There is no printed menu at Bar High Five. A server explains that there are three kinds of cocktails to choose from: a classic, a drink built around seasonal fruit, or something fully customized. If you choose the customized path, the bartender begins asking questions to understand your preferences. The exchange feels natural, never forced, and their confidence puts you at ease.
[Read more…]Brookland Coffee sits inside a creative complex in South Jakarta, but on a Saturday morning the first thing you notice isn’t the building. It’s the crowd. Outside, where cars might park, long benches, fiberboard blocks, and stools are packed with cyclists. The bike rack is heavy with frames, helmets slung from handlebars, and every seat is taken by young men in every imaginable cyclist get up: long sleeves, short shorts, flat shoes, cycling caps. It feels more like a clubhouse than a café.
Step inside and the air shifts. The interior space is air-conditioned, designed for a slower pace. Women and small groups fill the tables, a couple with laptops plugged in, conversation moving quietly. Near the bar, seating is tighter but every spot is full. The walls carry illustrations of all sorts, surrounded by a clutter of merch, mostly nylon foldable tote bags in a streetwear style. It’s casual but intentional, part of the café’s personality rather than a curated gallery statement.
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Customers of ZUS Coffee, one of the Philippines’ most recognizable budget coffee chains, have recently been reporting an odd contradiction: stores are open, yet actual coffee is unavailable. Social media users have been complaining that many locations are only serving non-coffee drinks, with baristas often citing “machine calibration” as the reason.
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Walking into Bar Bon Funk, I didn’t know that I’d be entering into one of my favorite spaces. In the beverage and hospitality industry, a night out in another country is as much enjoyment as it is education. This bar is firmly planted in the center of Singapore’s New Bharu, a former school building converted into lifestyle complex. It’s literally a classroom and class was in session.
[Read more…]Finally made it out to a friend of ours’ cafe, makerscafeph in QC, just off of EDSA. As it’s the cafe in the lobby of a church, the cafe is very spacious and there’s lots of parking in the basement on a weekday afternoon.
Orange espresso has become an afternoon favorite of ours, and we’re pleasantly surprised to have fresh orange juice squeezed on the spot. The drink hit the spot, and if you’re looking for a cafe that’s quiet and you can hide out in, this one is a pretty good pick.
It was a pleasant surprise to come across this new family-run café along Aurora Boulevard in Quezon City. Sandwiched between steelwork and construction supply stores, its location is but one of several things that make @throughabitcafe an unusual but very welcome discovery.
For one, they are a plant-based coffee bar inside a vegan-friendly eco-store, making them a one-stop shop for vegan supplies, essential goods and select local products. Their shelves are decked with various items that promote waste-free, sustainable living.
[Read more…]Think about what you want in a great neighborhod cafe. You want enough space and sunshine so that it feels like you’re out of the home, and you need enough communal space for meeting up with friends or even business contacts. Probably more important than anything else, you want it to strike a balance between great drinks and still being affordable enough to patronize regularly. And if you’re gonna be running a neighborhood cafe in Metro Manila, Quezon City is a really great place to start. There’s a pretty equitable balance of homes and businesses, as most people working there also do live within the same city. These are the elements that lead to a solid group of regulars — customers you can expect to see in the cafe two to three times a week.
Enter Prominent, a gas-station cafe on QC’s D. Tuazon street. On first glance, Prominent seems to check all the boxes. The ambiance is bright and clean. The location is accessible without being busy. And the drinks are affordable, offering up the expected choices (Espresso, lattes, cappucino) alongside more experimental drinks like their new Honeycomb Latte and ChocNut Latte.
On this visit, we decided to try the ChocNut Latte. For the unfamilliar, ChocNut is a local Filipino candy bar that combines pulverized peanuts with cocoa with coconut milk. ChocNut has a distinct flavor and is inexpensive, which has lead to it’s popularity over the decades. Every pinoy kid knows ChocNut. It has also more recently been front of mind culturally because of it’s appearance in the Netflix anime series, Trese. And to be honest, this is probably why we chose this drink over the rest of the menu.
