My favorite New York app

...is The Scoop, from The New York Times. 

It's like having an in-the-know friend in the city, and it's free.  As the easy-to-use home screen (example above) shows, there are specific categories that are updated regularly containing short reviews from Times reporters and often a link to the longer review that appeared earlier in the newspaper itself.

I love the great GPS locator in it, so that if I'm somewhere and looking for (more often than not) a coffee bar, it will tell me where to go - you'll find something new and never get lost. 

And speaking of coffee bars, this app is a wonder if you're anywhere below 34th Street, but the Upper West Side?  Oh, I wish.  Where are you, great coffee places, in my neighborhood?  Besides Joe, of course.

It's super for finding out what's happening in art, music, theater, dance and all things cultural in New York.  And I love the ideas for day trips out of NY, most of which can be reached by train or bus, if a car isn't in the cards.  The "Only in New York" section is perfect with its suggestions for out-of-town visitors (and for the weekend "tourist" that I so enjoy being even though I've lived here for so long).

Check it out and go somewhere new!  As you do, you can even feed your competitive soul, if you have one like I do, by check marking the spots you've been to.  Email, Facebook, web links, etc., are also easy to access from each of the posted items.  It's full of great ideas.  Even if you're a jaded New Yorker, you'll find something you never knew or thought about before.

Get out this weekend and do something new!

Caffeinated Weekends - Kava Cafe

Just south of, and practically in the shadow of, the High Line, resides Kava Cafe.  This place is extra special, so run, bike or walk, but however you get there, go. 

I really get a kick out of finding something totally unexpected like this.  Kava is only about six months old.  When it gets "discovered," it will become something huge (but selfishly I hope not).  I loved it just the way I found it the other morning on one of our hot and sticky July days. 

OK, deep breath, now for the description.  It's a sleek Italian espresso bar, as I might dream in my most lavish rendering.  Polished black and brass shine throughout, a practically one-of-a-kind espresso maker from La Marzocco, lots of room to stand or sit at Kava's long bars, and best of all (besides the excellent espresso drinks using Stumptown beans) is the huge garden out back, filled with cedar tables and chairs, and completely shaded by enormous leafy trees.

Gelato, too

The perfect shaded garden

The perfect iced latte in the perfect garden

The sleek Milano-style espresso bar and rich terrazzo floor.

Kava's offerings

No detail left undesigned

(A really nice New York Times review and photos are here for more info.  The review is from January, though, and doesn't mention the garden.)

Perfect location, perfect garden.  Done.

Caffeinated Weekends - Kaffe 1668

For some reason, Kaffee 1668 in Tribeca is all about lambs and cartoon art.  The large wall cartoon art distracted me from placing my order, for a while.  I kept ducking around and through (and probably irritated) the seated patrons so I wouldn't miss any of them.  That's reason enough to stop in; they're clever.

The entire cartoon art collection is on their website; it, too, is worth a visit (and much easier to accomplish than a personal visit, of course, if you're not in New York).

But Kaffe 1668 isn't just kitsch and cartoons.  The coffee and tea offerings (yes, tea) are serious and varied - six single origin coffees and loads of teas (and the homemade brownies, etc., to go with it)!  Also, the ambiance is excellent for getting some work or reading done.  Chairs and tables are abundant, and the room is quiet.  

If concentration is lost for a moment or two, read the cartoons or play with the furry toy lambs.  No one will mind.

Caffeinated Weekends - Blue Bottle Coffee

After a weekend of eating, consuming caffeinated beverages and walking, walking and more walking, and only exceeded by shopping and a lot of sun on the shoulders, I'm ready to sit down and compose a few blog posts about how wonderful and varied a time can be had in a New York summer weekend spent with an adventurous out-of-town best friend.

But today, about coffee.  Blue Bottle Coffee.  This is something special, really special and different.  The ambiance and the coffee.  

We visited their Berry Street location in Williamsburg, all sleek, wood, high ceilings, minimal and bright and airy.  It has a different appearance than any coffee bar I've seen in New York.  Blue Bottle Coffee is originally a California roaster and maybe that's why the difference.

