I spent a good deal of my 20s in Bloomington, Indiana, where I got my graduate degrees and met my husband.

Our main activity while we were dating was eating out in various little restaurants in downtown Bloomington. Bloomington has a huge selection of ethnic restaurants (especially along the 4th street), and many of them are very lovely and still in business. The last time I was in Bloomington was January 2008 when I visited for a solo recital. Here are some of my (and Ben, my husband’s) favorite places.

Downtown/4th street area/ Square

•    Le Petite Café – owned and operated by real French people! A charming, lovely place with great home-style French food. Weird hours, though. 308 West 6th St. ****

•    Runcible Spoon – very friendly yet strange deco. Really nice breakfast and coffee. Good place to just hang out. This one is a bit difficult to find…can’t explain. 412 E 6th St. ***+1/2
•    The Bakehouse on the Downtown Square – great baguette (Especially when it’s just baked in the morning!!) and good sandwiches. It’s a pricey place but baguette is priced nicely, and their breads are very good. But they have lost their quality ever since they opened the second store on the 3rd street. ***+1/2
•    Samira on the downtown square– OK lunch buffet. Rare Afghanistan cuisine with elegant atmosphere. The food is awesome but it’s a bit pricey during the dinner time. ***
•    Malibu Grill on the square – very good contemporary American food (good steak and brick-oven pizza). A bit pricey. ***+1/2
•    Michael’s Uptown Café – Great breakfast/ good lunch deal/ OK Creole food. Make sure you try their Cottage Cheese Pancakes! Expect a very long wait for breakfasts, especially during weekends. *** (A lot of people really like “Village Deli” for the breakfast, but I did not care for it that much.)
•    Soma café – very good espresso and smoothies. Operates La Marzzoco machine. This place smells funny, though. ***

Drinks and pub
•    Upland brewery 350 W 11th St. – very nice dinner menu and good beer. Good place to hang out! 350 W. 11th Street ***
•    Irish Lion – great appetizers! (fried potato balls with Irsh name and soda breads are awesome. Also they have nice buffalo wings – get the sauce on the side!) Nice beer selection/ great hang-out, post-concert place.  ***
•    Lennie’s on 10th St. – good beer/ good and large sandwiches. Their food in general is decent, although it could be too huge and bland. ***
Splurge
Restaurant Tallent’s – this one is very famous (even featured on Bon Appetite magazine) and is a unique restaurant. It’s really pricey, and some people have complained about not-great food, but we loved it. Worth visiting for special occasions. ****
Truffle’s – near Kroger. Nice atmosphere, contemporary American cuisine. I really like their soup and appetizers as well as creme brulee! If you see a side item named “Truffle Potato Crocket,” you must try it! ****
Limestone Grill – good steak and seafood place. A bit “old” people atmosphere, though. ***1/2
Scholar’s Inn – very nice atmosphere, but their food is more pretentious than delicious. Still it’s a nice place for a good mood. **1/2 (this placed is owned by Bakehouse people)

Others – not my favorite, but good enough places
•    Soban on the 10th St. – OK Korean food at reasonable prices. Self service. No BBQ here. I used to go here to get “Tokpokki,” spicy rice cake snack, and “Budae Chigae,” spicy stew with sausages, ham and kimchi. ***
•    Mama’s Korean Restaurant – Drive along the 10th street, and go until you see a square mall on your left side, near a grocery store. Very good BBQ stuff! Also grilled mackarel is very good. *** (There are quite a few new Asian restaurants near Eigenman that I have not checked out.)

Dagwood on Indiana Ave. – good sandwich place. Locally owned, and better than Jimmy Johns. Huge portion. ***+1/2
•    Casa Blanca on the 4th St.– a bit pricey, but great food. The owner is a bit greedy, which was a big drawback. The food seems to have dropped the quality a bit recently. Sad thing… ***
•    Little Tibet on the 4th St.– a very popular place, but the food quality is uneven. Lunch is pretty cheap, though. Their Pad Thai, Momo (Tibetan dumplings), and Ping Sha (Thibetan glass noodle dish) are good enough to try. ***
•    Anatolia Turkish Restaurant on 4th street is very good. Great bread and grilled stuff. ***
•    Esan Thai near the public library, on Lincoln – this restaurant used to be my favorite, but the food quality seemd a bit lowered when I ate there in 2008. Still serves really good Thai food. Service can be very frustrating. People seem to still like Siam House and the service is better there. Siam House Thai food is OK, but it’s on the salty side and it just feels like it comes from not-so-clean kitchen.  ***+1/2

Indianapolis Area
•    Capri’s Italian Restaurant near Keystone Shopping mall area– The best Bolognese sauce in the world! And the Bolognese is around $15. Also their lunch deal is pretty good. This is where Ben proposed to me, near the wine cellar!

