For years, Starbucks been promoting the concept that a company can run a “great coffee shop” without serving good food.  Kenny informed me that a new coffee shop opened on Tremont street by the Common called Thinking Cup Coffee Shop.  When I first arrived at Thinking Cup, I thought “Thievery Corporation at 9:30 AM?  I can get into that.”  I am a big fan of Thievery Corporation, but almost every restaurant that plays their music just smacks of pretense (and not in a way that I like).

The coffee at Thinking Cup is pretty good, in fact I would argue it is some of the best in Boston.  However, all of their staff has this obnoxious hipster attitude.  Not Jamaica Plain hipsters (we get along), but more like Portland hipster (the pinnacle of hipsterdom).  I recently became enamoured of the pourover style of coffee (where they pour hot water over coffee).  For some reason, this coffee has far more complex flavors than regular coffee.  So, I decided to order a cup of coffee, and the “barista” asked “What flavor do you want?” and then pointed to a 8” x 12” sign 20 feet away.  I wasn’t about to walk all the way over to the far end of the bar just to read what 3 flavors of coffee existed, so I just asked him to tell me.  The service is a little too into themselves to actually take your order, but when you get your coffee, it’s worth it.  I should also point out that the coffee is surprisingly small for what you’re paying for.  The smallest size is 8 oz, so paying over 3 bucks for an 8 oz coffee is a little steep.

Oh, I forgot to mention that this is a food blog (but you already knew that, right?).  I ordered the egg and cheese on an English muffin sandwich, which was pretty good, though I would argue a little steep for four dollars.  The annoying part of their breakfast sandwiches is that meat is built into the price.  So, if you just want an egg and cheese, you have to pay as if you wanted a sausage/bacon/ham with eggs and cheese.

While I have already sort of made up my opinion of Thinking Cup, I thought I would at least try out their grilled cheese sandwich to give them a fair review.  The grilled cheese is the only vegetarian sandwich on their meager sandwich menu.  I have always said that good bread is the greatest barometer of how good a sandwich is going to be.  Unfortunately for this grilled cheese, the bread was so much better than the cheese.  If you’re going to use really nice bread for your grilled cheese, you can go better than Kraft slices.  The grilled cheese was very cheesy, but it was unsatisfyingly so.

The food at Thinking Cup is just as awful as you’d expect to find in Starbucks.  I would argue that the coffee is considerably better.  However, the attitude is much worse (yes, it is possible to be snootier than a Starbucks barista!), and the prices are much higher.  For these reasons, I don’t think I can give Thinking Cup more than two cheese sandwiches.

Thinking Cup
165 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02111 
(617) 482-5555

Every once in a while when I visit my family in Belmont, my aunt or uncle have brought home food from Sofra Bakery and Cafe, the Mediterranean cafe wing of Ana Sortun’s empire.  As I always enjoyed the mezze from there, I looked forward to trying a full meal in Sofra’s comfortable dining area.  Unfortunately, upon my arrival, there was no space to sit, as almost all of Belmont had the same idea as me.  So, I took my food to go and ate it at my uncle’s house, much to their chagrin, as they supposedly cooked food for me (oops!).

Sofra has quite a few vegetarian sandwiches, and the one that stood out most to me was the spinache falafel with beets, yoghurt and pickled peppers.  The spinach falafel was fresh, hot and very tasty.  Combined with the pickled peppers and beets, this created a nice sour flavor that blended well with the otherwise bland falafel.  This is not quite as good as Falafel King, but if you want a high-endish falafel in Belmont, this is definitely a top choice.

I also ordered a chocolate baklava.  If you are noticing the fuzziness of the picture, this is because I was so eager to chomp into it.  And I was not disappointed, as the chocolate baklava was probably one of the finest baklavas that I have ever had.  Pockets of warm honey were trapped between the morsels of chocolate and nut pieces, which created a gush of flavor every time.  My only complaint would be that I wish there were a regular baklava, as the chocolate seemed slightly overkill for a treat that would have been fine on its own.  But that’s only a complaint just to have some form of criticism.