When I asked for my usual summer order, an iced nonfat latte, I received an effusive recommendation from the barista to take a cold-brewed New Orleans-style iced coffee instead.  I was skeptical, but in a place that looks so serious about what's going on in there - roasters roped off to the consuming public taking up over half the warehouse space, test-tube-like glassware doing who-knows-what, I felt I had to take her word for it.

My word for it?  Unbelievable.  I'll go back to Brooklyn just for that coffee.  I found out the deal after I'd finished off my fully recyclable cup-full, sitting on my slightly too-short bar stool at the long wooden communal table.  My barista explained that it brews all night long, it's a mixture of many beans (whatever's around, I think she said) and the magic is chicory.  Hence, New Orleans-style.  To me, it tasted like a chocolate bar had been melted into the coffee.  It wasn't too sweet, but it was perfectly rich and chocolate-y.  It was an excellent compliment to the tiny taste of adult-fantasy s'more we couldn't resist.

Keep on truckin'

inside a Joyride truck!

I've touched on the food truck/cart phenomenon in New York City, but lately I am seeing it more and more (is this a summertime phenomenon or a new direction for dining in the "new" economy?).  With greater creativity, quality ingredients and New Yorker appeal  (meaning not just water dogs and rubber pretzels), I've tried just a few at this point, but I look forward to trying as many as I can - in the name of research, of course.  The designs, signage and colors of the carts and trucks are eye-catching, too.  That Yogo truck at the bottom looks good enough to eat!

 Waffles & Dinges - Belgian waffles (Riverside Park South)

Joyride - frozen yogurt and Stumptown coffee (near Lincoln Center)

Mister Softee - the original that started the trend (Upper West Side)

Mud Truck - espresso/coffee drinks and bites (near Astor Place)

Yogo - frozen yogurt (near Lincoln Center)

Caffeinated Weekends - Third Rail Coffee

Right near the NYU Law School, on Sullivan near West 3rd, and imagining that it gets a lot of traffic from the highly caffeine-dependent students over there, is Third Rail Coffee.  It is so small that it's practically miss-able, but for the busy buzz inside and out.  Tiny tables, tiny space, and no choice for milk - no skim, they just didn't have space for it or the desire to offer options, I suppose.  They're nice about it, well, kind of curt, actually.  But I just couldn't resist, and so I ordered a cortado (less milk) at their suggestion - they weren't above making a recommendation so I wouldn't leave sad and empty-handed.

Anyway, it's amazing stuff.  Worth the stop; it's really one of the best around, in a neighborhood that takes its espresso bars seriously.  Just don't plan on hanging out.  The few tiny tables and places to put your tush will be all full up.  Guaranteed.

Offering Intelligentsia AND Stumptown (and yet not enough room for skim milk, too?)

Caffeinated Weekends - Java Girl

The Upper East Side in the '60s (the streets, not the decade) is filled with large chain store franchises.  On the eastern avenues, like Second and Third, it feels more and more like a suburban shopping mall every time I go (which is not often).  That's why Java Girl, on East 66th Street between Second and First Avenues, stands out.  It describes itself, on t-shirts for sale in the store and in its online logo, as "indescribably exotic & sometimes nutty."  In other words, Java Girl really wants us to think it's a pretty odd place.  It's neither exotic or nutty for a New York coffee bar, but it's unique given its location, which is in fact relatively convenient to all the hospitals and doctors' offices located around there (Weill Cornell Medical Center and Sloan-Kettering).

And that is a nice thing.  There are exposed brick walls, little wooden tables and chairs for seating and quiet conversation for as long as you want, a selection of teas as well as coffees, and  various other food items, too.  They do a good mixed nuts, dried fruits and seeds snack bag, for example. 

What this place does best is convey "homey."  It's one-of-a-kind, and that really stands out in an area so obviously filled with the repetition of chain stores and otherwise not comfy places, like doctors' offices and hospitals.  