•    Bando restaurant – on Pendleton Pike. Very good Korean food!

Tuna Appetizer at Monk's Pub

I have lived in Fargo-Moorhead area for about 1.65 years, and there are a few really good places for dining and having fun. One of my favorite restaurant is Sushi Time, and I found this place through someone’s blog. So I thought I would share my thoughts so that someone else can visit a great place in this area.

Silver Moon on Robert St – very well executed fine dining experience. It’s been open for less than a year (today is April 10 2009), but it seems to be thriving. Dessert menu was a bit disappointing but the duck dish (with campari infused sweet potato) my husband ordered was amazing. Great salad, great atmosphere, and great service. A bit loud, though. (no section or walls inside the restaurant, high ceiling, live performance. Hence lots of noise)

Update (January 25, 2010) - visited a few more times after posting this, including tonight. Still wonderful, some dishes are a bit too salty. My husband’s braised sort rib with gnocchi was wonderful. Still not happy with their dessert..

Stella’s (formerly Isabella’s)  – my favorite Italian place in town. Their food has a lot of garlic and a lot of tomato so some people may find it a bit strong, but I love it! Their appetizer tray, lasagna, seafood spaghetti, zuppa di pesce, and grilled sausages with peppers are fantastic. I also like their bread, especially when it comes fresh and warm from the oven. Nothing special, but good basic loaf to soak up oil, vinegar and lots of sauce from your plate. Nice chocolate cake and cheesecake for desserts. (Their tiramisu is a bit heavy on the alcohol side.) Service can be slow. Toscana is also an OK Italian restaurant in downtown, but they have very weird hours and their food tend to be really salty. I like their gnocchi and pea and ham spaghetti for a quick lunch. (Lunch pasta dishes are usually $7-8)

Usher’s/ Monk’s Bar – Best sashimi-grade tuna dish in town. (I tried sashimi tuna dishes in all the restaurants that I visited in this area.) They serve Tuna napoleon as an appetizer, and it’s $16 -But it comes with 6 big chunks of really good-quality tuna, slightly seared, with some spicy aioli and fried wonton wrappers. It’s better to order it from the Monk’s bar, not from Usher’s. You can have it as a main dish and add a soup or something, instead of ordering a main dish.  Good beer selection. Good atmosphere. Other dishes are OK. I love the atmosphere in the Usher’s dining room – nice wood interior with big windows.

Update: Monk’s Bar has Happy Hour from 3-6pm, and all the appetizers are half price. The garnish and presentation was different during this summer from the winter, but still delicious.

Maxwell’s – the best Creme Brulee in town. (And one of the bests I have had – creme brulee is one of my favorite desserts!) Main dish can be on the salty side. But they have great service and atmosphere. Special occasion pre-fix menu is fun, but maybe not that special. (And good things run out – we could not get the fried banana dessert on Valentine’s day.) Nice to place to try/ very good wine list.

John Alexander’s on Main Ave., Moorhead – right next door to the Juano’s. Nice atmosphere, nicely written menu. Their best meal and best deal is Sunday Brunch, not their lunch or dinner. (Hamburger and fish & chips are good, but other items may bring you a big disappointment.) I always have hard time deciding what to eat for brunch, and buffet is a bit too much for me. Here you can choose one from yogurt, granola and fruit sort of thing and then select your main dishes such as omelet and pancake.

HoDo – this place has a really nice feel to it, but I don’t care so much for their food. It’s always trying too hard to be cool and the flavor of dishes is always off a little bit or lacking something. I like their mini-desserts because of their fun size. Sorbet is the best choice. (Meyer Lemon sorbet was good.) Cool place to hang out and drink, although the bar area is a bit too loud for my taste.

Monte’s downtown- I have been there 3 times now and every time I didn’t get impressed. Maybe it’s because I always go there after their dinner hour and get appetizers and left-over kind of soup..? Nice service.

Sarello’s in Moorhead, near the mall – I have been there only once, but it seemed to be popular and it was good. To me this restaurant was a bit over-priced, but the service was really nice and food was very well prepared. I had a seabass with cornmeal crust which was nice enough but not memorable like some of the dishes I had at the Silver Moon. I don’t even remember what my husband ordered here..! Nice bread and butter. It feels a bit boxy and crowded. (Probably because the space used to be an office.)

