Coffee, Chocolate and Tea

I'd spotted this place when the refurbishments started over a year ago. Glasgow gets there, eventually, but it's the best part of a century since it led the way.



Actually, the problem is not so much the proliferation of coffee shops, but the quality of the coffee. Fortunately this place was well worth the wait. It's the brainchild of Macallums Fishmongers and occupies the site of their old shop. They roast coffee beans on the premises using a fabulous looking machine brought over from France.




Lisa said she used to work in the wine trade, before that she'd spent 3 years in Australia roasting coffee. Why did my careers lessons fail to mention such jobs?



This is a new version of the espresso machine that in 1961 pioneered the design now copied by most other manufacturers. It's a beautiful bit of kit.



My Americano was made using their House Blend 'Cranston Hill'. Wonderful fruity, smokey aroma and a delicious, rounded, chocolaty taste.



Went for a bag of El Salvador 'Las Delicias Bourbon' beans to take home. They were roasted the day before and I was instructed, "Best leave them a day first". Now this sounded interesting. After reading the great Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking I'd always presumed that the sooner you use your beans after roasting the better. Harold explains that coffee beans have more different aroma compounds than almost any other edible thing. Hundreds are released by roasting but they start oxidising almost immediately.



Lisa explained that because the beans are roasted at 220c they need time to 'settle' and release gasses for a day or two afterwards. Otherwise the cup could turn out a bit 'lively'. Fascinating. I decided mine were sufficiently rested this morning. Fabulous coffee. Smokey, nutty aromas and a lovely almost refreshing taste. Think it was £4.80 for 250g of beans. Well worth it and I even got a discreet nod of approval when I said I'd be grinding them myself.


The teas also look good, especially the flower teas which unfurl in beautiful glass teapots before you pour. And, apparently, they're in talks with a Chocolatier... whatever that means.



So I'd seriously suggest popping in to try some of the best coffee in this city and say hello to the knowledgeable and charming Rosie, Rachel and Lisa.






Coffee, Chocolate and Tea
944 Argyle Street,
Glasgow
G3 8YJ
0141 204 3161

Taboo

It was a landmark Bank Holiday Weekend. Something inside me changed forever. Finally it's over...

Now, at last, I can do it, I too can buy second hand... ahem, I mean 'vintage' shoes. And what a pair. Brogue boots? Didn't even know they existed. They appear to have been polished black.

My phobia stemmed from the thought of the previous incumbents. Feet can be pretty minging and I didn't fancy catching something. Anyway, these passed the sniff challenge.

This is going to result in a considerable saving over the years, so to celebrate shoes that only cost £18, I thought something nice and leathery smelling should do the trick.

There's plenty of old leather in this wine and a fair whiff of feral animal too. I've never drunk wine from an old boot... can't imagine many people have... but this is what it would probably taste like. Especially if the boot belonged to a werewolf. Don't get me wrong, there's also loads of delicious raspberry fruit too, a great texture, a lovely long lasting finish and a refreshingly light 12.5% alcohol. It's real beauty and the beast stuff. I love it.

Someone tweeted the other day that they were out with a friend who was wearing an old tweed jacket when a bunch of neds shouted across the street, "Vintage Cunts". Genius.

The wine is new to Yapp. Came as part of a mixed case for £85 including delivery.

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS.

The shoes came from the Glasgow Vintage Company by Kelvinbridge.

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS.

Soupe de Passion

It arrived with a flourish. A steaming tureen with a ladle poking out from a slit in the lid, little bowls of cheese, croutons, a red coloured mayonnaise and bread... but what really caught our eye was that all this was for one man. Then, after filling a bowl, the waiter just left the tureen. My brother and I were young, pre teen, we just stared, unable to imagine anything more perfect. We continued to watch, mesmerised as a very French looking man spread mayonnaise on the croutons, popped them in the soup, then sprinkled the lot with cheese. We ordered it on the spot and at every other spot we found it for the rest of the holiday.

Today was pleasantly warm, first time really this year. Always a good excuse to play 'being on holiday'. It's a relatively easy game for me involving a jar of soupe de poissons plus accompaniments and a bottle of rose. There are a thousand recipes for rouille. My recipe is: 2 crushed cloves of garlic, a tablespoon of harissa, 2 egg yolks- mash it all together in a mortar and pestle then add olive oil a drop at a time, stirring, as for mayonnaise. When it's very thick thin it down with the juice of half a lemon. Season.

The rose came from the Co-op for the remarkably reasonable price of £4.79. It's pretty good too, very much a food wine, but I'd definitely buy it again.

For a few glinting moments I'm transported back... to the Quayside in Sete, chuckling into our glasses as Parisian gangsters drive by playing hip hop. Or, in Marseille, flicking a finger to the guys on scooters who smile to reveal cellophane wrapped crack between their teeth. Ahh, the glories of the Med. Unfortunately the view tonight wasn't quite so colourful.

Vive Le Difference

We got it bad, you don't know how bad we got it. You got it easy, you don't know when you got it good...

Wouldn't it be good to be on your side, even if it was for just one day...

Actually the French know they've got it good, even to the point of smugness, but why not? They're living in a country boasting every desirable form of terrain and have mastered the art of getting the best out of it.

