Tag: intelligentsia

A trip to Chicago’s Intelligentsia Coffee

I knew there would be good coffee the moment I spied the fixies out front.

Taryn and I take a yearly trip back to Wisconsin from DC, and this year we decided to spend a few hours in Chicago before heading up to Milwaukee.  Neither of us have spent any significant time in the city, so we thought this would be a good chance to do some exploring.  The original idea was to visit one of Chicago’s northern neighborhoods (Lakeview), where Intelligentsia Coffee has its original coffee shop (at 3123 N. Broadway St.), via the L.  Intelligentsia is one of the best coffee roasters in the country, and some of the best coffee shops all around the country use their beans, so their shop seemed like a good excuse to travel out of the Loop.  So that was the plan.  Plans don’t always work out, and we found ourselves at the downtown location instead (apparently L stations require exact change…my fault!  Though I have to say that my short experience with the L made me long for the New York Subway, or even DC Metro).

But everything turned out ok, because Intelligentsia’s coffee shop at 53 E. Randolph St.is beautiful and spacious.  It is really quite shocking, for someone used to the cramped coffee shops of DC, to see what reasonable rents can allow.  So there was no trouble finding a seat.  We both ordered cappuccinos, and the

Impressive latte art

latte art was beautiful (and unique) on both of them.  The foam texture itself was nearly perfect.  The espresso was quite complex, with hints of both berries and cocoa, though there was a slight bitterness that was slightly off-putting.  We both speculated that a sweeter milk  may have helped this a bit.  I won’t give a rating but I think this cappuccino fell just short of some of the best coffee shops in DC (Peregrine) and Madison (Bradbury’s), though daily variability likely places Intelligentsia in the same league as those other places.  However, from what I tasted, I certainly don’t think that Intelligentsia is significantly better than these other places (many claim that they serve some of the best espresso in the country), and it doesn’t match the phenomenal cappuccino that I had at 9th Street Espresso in New York last summer (although the latte art was exceptional, I don’t give this a great deal of weight – cappuccinos are primarily for drinking, not looking).  But if you are in Chicago, go to one of Intelligentsia’s locations; you won’t be disappointed.

Chinatown Coffee – at least it is hip

Chinatown Coffee

475 H st. NW
Washington, DC 20001
www.chinatowncoffee.com

Read about my planned cappuccino tour around the DC area.

When Chinatown coffee opened in 2010, there was a great deal of excitement surrounding it.  Nick Cho, of Murky Coffee fame (who I have mentioned in previous posts), was even general manager at Chinatown for a while (before DC went after Cho for back taxes, and they ended their “relationship”).  In fact, Chinatown was the first coffee shop I went to in the district; it was supposed to be among the best.  The shop is located in the very lively Chinatown district of DC, close to a number of large offices, shopping areas, excellent places to eat (along with a good number of really crappy Chinese restaurants), and museums.   On paper, the place has a lot going for it.  However,  I have always found it to be a bit of a letdown; I have been here many times while living in DC and it has almost always been consistently worse than other top coffee shops.  But we will come to that a bit later.

Chinatown coffee is a rather small exposed brick shop; it is what you would expect from the pinnacle of hip urbanity.  They serve bottled beer and

from Bill Walsh at Honestcooking.com

baked goods along with their coffee, but no other food.  I have to say that the muffins are delicious.  Recently they have also hosted a variety of food trucks (all the rage in DC) on Thursday nights, very cool!  It is always seems crowded (regardless of the time of day), so expect this if you visit; as with many DC coffee shops, getting a seat can be a chore.

The cappuccino looked very nice, with perfect microfoam.  This sort of foam-perfection is the norm here.  However, I was not impressed by the underlying espresso, which is odd given that Chinatown uses one of the best coffees in the country (Intelligentsia, out of Chicago).  I’m not positive about why this is, but I

A really nice looking cap

saw that they were selling some coffee beans that were well over a week old; it is possible that they were using beans that were a little past their prime.  Regardless of why the espresso was lackluster, it lacked any real complexity and had an off-putting bitterness.  This is certainly unfortunate given how seriously they seem to take the preparation of their coffee drinks.  Here are the ratings, all out of a possible 5 points:

Smoothness: 3.3

Presentation: 5

Strength: 4.7

Complexity: 4.0

Foam: 5

Mean: 4.4

SD: .74

Chinatown is certainly the best coffee shop in its part of DC, however there are better offerings  in nearby Capitol Hill and Dupont Circle.  If you are in the area it is certainly a place to check out, but if you are willing to travel a bit there are better offerings elsewhere.