If you didn't know it was here, you'd just walk right by.  I'm glad I know it's there, for it makes me slightly less indifferent about the Upper East Side than I otherwise would be.  And besides, the latte's pretty good.

Caffeinated Weekends - Culture Espresso

This is where it all began for me, my civilized addiction to a daily dose of great latte - hot in the winter, iced in the summer, and always to-go - right over to my office, every morning on my way to work.  I would nurse it through the entire morning, at desk or in meetings, and I am sure I was known for (among many other things) having a Culture Espresso latte with me wherever I was. 

A couple of years ago, I randomly walked by and "discovered" it, its big window and large espresso machine beckoning.  Back then, it was always empty; I prayed it would not go out of business before it found its following.  It didn't (go out of business, that is) and it has (found its following, that is, big time).  They are serious about excellent espresso-making here, first and foremost.  It's probably the best I've found in Manhattan. 

Not only could I buy my caffeine fix and know that it would always be amazing, right around the corner from my office in the middle of the quality dining wasteland otherwise known as the Garment District (excuse me, The Fashion Center, as its neighborhood BID would prefer it be called).  Culture also features homemade sandwiches and, back when it first opened, they had a truly creative pastry chef churning out, on premises, the most beautiful things I wouldn't dare let myself indulge in (too much/too close).  But I loved seeing what she was making every day; if one could gain weight just by looking....  Though that pastry chef has since left and Culture now features baked items from Sullivan Street Bakery (also very good but more predictable), I did notice when I was there on a recent weekday afternoon that a huge group of patrons arrived around 3pm and started a line going out the door to buy fresh-baked, still hot, chocolate chip cookies.  They were definitely in the know, these neighborhood workers in the fashion business or whatever else - and it's quite varied - these folks are doing.  

Culture uses Intelligentsia Coffee; every espresso-based drink is a triple shot.  The sandwiches (which run out by early afternoon) are also fantastic.  I'm partial to the Chipotle Chicken, but I hear Figgy is good, too (maybe I just think the name is cute).

There is room for seating at small tables, so conversation is definitely possible,  as well as one long high table in the middle of the room.  They also have free wifi and play LPs on an actual turntable - remember those?!

For tourists (who pretty much haven't found this place except on Thanksgiving Day when the parade crowd falls in), I would advise remembering it as an excellent pit-stop on the walk between Times Square and the Empire State Building.  There it is, on 38th just off Sixth, about half way between them.

Caffeinated Weekends - Ninth Street Espresso

Ninth Street Espresso is a charming little place in the East Village, in good company in a neighborhood full of excellent coffee bars.  It stands out in its cool interior feel.  Quiet, with a long bar along the exposed white-painted brick wall as well as the front window, it faces Tompkins Square Park.  (Yes, that confuses me, too - Ninth Street Espresso on 10th Street?)  Actually,  there are three locations, one of  which is on 9th Street.  The other two are on 10th Street (pictured here) and in Chelsea Market.

The East Village locations are perfect for resting between walks, or bike rides along the many bike lanes that weave through these avenues, or shopping excursions among the surprising shops, particularly the vintage and consignment shops, throughout this quartier I have begun to know and am so enamoured with.  Because it is quiet, it's also a good place to spend more time with work or a book at the counter, while the sun streams in through the large front window.  Or, take it to go (they use Intelligentsia coffee) and wander through Tompkins Square Park, a fascinating and lively patch of East Village activity - a far, far different place than it was when I was the age of the average inhabitant of this area.  Nonetheless, my view is - it's never too late!

Caffeinated Weekends - Zibetto

This one you could walk by, a few times, and just not notice.  The door is that small, the width of space the slender espresso bar takes up on Sixth Avenue at 56th Street is this narrow -

Zibetto Espresso Bar is a very discrete, purposeful coffee bar in Midtown, perfect for a quick throw-back or even a longer linger at the thin marble counter, but only if your shoes are comfortable, and only with, at most, a little Italian cookie (or a panino if during lunchtime).  I thought, you gotta be kidding.  No New Yorker will go for this, so bare bones, so lacking hype (and chairs!), and yet, in that same vein, totally authentic Italian.  I was wrong - at 4:45pm on a weekday, a steady flow of people walked in, ordered, either alone or with a companion, stood for their few minutes to imbibe their caffé or macchiato, and then, zip - out the door like a New Yorker (or Roman), mission accomplished. 

