start skipping faster even if you are a veteran caffeine addict! I’m just saying… 😉

Rome (Italy):

evet canım bardan hızlıca kahvelerimiz içiyoruz ve ayrılıyoruz...

yes sweetheart, no waiting, drink it and hit it…

Obviously we are gonna add Italian coffee to the famous coffee cities list, but it is hard to pick just one Italian city so if I have to I’ll say Rome. But in general Italian coffee culture really surprised me as it contradicts with how Italians usually enjoy their food. Most of the time, people stop by at the counters of the coffee places and drink espresso or cappuccino in the blink of an eye and go on on their ways! It is strange to me that these people treat eating a meal as an art to be consumed slowly and yet enjoy their coffee in such a short period of time. Still, the coffee there is a true example of success. They mostly prefer espresso and cappuccino but they drink it less hot then you probably used to. Especially, if you do not mention that you want your milk coffee with warm milk, you may drink something extremely cooler that what you’d desire, just as I did! 🙂 In addition to local coffee shops, you will see plenty of the famous Italian coffee shops, illy and Lavazza, instead of Starbucks.

Vienna (Austria):

One of the first cities to recall when the subject is coffee. Vienna’s coffee is such a part of the Austrian culture is that it was listed among the intangible cultural heritage list of UNESCO in 2011. In cafes, you will find plenty of classical coffee types, with cappuccino and espresso being the most preferred ones. For those seeking to try a local taste, I suggest Wiener Melange. It tastes a bit like cappuccino but as the famous coffee maker of Vienna, Julius Meinl put it: “An addition of a shot of espresso to milk foam in a large cup.”

Seattle (the USA):

This is where Starbucks was born, so it is not surprising that there is a special coffee culture in Seattle. Besides Starbucks, there are plenty of coffee tastes and cafes in this city, where people see coffee as “liquid sun.” By the way, the biggest Starbucks store (Area: 1400 square meters) is also located here.

Havana (Cuba):

The characteristic of Cuban coffee is its being strong. Plus, if you try the one named Cubana, you are in for a strong and sweetened espresso. Sometimes, this coffee is served without sugar, but with a sugar candy stick. This way, you take a sip from the coffee and enjoy the candy simultaneously. 🙂

Hanoi (Vietnam):

Vietnamese coffee is also among the strong ones. You can separate it from the others thanks to its texture and color. They mix components that you wouldn’t think would mix with coffee, so it is safe to say that they add their own touch to what was once a French colonials’ influence. And as for the component I mean unusual like yoghurt, eggs and fruits! As odd as it may sound, they do mix harmoniously. It is possible to find many local and old coffee shops on the Coffee Street in Hai Ba Trung district of Hanoi. You can order yoghurt coffee (sua chua ca phe), egg white coffee (ca phe trung), coffee smoothies (sinh to ca phe). The cold-served coffee, Ca Phe, is among the local tastes, as well.

Nairobi (Kenya):

Africa is one of the places where coffee is produced in high amounts and Kenya is the top trader in this regard. The number of people who go there just to taste the coffee at its origin is a lot! It can argued if it would be enjoyable to go to an always-hot climate and consume hot coffee. I don,t know about you guys but I can always enjoy a good coffee 🙂 Of course, as you may guess, the prices are quite affordable and the variety is plenty, so Nairobi has a place in famous coffee cities list.

Istanbul (Turkey):

It would be unfair to skip Istanbul in famous coffee cities list. Istanbul is one of the places where the oldest coffee shops in the world first opened. (The first one in the world opened around 1530 in Damascus). In 1555, the first registered coffee shop opened in Tahtakale area. Coffee started to appear in Europe years later, by 17th century. For the past two years, Istanbul has been the host of popular attractions such as Coffee Festival. There is a constantly developing coffee culture, latest development being the opening of 3rd wave coffee shops. Of course, Turkish coffee will always be at the center of the big picture! 🙂

So what are you waiting for, if you haven’t already while reading this, go grab a cup of coffee now 🙂 Also please let me know if you know different coffee cultures to be featured next in the comments!