The drink itself was quite sweet, but not more sweet than a ChocNut. It’s essentially a cafe mocha with the chocolate swapped out for the crumbly candy bar. The espresso is then pulled directly out of Prominent’s newly upgraded espresso setup, which features a Compak E10 conical burr grinder paired with a custom Synesso S200. The espresso is a blend from Mandaluyong-based Plain Sight Coffee Roasters, dropping down into the cup to melt and caramelize against the ChocNut. Steamed milk is poured into the cup to complete the drink.
Taste-wise, this ChocNut Latte is a home run. It combines the need for coffee with a nostalgic aroma and flavor. Pure comfort in a cup. You probably won’t want to order it every day, but it’s an awesome afternoon or late night latte that you can go to once a week. It’s a treat.
Rounding out Prominent’s neighborhood cafe experience is their retail rack. Pick up a Kalita or Origami pour over dripper, filters, or whole bean coffee. But on top of that, Prominent if featuring another product that’s unique in the market: their own house-made workwear fashion line. The first to launch are a set of heavy cotton t-shirts and linen trousers. Both pieces come in a number of colorways and are embroidered with Prominent’s coat-of-arms-style emblem. True to the rest of the Prominent experience, the designs are clean, for day to day use, and balance quality hand-made product with prices that are affordable.
Minimalism is more than just taking things away. Despite its name, a good minimalist design maximizes the use of empty space and directs more purpose to each element that is placed within the design. Plain Sight Coffee Roasters’ coffee packaging has succeeded in both of these regards.
Utilizing the 500 gram tall packet, they’ve folded the top backwards to match the smaller volume. The back flap is secured with a small rectangular sticker containing their social media info and the coffee’s roast date, plus a reminder to consume the product within 60 days. It’s a minimalist design success to be able to give a small object multiple purposes..
On the front, a rectangular sticker highlights the most important details that customers look for when buying their coffee, such as its origin, tasting notes, and roast profile. It is clear that the designer has a firm grasp of the minimalist philosophy, setting up lines and optical rules for negative space, then strategically breaking those rules for emphasis. Minimum elements, meet maximum function.
The minimalist movement can be summarized into a short statement: “less is more.” This statement, when unpacked, holds a lot more nuance than what can be seen in plain sight. When done right, the presence of less clutter brings more life through the empty spaces.
Follow @plainsightcoffee on Instagram.
It’s something I’ve wondered for a while now: why are liquors called spirits? I imagined that it had something to do with a drinker’s consciousness. How it seems to leave the body before succumbing to a drunken stupor. Could that be it? Or is it because a stiff drink can often lift someone’s spirits through its own essence? Basically, adding to your own spirit by adding some that’s been externally generated and bottled. Or — as I theorized during a rum tasting exercise last night with Don Papa Rum’s Aaron Goodall via Zoom — is it because of what they essentially are: the spirit of a previous drink? As it turns out, I’m pretty close to bullseye on that last one.
[Read more…]Everybody already knows that coffee and donuts generally go well together. It’s a classic snack that is easily enjoyed by all. If it works, why change it, right? But the guys at Poison had something else in mind for this popular pairing. With a little more imagination, better ingredients and improved skill in preparation, they elevated the whole experience.
Posion offers a variety of donut flavors you could not possibly have heard of before, such as Garam Masala, Champorado and Hazelnut Blue Cheese. These highly-nunaced flavors make it more exciting to explore different coffees too, as specific tasting notes can come out more profoundly and better enjoyed.
On our last visit we had a latte and an espresso shot together with a couple of donuts — a Salted Dark Chocolate and a Boston Cream, which seem to be the most “common” items on the menu. The milky sweetness of the latte complimented the saltiness and boldness of the chocolate in the Salted Dark Chocolate donut. The Bostom Creme which was rich and heavy — something you can already expect from the sight of it — was quite perfect paired with the strong and straightforward espresso. The coupling of these complex flavors rounded out pleasantly in the palate.
Though Posion’s donuts are generally luscious and can very much be enjoyed on their own, having them with specialty coffee simply allows for a more multi-layered snacking experience. Feel free to ask their baristas for recommended pairings or to suggest what goes best with the donut of your choice. They will be more than happy to help you. And then, get ready to be surprised!