There are however, a few achilles 'eels... the French get a bit embarrasing when drunk, they're crap at pop music and most of them can't dance.

French people tend to drink a lot without getting drunk. In fact they're so good at it, if you're a cirrhosis doctor you'd be daft working anywhere else. It's a long term soaky sort of boozing, not the binging variety at which we excel. When the French binge, the rest of the world cringe... you can almost guarantee they'll start trying, and failing, to pull each others pants down just before flinging themselves into the nearest fountain.

Now it's not like other countries don't behave abominably when drunk, it's just that normally the French are so bloody schwet, seeing them drunk, or dancing, or best of all, both, is to realise that there IS much justice in the world.

Anyway, I'd better stop now, before an angry mob from the Larzac turns up to blockade my street and set fire to cheese outside the window.

Here's a wine even the French recommend drinking to excess and after a few nights of experimentation, I can vouch for their advice. It came as part of a mixed case from Yapp.

Saint Pourcain 2009 is, to pinch a word they're fond of in the Yapp catalogue, a 'judicious' blend of Pinot Noir and Gamay. I'd say it's glugalicious and versatile. So far it's gone well with garlicy chicken, a nice tuna steak and it also goes down rather too easily on it's own. Oh well, if you can't beat them join them... but never mind the trousers, make sure it's the blinds you pull down before attempting the lastest refreshingly cool French dance craze Tecktonik...

New french dance craze - Watch more Funny Videos

Saint Pourcain comes as part of a mixed case from Yapp costing £85 including delivery. Well worth it.

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

Through Savage Europe

Spotted this lurking in the travel section of a second hand bookshop. A quick flick through and I was transfixed.

Harry de Windt told it as he saw it... and he saw it as an Edwardian gentleman from the Garrick Club. It's absolutely riveting.

This made me chuckle. An early version of Ewan McGregor and his chum heading off to the middle of no-where with nothing but a throbbing engine between their legs. What must their wives have thought?

Amusingly, despite numerous photographs, none are actually attributed to the 'canny' Mr Mackenzie. Maybe they fell out before publication?

Harry's main obsessions on the journey were a very critical approach to the local women coupled with a continual quest for 'comforts'.

In another memorable paragraph he describes the women of Montenegro as "acceptably pretty in youth though inclined to portliness in later years". Caveat Emptor!

An early reference to Zinfandel.

Well, imagine my surprise, as they say, while hanging around Waitrose looking to pick up something in the wine section...

They're currently discounting a range of wines including a few from in and around the Balkans. One is now my new favourite town name...

Unfortunately it's definitely not my new favourite wine. Because the Pinot Grigio from Jeruzalem Ormoz is just ok, in a home made sort of way, tasting of unripe fruits: apple, grapefruit, pineapple... with a slight spritz. It's a refreshing aperitif for £6.66, but even at that reduced price, I wouldn't buy it again. As for the £6ish Zinfandel look-a-likey 'Plavac Mali' from the Croatian island of Hvar, well, it may have been prettier in youth. Now though, it's gone to seed, all fat and blowsy. You would, but only if there was nothing else left.

If only all Tuesdays could be like this...

As locations go, it seems this one went. A flattened post industrial landscape just beyond Shields Road underground station. Fortunately, a bit more wandering revealed it was just a glitch with the internet map.

There were few clues on the outside as to what lurks within, just a hint in reception that this place may not be a purveyor of industrial widgets.

We were here to see the 'Shooting Gallery' exhibition and in particular the work of Kevin Hunter, artist brother of Adrian who manages Pete Doherty.

I spotted the bar. Well it was hard to miss and so disproportionately huge and 'proper' looking that I seriously thought it might be an installation.

Still, I had a punt anyway, "What's in it?" I asked the barman..."Mainly rum", and he laughed as I tried to pay. He wasn't kidding, after two pieces of fruit I was merry, half way down the drink I was anyones.

Soon after a man introducing himself as Scott stood up to say a few words. He explained about the art, the exhibition, forthcoming attractions and then, I began to start thinking there was more in my drink than just rum. Because Scott started saying this place was also a training college for 'mixologists', the creme de la creme of cocktail shakers... "P P P P Pardon??"... "Am I hallucinating?".. I was trying to take in this googly when he bowled another... there were in fact two bars that would be serving all manner of delicious drinks all night for free. Then he pointed upwards...

"Up there, behind the DJ, you'll find the Bourbon bar". Christ, and I nearly drove... result!!!

There was about quarter of a bottle of Makers Mark in this Old Fashioned. Wow, the olden days must have been some place. A bit of enjoyable chat was followed by two absolutely cracking whisky sours.

Then it really was time to go. Quite apart from the fact that I was seriously considering coming to live here permanently, there was 'We Have Band' to see at The Captains Rest...

They were bloody brilliant.


Click here for details of the Shooting Gallery artists.

The exhibition was run by the LA Group.
You can contact them and it's Managing Director Scott Gemmell at:
info@la-group.co.uk / 0141 429 8989. I'd recommend doing so.
Click here for their website.

Click here for the marvelous We Have Band.