Washington D.C – A Jumbled Little World

Peregrine Espresso – As good as it gets in DC

Peregrine Espresso

1718 14th St NW
Washington DC 20009

and

660 Pennsylvania Ave SE
Washington DC 20003

www.peregrineespresso.com/

Read about my planned cappuccino tour around the DC area.

Read about my first visit to the 14th street Peregrine just after its opening.

14thstPeregrine — Peregrine along 14th st. NW (from a previous post)

I discovered Peregrine Espresso shortly after moving to DC, and I have been going there pretty frequently since. As I wondered around the DC espresso scene, I soon realized that they likely have the best cappuccino in the district, but I haven’t had a chance to do a review. But last week, I took my camera with me to 14th street location to drink a cappuccino and get some work done. It was as good as always.

Peregrine has two locations; one in the lovely Eastern Market neighborhood of SE DC, and one on 14th St NW in the Midcity neighborhood. It was started by an ex-barista of Murky Coffee, which was at the Eastern Market location before its owner Nick Cho was banished from DC. The Eastern Market shop is Peregrine’s original location, and is a little larger than the 14th street location (though they are both small), but both have the same sunny interior.

This time I checked out the 14th St. location, because it is on the green line of the Metro (and I wanted to head to College Park afterward), but I usually prefer the Eastern Market location because its neighborhood is one of the nicest in DC. The large market there is open every day and carries many meats, fishes, and vegetables; there is also farmers market and flea market on Saturdays and Sundays. It is all worth checking out. That said, 14th street is a pretty interesting area as well, close to the U st corridor, featuring several music venues, bars, restaurants, galleries, and furniture stores (actually, a ton of furniture for some reason).

Ok, now to the consumables. Peregrine has really good muffins and other baked goods, but the real show is the espresso. They serve Counter Culture Coffee, which is phenomenal stuff. I almost always order the cappuccino, though their espresso and

PeregrineCap — Sometimes the latte art is even better.

pour-over coffee are also great. I’ll give my tasting notes from this week’s visit, but it was entirely consistent with my other visits there. The latte art was exceptional, and the microfoam was perfect. The underlying espresso was a bit nutty and sweet, with the microfoam and milk mixing in to yield some nice milk chocolate notes. Exceptional all around. Ok, the numbers (all out of 5):

Smoothness: 4.8

Presentation: 5

Strength: 5

Complexity: 4.2

Foam: 5

Mean: 4.8

SD: .35

If you are in DC, you should head to one of Peregrine’s locations; it will be worth the trip. I’m going to predict that this will be the best cappuccino that I find in DC, though there are several others that might come close. In the next few weeks, I’m going to try to hit some of the places that I think are top contenders to match Peregrine’s cappuccino. So we shall see.

Pound Coffee now on Capitol Hill

Today I checked out Pound Coffee (621 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington, DC 20003), which recently moved to Capitol Hill from NOMA. I hadn’t yet tried Pound at its previous location, but my interest perked once I heard that they are now serving Kickapoo Coffee from Viroqua, WI. My favorite cafe in Madison, WI (and by extension, the world…) serves coffee from this roaster, so I had high hopes for a shop that serves it. It was also apparently the best microroaster in 2010 (by Roast Magazine), so I’m not the only one who loves this stuff.

So Taryn and I stopped by Pound coffee to give it a try. Luckily, I overheard a conversation between some of the baristas and a manager about the introduction of new size tomorrow….the classic cappuccino, which is 6ozs. Their normal

cappuccino has apparently been 12 oz. So I inquired as to whether I could obtain one of these new fangled cappuccinos, and the manager seemed pretty excited that I was interested (he was complaining how Starbucks has made many customers expect every espresso drink to be at least 12 oz). So I might have gotten the first “proper” cappuccino produced by Pound Coffee (that’s going to be my last snobbish sentence in this post, I promise). It was pretty good. The foam was near perfect, and the taste was quite nice. I didn’t take a picture until it was half gone, but the cappuccino had some decent latte art when it was first made. It didn’t quite match Peregrine, which is just down the street, but it gave me some faith that they will be making excellent cappuccinos in short order. I also had an espresso, which was ok, but a bit awkward. I imagine that any failings in their cappuccinos are coming from the underlying espresso. It is possible that they haven’t quite adjusted for the change in coffees.