January 11, 2016 0 comment

Food-Drink Travel Guides

Italy Trip Volume 2: Restaurants & Cafes

by gezielciniz August 4, 2015

written by gezielciniz

Italy means food. Period. So no travel article about Italy is complete without suggesting some place to indulge in what Italy kitchen offers. Italy restaurants and cafes offer you many options, so it is hard to just decide one.

yes dear, you just drink your coffee fast at the bar and leave the place, no waiting!

I usually research before I go to a new place, get advice from my friends who have been there and use offline resources like trip advisor to choose where to eat. But of course when I’m hungry and/or tired or when I see a place I want to try I just dive in. So here are some cafes and restaurants I visited in Italy. Some were good some were meeh, but if you come across just a couple of comments…

First let’s talk about eating culture in Italy. Breakfast is usually a coffee with a croissant or if you have more time maybe a panini. Coffee culture is to randomly enter a place drink coffee on the bar standing and leave in two minutes. Yeap, we saw it all the time. In fact in most places if you sit down you pay a bit more to your coffee and your order. Lunch seems to be skipped or fulfilled with a piece of pizza or panini. But dinner, is where the magic happens. They eat late and they really took their time at the dinner table.

Roma

Pepper and Cheese Spaggethi ,simple but delicious choice

Here is my favorite in Rome, Cantina e Cucina. This lovely place is on a street which is Via del Governo Vecchio in Italian. This street has lots of good restaurants and coffees so you will definitely enjoy a walk through it. We passed the streets once and decided to sit this one which caught our eyes more. Service was full of smiles, decor was cozy and food was really good, especially considering price vs performance. They even serviced us shots two times on the house which made us love them more!

By the way same street supposedly has one of the best ice creams in Rome but frankly I’ve eaten better gelatio even in random places of Rome. Bur their cookie flavor comes with a full cookie on top so there is that and if you want to try they would make a good dessert option after your meal. La Gelateria Frigidarium.

So for a restaurant a bit more classy than average and has an extensive wine menu, we choose to eat our last dinner to eat in Matricianella. You will notice that wine menu is even thicker than the food menu and that is always a good sign! They offer classic main dishes and pasta. They are a bit pricey than your average restaurant but they are still in good price range, you can always choose fool proof options of Pepper and Cheese Spaghetti or Penne Arabiata as a backdoor of the menu. Food was good but wine was even better. With a menu like that even me, self-proclaimed wine lover, was lost since it contained many local regions which I haven’t even heard. But sommelier brought us just the wine we described; easy to drink, not sweet and not young that can accompany our foods for just 16 euro.

Next is a cozy cafe we coincidentally stumbled upon after caught in a sudden rain.
Even its name is cute Café Café. Since we were still in Collosseum area I thought all of our options are most likely tourist traps but we choose this place since it was close to us and seemed to be offering a good selection of teas which was just what we need in the cold weather. Inside is very warmly decorated making you feel instantly cosy and it is a perfect stop for a small coffee and dessert break after your visit to Collosseum .

Hosteria La Vacca M’briaca, this place looked so inviting while we pass by so we decided to dine here. We couldn’t find a good table on our first try but we found an outside table on our second try. (It was close to where we stay). It was just like what we thought, a local good place for a classic Italian dinner. You can tell this by amount of local people dining here. Food and prices were good, if you are near Urbana street you might wanna take a look.

Seriously, does this look like no 1 pizza in Rome?

Pinsera Roma , this was the number one place of restaurants in Rome on Trip Advisor at the time I visited Rome. And it is still one of the most visited places in Rome because its reviews are over 2 thousand. And most of these comments say it is the best pizza in town. So I had to try it myself. Well it was good for the price but it was eat at the counter type of fast food service where you eat while standing. And it certainly wasn’t the best pizza in town. Guess it is one of those “self-fulfilling prophecy of Trip Advisor”, like someplace which is just over average get attention and everybody goes and try that and it gets more attention than it actually deserves. If it wasn’t for the huge expectation of best pizza in town I would have enjoyed it more but it seems like a place to enjoy an afternoon snack and nothing more. They have different choices of pizza and they are small, not like restaurant size pizzas. You don’t need to deliberately search this place out but if you are around you should pop up for a bite. Prices were cheap.