The most recent addition to the “fine dining scene in Fargo” is Norman’s in West Fargo. They have great AV system and nice atmosphere, but the food is so huge and so expensive. (Every dinner item is a la carte, and you need to order even baked potato on the side for $7..! Salads are $8-9, onion rings $8) I think it’s a good place for big guys or family – to order a few appetizers and a few main dishes with some side dishes to share. Prime rib was amazingly juicy and tasty, so I went back for it once. Onion rings have very good texture, but are too oily and salty. Caesar salad was good but I would never pay $7 for just a simple mixture of lettuce and cheese with dressing while I am paying about $30-40 for my steak. (Ribeye and other cuts can go up to $41)

When you want to have good ribs or rotisserie chicken, Spitfire is a very nice place to visit. It’s locally owned and has a very pleasant, sporty, and comfortable atmosphere. Very good ribs and good desserts. Salad greens sometimes appear very sad and not-fresh, though. Doolittle is also nice for rotisserie stuff or other simple burgers and salads (Tuna nicoise salad is very good.) It’s spacious, friendly, and clean. Best of all, Doolittle’s kitchen is open until 11pm, which is rare in this area.

I also like Nichole’s pastry shop on 8th St. (off the Main Ave.) very much. It has really nice croissants and scones. Lunch sandwiches and salad are also reasonably priced and tasty. Nice tea selection and gelatos as well as beautiful chocolates (cocoa truffles!), but I don’t like their coffee too much. (They serve French pressed coffee. So it’s almost always fresh, but it’s just not my favorite type of coffee. Their espresso drinks are OK.) Their fruit pie during the spring-summer season is also nice. During the winter, check out the banana-cream pie and chocolate-sea salt-caramel tart -they are so yummy! Chocolate feuillentine is very good as well as chocolate caramel torte. I don’t like their cakes (vanilla cake, carrot cake, lemon curd cake, black forest cake are all OK but not great) or cookies that much, though. But it’s still one of the places in Fargo-Moorhead area that makes me happy. Very nice clerks, too.

Update (January 25. 2010) – Nichole’s is expanding!

One sad thing about being so far away from the ocean is that it’s really hard to get good sushi. Yuki Hana seems to be popular, but it is a mediocre place (or below mediocre) with overpriced items. Ingredients do not seem fresh (especially the teriyaki stuff – both meat and veggies) After a few visits, my husband and I decided not to go back.

Update (March 10, 2010): Yuki Hana has been closed for a while, but it will be open soon again. (Chef Sheng from Sushi Time got a job offer there.) Newly open Kobe’s is very popular, but I don’t like their sushi. It seems that the sushi rice quality is very poor, and the rolls are covered with too much sweet tasting sauce/ not enough fish in the rolls. My husband never wanted to go back after the first try, and I dragged him 3-4 more times. But now I know that I will probably not go back ever again.)

Another sad thing is that there is no decent Chinese restaurant in town, and there is no Korean restaurant. For Chinese food-cravings, I go to Little Szechuan in St. Paul. (My husband and I would make an excuse to go there!)

The Vietnamese place on the Main ave., Jade Dragon, is fine enough to visit when you are craving Vietnamese style fresh spring rolls, Pho, and Vietnamese iced coffee. Their rice vermicelli salad and stir-fried stuff are not as good.

For Thai food, Leela on the 25th Ave. is nice, although it can be too sweet sometimes. Black and white slices are good as well as angel wings (pretty spicy). My husband’s favorite is their mango-duck curry and my favorite is basil stir-fry with tofu and eggplant. Fresh spring rolls and Pad Thai are better at Thai Orchid in Moorhead. I also like their Spicy Catfish, House Special Noodles and Thai fried rice.

Update (December 2009): Thai Orchid has changed their recipes for a lot of things. I like the old flavors of the Tom Yum and Yum Nua better. Also the fresh chili sauce is a lot more spicy. Still the Spicy Catfish is good as well as the fresh spring rolls are good.

I find it interesting that there are not many McDonalds or Wendy’s in town and there is no donut joint.  (Krispy Kreme went out of business last year!) But I suppose that’s a good thing.

I just wish someone will open a nice Korean restaurant or a noodle shop soon! The best location would be the Bison Block on the 12th..

It’s genius- a cafe called “Gimme! Coffee.”

Located in Ithaca (2 in Ithaca and now in a few other places, including NYC), Gimme! Coffee is one of those small, a bit snotty, and yet very charming independent coffee shops. Their Baristas know what they are doing, are friendly and cool, and they make perfect espresso macchiato with a dollop of heart-shaped milk foam, smooth latte with leafy-decoration and spectacular espresso.