I ordered a drink that seemed so exotic, even my multicultural upbringing was impressed.  Salep (above) is an orchid root drink with milk, which is somewhat like a warm horchata, but much richer and not as gritty.  It was so smooth going down, and I could feel the gumminess of the root coating my stomach lining.  I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but it tasted delicious and felt awesome.

Once more, I have not been disappointed by my Sofra experience.  It is definitely one of the nicer cafes in the Belmont/Cambridge border, and if you can come and find a table, you’ll certainly enjoy the experience.  The food is all outstanding, and there are a wealth of vegetarian and vegan options.  My only criticism that prevents it from being a five cheese sandwich is that the casual customer may not be familiar with all the ingrediants/dishes and something may seem like meat, so it would be nice to clearly label vegetarian/vegan dishes.  Otherwise, four and a half cheese sandwiches.

Sofra Bakery and Cafe
1 Belmont Street
Cambridge, MA 02138-4404 
(617) 661-3161

Charles was at work on Friday, so I was left to roam around Georgetown by myself, which was quite nice, as my previous two trips to visit Charles were restricted by going to see Obama’s inauguration (a HUGE time sink) and by the worst snowstorm to hit DC in 20 years.  So, I was finally able to wander the cobble and brick sidewalks and stumbled upon Patisserie Poupon, winner of several made up awards and a Zagat Rating (i.e. several made up awards).  I decided to get some breakfast here, but wasn’t really hungry, as I was still digesting the falafel from Georgetown Cafe from last night.  Regardless, I ordered an almond croissant and a caffe latte, to which the cashier said “almond croissant and a cafe au lait”.  I said, “No, I ordered a latte.”  The cashier then replied, “It’s all the same.”  I thought, “What are you, MAD????  This is a cafe called ‘Patisserie Poupon’, and you consider caffe latte and cafe au lait the same thing?”  I then checked my blackberry and smugly tweeted and facebooked this injustice.  Turns out, if you’re really cold, you can just warm yourself with your own sense of self-satisfaction.

Also turns out, they meant that they consider caffe latte and cafe au lait the same thing price-wise, as the barista made me a latte with no problems.

Despite looking delicious, their almond croissant is woefully disappointing.  I was initially wooed by the glazed coating and almond slices on top, but after taking a few bites of this croissant to discover it was nothing but a hollow pastry with at best an almond glaze on the top and bottom of cisternal chamber.  While it was very sweet, it missed out completely in the almond department, and for that I can’t recommend it too much.

This meal in total was seven bucks, which is quite steep for me still (I may never get accustomed to the ridiculous pricing scheme in Georgetown).  Considering I got a decent latte and a terrible croissant, that is extremely expensive.  While the location is very quaint and charming (it feels like a rustic French cafe), and the pastries and cakes on display look delicious, I know that they probably are pretty average.  Patisserie Poupon proves the proverb “All that glitters is not gold.”  I return with a proverb of my own “I will pass on Patisserie Poupon”.  Two cheese sandwiches.

Patisserie Poupon
1645 Wisconsin Avenue Northwest
Washington D.C., DC 20007 
(202) 342-3248

Growing up as a kid, there was nothing finer than going to local bookseller Joseph Beth and spending the better part of the afternoon sifting through the various science fiction and fantasy tomes waiting for some cute college staff girl to come up and ask me if I needed help.  Of course, when she did, I just sputtered “No,” and sulked back into a corner.

When I wasn’t golluming it among the books, I would go with my family to the Joseph Beth Cafe, where I would get a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream (because I used fatty food to compensate for a lonely childhood) and a slice of the tiramasu.  I remember in 1992 when I first tasted that wonderful Italian delicacy and my mouth has sill yet to fully recover from that taste explosion.

Joseph has since expanded to fill the entire Lexington Green Mall atrium, making it one of the largest independent bookstores in the world, and its cafe now fills the space of a former Mexican restaurant called Mesa.  The great part of the cafe is that it is well integrated with the bookstore, and the menu rotates regularly depending on what new cookbooks are on sale.  Unfortunately the selections are often rotated around Food Network chefs, but I fault the cookbook industry more than the Cafe for that.  I mean who really thinks Rachel Ray makes interesting dishes?