It's an out-of-New-York experience, right down to the central casting Mediterranean servers; calling them baristas just wouldn't fit here.  This is no Seattle-by-way-of-Williamsburg coffee house.  For a few minutes, I was in Rome, having my afternoon caffeine shot to carry me through the late day to my 10pm dinner (well, in that daydream, anyway).   

Caffeinated Weekends - Ground Support

I really need to remember this place, for it's a breath of fresh air in the middle of the bustling, sometimes overwhelming, hyped-up shopping and gallery hopping experience that defines Soho on West Broadway.  Ground Support, 399 West Broadway near Spring (no website), in fact, is located in a former art gallery.  By downtown New York espresso bar standards, it's huge and airy, with a skylight that permits the bright sun (when lucky enough to have such a day) to spotlight one of the customer tables.  It definitely seems to be a neighborhood "regulars" kind of place, both for breakfast and lunchtime noshing and/or caffeine fixes.

There's a long zinc bar for sit-downs, and four large wooden picnic tables, accommodating a number of computer workers during the times I was there.  Ground Support serves Ceci Cela croissants as well as interesting muffins from somewhere else I can't remember the name of.  I tried a whole wheat cherry pineapple muffin, which was incredibly filling but seemed virtuous.   And their coffees are Intelligentsia.  

Sandwiches were being made nonstop by two people behind the zinc bar.  Veg sandwich was heavy on cauliflower, not what I expected in a veggie sandwich but, with feta cheese and an interesting aioli among other things, made for a crunchy change of pace.  Everything was super fresh, and they have a variety of clever sandwiches and salad.  Cookies, too, of course. 

Bref, it's roomy, very relaxing, a good place for a light meal as well as your caffeine, and the baristas are patient and enthusiastic (when I couldn't make up my mind, I was encouraged to try the muffin for something different). Plus, there are outside benches for optimal only-in-Soho people and dog watching (or are the dogs watching the Soho people?). 

Caffeinated Weekends - Stumptown

Stumptown at the Ace Hotel is an experience.  Not just because the beverages and pastries are excellent.  It's because of the Ace Hotel.  But, first about Stumptown Coffee Roasters.  They serve the typical espresso drinks, very well prepared and, interesting to me, served in actual ceramic coffee cups unless you specifically ask for to-go paper cups.  How civilized!  They expect we will enjoy our drink right there. But where?  The space is long, narrow and has no seating.  There is a full length of bar-height counter at which to stand along the floor-to-ceiling window which faces onto 29th Street just east of Broadway, sunny and bright when the weather is likewise (ditto, gray and rainy most of this spring).

So, if you want to sit and linger with that not-to-go coffee cup, what to do?  Just walk through the door that leads into the Ace Hotel.  This is a happening place, the likes of which I'd never seen before.  Yes, I feel slightly older than the average age here (maybe a lot older), but there's enough variety here to not make anyone feel out of place and I never have.

The large roomy lobby is so comfortable.  You can sit there and read or work on computer, or order food from their restaurant, The Breslin, or bring in your coffee and pastry from Stumptown, or order a "real" drink from the bar at the back of the lobby, or whatever.  It's as dark as the photo, conducive to computer use, I suppose?  Or to falling asleep, as I noticed a young woman, with her book open on her lap, had done.  And no one noticed?  Or bothered to notice.  There are large long communal tables for the computer users, with power sources, of course.  And loads of sofas, big upholstered chairs and coffee tables.  Great place.  Great coffee.  Fascinating concept which absolutely works.  I think it's one of the most comfortable spots in town.

If only I had a reason to be on 29th Street more often.  After lunch in Koreatown, maybe?