I visited Gimme! Coffee on N. Cayuga St. in the spring of 2006, and I knew I would come back to Ithaca because I always go back to a place where there is a great cafe that I fall in love with. (Williamstown, Lenox, Atlanta to name a few.) Gimme! Coffee was using one of the La Marzzoco machines in 2006. This year they were using a machine named Mirage – a very sturdy, shiny machine that makes very thick, caramel-like, syrupy espresso. (The barista told me that Mirage is made by hand in Denmark.)

The Cayuga St. location has a very narrow space, small tables, and is always packed with Cornell students. It’s not fancy looking but it’s warm and cozy. Highly recommended for anybody need good coffee and decent (not as good as their coffee, but still good enough) baked goods.

* Their espresso blend, “Leftist,” is not my favorite choice for home espresso making (at least with my machine), but it tastes great in their own store.

This is, along with my spicy tuna sushi, the crowd-pleaser,  and the most popular dish among all the things I can cook.

So many people have asked the recipe for these – and here’s my little secret.

Ingredients

Vietnamese Rice Papers: look for two roses on the package. That’s the best kind, my Vietnamese student once told me. Prepare a big bowl filled with hot-warm water that you can put your hands in.

Rice Stick: get a very thin kind. Not the kind you would use for Pad-Thai. Soak in warm water for about 20 minutes and then boil quickly in hot water for 30 seconds and then drain.

Extra Firm Tofu: I always use organic tofu. Place the tofu on a flat surface and put a cutting board on top of the tofu. Put a heavy object on top of the cutting board so that water can be squeezed out. After doing that, wipe out the water with some kitchen towel. Cut into sticks – about your pinky size.  Put enough oil (canola or vegetable) on a non-stick pan and fry the tofu until golden and crisp. This takes a while, so don’t be hasty or flip the tofu around too often.

Avocado: Cut it in slices, about the same size as the tofu sticks.

Cilantro leaves, Chopped green onion (green parts only), and Shredded cabbage (you can get it in a bag)

I have made these rolls with boiled and sliced shrimps and some pork, like at a lot of Vietnamese restaurants, but this one is much more popular and it is vegetarian!

Sauce Ingredients:

1) Simple kind: Mae Ploy brand sweet chile sauce + some freshly squeezed lemon juice – not spicy and vegetarian.

2) Spicy kind: 4 TB Mae Ploy brand sweet chile sauce + 1 TB Vietnamese chile garlic sauce (with green cap) + 0.5 TB or more Tiparos brand fish sauce (Golden Boy brand is good, too) + 0.5 TB or more sugar + 0.5 TB or more freshly squeezed lime juice. Mix well and taste – then put some more sugar, fish sauce, or lime juice according to your taste.

How to Make:

Prepare all the ingredients/ lay them out on a large, flat surface. I use a large cutting board as the “wrapping station.”

Soak the rice paper in the hot-warm water until it is pliable. This takes some practice – so expect to ruin a few papers before you get the right consistency without tearing.

Put the paper on the cutting board/ arrange all the ingredients on the paper. (Put only one stick of tofu and avocado per one roll.) Use the front part of the rice paper, and don’t put too much. This also takes some practice.

Pull the ingredients toward you and then flip it. Fold the left and the right side to the center. Roll it to close. (See the picture)

Serve them with the sauce and enjoy!

* Don’t make these rolls too early. They can become very sticky and dry.

This is my favorite thing to order at the Bonefish Grille (Nice family restaurant specializing in seafood. Nice enough food with pleasant atmosphere). I tried a few times to recreate their appetizer called “Bang Bang Shrimp” and this one came very close! The only problem is the batter – I think the restaurant uses a mixture of cornstarch, flour, and salt. But I just used potato starch I had. You can also use panko as the crust. (Flour-Egg-Panko, in that order)  Use whatever you like – the sauce is more important!  

Ingredients:

Medium size shrimps (thawed, deveined, cleaned, drained)

Salt, pepper, rice wine to marinate (I always use some rice wine for shrimps and chicken before cooking. It gets rid of the odor.)

1-2 Egg white and 3TB (plus more) potato starch for the batter

Sauce ingredients: 2 TB Mayonnaise, 0.5 TB (or more) Chili garlic sauce (Vietnamese kind, not he Sriracha sauce, but the coarse kind called “Tung Ot Toi Viet-Nam.”/ 0.5 TB Thai Sweet Chili Sauce (Mae Ploy Brand)/ some lemon juice and sugar to taste

Garnish: chopped green onion

How to Make:

1) Prepare the shrimp/ marinade for 10-20 minutes/ then pat dry/ mix with 1-2 egg white (depends on how much you are making – enough to coat well)/ put the shrimp in a zip-loc bag and pour 3 TB (or more) amount of potato starch and shake well to coat 

2) Heat up the oil in a medium sauce pan or a frying pan/ fry up the shrimps. It’s better to fry twice – fry once until yellow, drain on paper towel, and then fry again until golden brown. Shrimps become much more crisp this way!