Since it was close to where we stay we tried couple of other places in Urbana street, and another one was Non C’e Trippa Pe Gatti. Again this place has mostly positive comments on the internet and I would say food and prices were ok. But I wasn’t really in sync with the cat pictures on the wall and hearing an English pop song in the background in an Italian restaurant. I guess I expect playing Godfather’s music in the background 🙂 They offer their own daily menus but we preferred ala carte. They charged extra for the bread they brought.
This places made us stop because of beautifully lined up desserts on their glass window. Strabbioni Pizza e Cucina. We tried couple of their small desserts and coffee. I wouldn’t try to find this place a second time but if you came across you can have a quick bite and they sell chocolates for souvenirs.

Dante’s Bar, this is a cafe near to main attractions and with a name like that definitely getting attention. Though it looked and felt like a tourist trap we needed a break in cold weather and they claimed to have best tiramisu in Rome. Well they didn’t but they had a very good strawberry tiramisu. though a bit pricey then your usual cafe being able to seat on one of the main streets certainly deserves it and frankly it was a tolerable tourist trap since we got what we wanted, good dessert and coffee with a busy street view.

Floransa

This was one of my unique dining experience in Florance, Ristorante Le Carceri. Located in a beautiful courtyard with a buzzy atmosphere its main charm was that it was previously a prison. Yes, they turned a real prison into a restaurant so inside decor feels really authentic. Walls are filled with graffiti and writings of former owners and sometimes they are separated with steel bars. Inside was also filled with many locals which we took as a good sign. But since it was a very busy place we could only find a table by promising to leave before 21:30. Except for the fact that the room we sat has also a large table of Italian guests which had 6 children who are really great speakers it was a pleasant evening. I liked the food and wine and atmosphere. But since they are too busy as I saw from the online comments your experience might change greatly so proceed with that in mind 🙂 I think it is a good unique place to eat.

Yellow bar, this place looked like a cozy and nice place. Inside seemed busy enough and menu showed good selections with good price. We ate a good dinner here and atmosphere was just the taste of a good local Italian restaurant with a retro American food chain style which I’m using as a cosy indicator.

Milan, well I totally failed sightseeing in Milan but I was satisfied with my food choices in Milan. But I’m really regretting not taking the name of the place where I ate the most delicious cheese plate and tiramisu of my life. It was a gem find in a remote street on our way to our hotel, I wasn’t expecting anything and obviously with shock I didn’t took any pictures.

Any way but I do remember a seemingly tourist trap but turned out to be good value cafe Bar Ba del Corso. Located on one of the main streets to Duomo, this place is perfect to sit down and watch passerby. Obviously you expect less great food and more expensive price from such place but prices weren’t that high and they brought us small pastries and chips on the house which totally covered any extra euros on the price of our coffees. Seriously they brought about 3 piece per person and chips and coffee was 3 euro. So with that nice surprise I decided to eat a risotto here after all we were in Milan. Well it was mediocre but you know what I say, there is no bad food in Italy just less Parmesan cheese and luckily I think they grow it on trees in Italy because they brought it in portions more than your actual meal here.

Venice

Even though it wasn’t high tourist season we could tell it was a good place because it was busy. Trattoria Alla Ferrata. Seemed like a local place for a good classic Italian dinner and it was. Owner was cheerful and pizza was very good. (not the all vegetable one though)

Bologna

We didn’t had much time to explore but if you are in same position I can suggest you this nice and cozy place we stumbled upon; Bar II Calice. We were looking for a good above standart restaurant but not too pricy around center and we found this place. Entry seems like a cheerful pub but second floor is a decent and cozy restaurant with delicious food. Also they offered traveller menu which included main dish, one drink, coffee and water for 16 euro which was exactly what I was gonna order anyway and if I did it separately I would have paid over 25 euros. I ate Tortellini Bolonese and I absolutely recommend it. Also we ordered dessert as well and I can’t remember the name but the second one in the menu with creme something was the most delicious thing. Also if you happen to visit here on a cold winter night they sell hot wine outside so it is just what you need before you leave this place to wander in cold night streets of Bologna.

August 4, 2015 0 comment