Starting with the bread, which has been a staple at Joseph Beth since its inception, the recipe seems to have changed somewhat since I first used to come here, and it is less sweet than it used to be.

The staple for me, has to be the vegetarian chili which is basically a heartier version of Alfalfa’s red beans and rice.  Though I must say that I prefer Alfalfa’s red beans and rice.

My mother ordered the special which was mixed summer vegetables (zucchini, yellow squash and tomatoes with feta) over rice.  It was pretty underwhelming, but admittedly most vegetarian options outside of the chili are here.  There are a few good quiches, and Paula Dean made a great tomato tart, but I think that was only good because it was 90% butter.

The highlight, of course, is the tiramasu.  I highly recommend this dish, because it is fantastic, and almost everybody that has tried this has enjoyed it (except Hakeem because I don’t think he has any appreciation for good things).

Overall, Joseph Beth is pretty vegetarian friendly, and they have many vegetarian as well as vegan options.  However, I really don’t think that anything is worth eating here outside of the tiramasu (and their peanut butter pie from Missy’s).  But their drinks are great, including coffees, hot chocolates and italian sodas.  And that’s about as much as you can ask for from a cafe.  So, I’ll give it three and a half cheese sandwiches.

Cafe at Joseph Beth
# 1, 161 Lexington Green Cir
Lexington, KY 40503 
(859) 422-1429

Anybody that has ever had the misfortune of traveling via Frankfurt Airport will know that it is a barren wasteland that makes the Atacama Desert appear to be a tropical jungle. Terminal B is one of the few oases available to the bleary-eyed traveler, which has quite a few options including a McCafe and Goethe bar. Being a polymath myself, I decided to try out this seemingly pleasant location paying homage to the creator of Faust, which would be appropriate, since Terminal B is akin to a damnation.

For some reason, I am always hungry whenever I travel. So, I eat much more food than I normally would over a similar time frame. This is likely due to my body’s assault by millions of alien bacteria and viruses from my diseased fellow travelers. As my defense against these vicious foreign invaders (the bacteria and microbes, not the travelers), I usually eat a lot of food. In the last 8 hours prior to arrival in Frankfurt, I had eaten an airline dinner, a breakfast of a granola bar and some yoghurt, a sandwich from the Earl of Sandwich, and eggplant parmesan from Maggiano’s. The eggplant parmesan was enough to fill me up for that 8 hours alone, but clearly, I needed to prepare for battle. Upon arrival in Frankfurt at 5 in the morning, I was famished, tired (I was seated next to three women with babies that were crying the entire night and a flight attendant who thought it was really important to fix the curtain preventing me from seeing what people in rows 30-42 of economy were doing), and lost.

After wandering an hour through endless hallways without any sign of life, let alone a Hudson News, I finally found the entrance to Terminal B. I cleared security, and immediately searched for some sustenance. The only obviously vegetarian dish that seemed appealing was the caprese sandwich, which was actually pretty tasty. The pesto sauce appeared to come from a bottle, but it was a good bottle of pesto, not one of those disgustingly crappy Bertolli ones. Overall, the sandwich was hot, toasty and delicious. It proved that the Germans know how to make a good bread as well, though I must still give the superior nod to the Earl of Sandwich for superior sandwichery in an airport.

The last, but most important aspect of my breakfast was a caffe latte. Unfortunately, 33% of my cup was foam, and I effectively only had an espresso shot with very little milk (I believe that’s what the Italians call a moolatte…). At least the coffee was strong enough to last me two hours until I required another cup from McCafe to get me to my 9:30 AM flight. Overall, for a German bar in an airport, there are a fair number of food options at Goethe Bar. And they do have cool mugs, so for that I’ll give them three cheese sandwiches. But Frankfurt Airport gets one cheese sandwich for awfulness.

Goethe Bar
Frankfurt Airport (FRA)
60549 Frankfurt, Germany