But can they seriously compete with Peregrine? Well, if you really just want the best espresso in the city, then head on over to Peregrine; but Pound also has a full food menu (which looked pretty tasty), and Peregrine only has baked goods. So if you want very good coffee and are a bit hungry then Pound should prob

McPSQ1 — Occupy DC tent city in McPherson Square

ably be your destination.

I also headed over to the White House area today for the first time since the “occupation” started. I have to say, McPherson Square

is a mess.

I think I’m going to try to do some more dc cappuccino reviews this week; I have a lot of grading to do….

Big Bear Cafe – Hip but Relaxed

Big Bear Cafe

1700 1st Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001

http://bigbearcafe-dc.com

Read about my planned cappuccino tour around the DC area.

Although much of the recent development in DC has occurred along the green line of the Metro in NW, these are not the only areas that have been changing. One of these neighborhoods is Bloomingdale, and is composed mostly of rowhouses and some small commercial areas (especially along North Capitol St.); consequently,

the area is quieter than the more densely populated neighborhoods to its east and west. In fact, many consider Bloomingdale to be one of the best areas to find a deal on a home in an otherwise overpriced DC housing market.

Big Bear Cafe opened up in a building that was previously a liquor store on a pretty crappy corner, and has managed to make the area a pleasant reflection of the best elements of the neighborhood that surrounds it. It is a very relaxed place compared to other coffee shops in DC, and that adds to its charm. They have an often-changing menu with normal cafe fare, and they often use local ingredients. I didn’t have anything fancy while I was there (they had a number of sandwiches and breakfast items made with ingredients from local farmers), though I did have a bagel topped with apple butter, which was delicious. The cafe inside has quite pleasant, with high ceilings and a decent amount of seating (for DC at least). There was also ample seating outside.

Big BearCap — It was prettier before I shook it trying to open a door...

I ordered the cappuccino, and I was pleasantly surprised by the decent art; this is usually a good sign, as good art is only possible with well prepared foam. Big Bear uses Counter Culture Coffee and Trickling Springs Creamery milk (from PA), both of which are popular among top coffee shops in the DC area, so I expected a good showing. The foam was excellent, with the sweetness of the milk adding quite a bit to the overall taste of the drink. The espresso was somewhat nutty, which was interesting, though the flavor overall was a bit “hazy,” with a slight bitter element. This made me wonder whether the milk to espresso ratio was a bit too high. Ok, here are the scores, all out of 5:

Smoothness: 4.7

Presentation: 4.8

Strength: 4.4

Complexity: 4.0

Foam: 4.9

Mean Score: 4.6

SD = .36

Overall I was impressed, and I’ll certainly be back to try more of their food. Going here is certainly a good excuse to see the Bloomingdale neighborhood, one of the (pleasantly) quieter corners of DC.

A trip to Chicago’s Intelligentsia Coffee

276 — 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

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.

New Peregrine Espresso location on 14th st. NW

I finally got a chance to check out the new second location of Peregrine Espresso, which opened up a few weeks ago at 1718 14th st. NW (a few blocks south of the U st. metro stop). The shop is a little smaller and a bit more urban industrial (exposed brick abounds) than the Capitol Hill location, but the coffee and baked goods are just as good. I have yet to formally review Peregrine (I’ll get back to some more reviews next week), but in my opinion they serve some of the best cappuccinos DC. Some of the baristas who have created such wonderful espresso drinks on Capitol Hill have moved to this location, so you can expect the same artful deliciousness. Outdoor seating should be set up in the next few months. Happy (coffee) drinking!

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

ChinatownOutside — 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

ChinatownCap — 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.