3) Mix the sauce ingredients

4) In a bowl, mix the fried shrimps and the sauce well

5) Garnish with green onion pieces and serve right away!

This is an appetizer I made when I invited the conductor of FM Symphony, Bernie Rubenstein. He loved them and wanted the recipe – hence comes my first posting on the “Jihye’s Kitchen” section.

This recipe was based on the coconut shrimp with honey mustard dipping sauce on a Korean blogger’s site.

http://blog.naver.com/hyleeyan.do?Redirect=Log&logNo=53725960

I changed the sauce to my taste, using Thai Sweet Chile sauce. (Mae Ploy brand) Also I used regular salt and pepper, not the herb salt/ also I added some rice winte to the marinade.

I usually avoid making fried dishes as it’s a waste of so much oil and it’s bad for the environment, but this one is worth the trouble. I will post another fried shrimp appetizer so that you can maximize the use of your oil!

Oil: Canola oil or corn oil works the best. 

Ingredients: Shrimp (Uncooked! Large size works better than jumbo, but it’s up to you.)/ Dash of salt and pepper + 1-2 TB rice wine (depends on the quantity of your shrimp) to marinate the shrimp/ Enough Flour, 1-2 eggs, and Sweetened shredded coconut for batter 

Sauce Ingredients: 1 TB Thai Sweet Chili Sauce (Mae Ploy Brand)/ 0.5TB whole grain mustard (any kind)/ 0.5TB freshly squeezed lemon juice/ 0.5 TB-1TB mayonnaise (Start with this, and adjust according to your taste. You can omit the mayo and mustard as well.)

How to make:

1) Prepare the shrimps (thaw, devein, wash, drain)/ sprinkle salt and pepper and some rice wine – not too much, otherwise shrimps will be too watery

2) Prepare 2 plates – one with flour, one with coconut/ put 1-2 egg(s) in a bowl and whisk with fork. Heat up the oil in a fry pan or a medium sauce pan with heavy bottom. (up to 170C – usually I just drop a little bit of the batter – if the batter drops to the bottom and floats right back, the oil is ready.)

3) Make the sauce

4) Put the shrimps in flour to coat –> then dip in the egg –> then roll over the coconut to coat well. The more you the better!

5) Fry the shrimp until golden brown/ crisp. Don’t crowd the pot too much – fry the shrimps in a few batches! Otherwise the oil temperature drops too quickly and shrimps will not be crisp.

6) Drain on paper towel or wire rack, and serve with the sauce.

Club Espresso in Buam-dong, Seoul (image from www.clubespresso.co.kr)

Korea’s cafe scene has changed drastically over the past 10-15 years, and now the big cities in Korea are bustling with amazing independent roastery and artisanal cafes.

The term “roasted beans” was a very strange one in the early 90s as “coffee” in Korea meant  instant powdered coffee for such a long time. The most popular and available kind back was a single packet of coffee granules with lots of sugar and palm-oil based coffee cream powder. (aka “coffee mix”, which is still readily available in supermarkets and convenient stores) In the early 90s, stores like Jardin coffee and Bremer coffee opened with the name “Wondu coffee” meaning coffee made from roasted bean (basically dripped coffee) and became very popular among young people. I was a high school student and loved giong to one of those Jardin shops with my friend in our school uniforms – it was like a very big guilty pleasure as we were not so sure if it was ok for high school students to drink coffee but it tasted good nonetheless!

The big sales point of such “wondu coffee” shops were flavored coffees. It was fun for a while but soon I learned that those French vanilla flavored and Raspberry chocolate flavored coffee beans were old coffee beans with new make-up. Then in 1999 the first Starbucks shop opened in Korea – I was back for a summer break from my graduate studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, where one of the first Starbucks shops suffered a window damage from a local vandalism. After the huge success of the first Starbucks store located in the biggest women’s college in Korea, almost every universities in Seoul had to have one nearby. Every summer break I would go back home and there would be more Starbucks stores.
Then smaller chains started catching up, providing cheaper espresso drinks. Big shopping areas like Myungdong and a lot of college areas were covered with big and small coffee shops.

I cannot recall when the artisanal cafe movement began in Korea, but I remember visiting a small coffee shop near Korea University where the owner was roasting his own beans and served really fresh and super-tasting coffee as early as 1996 or 1997. I would also hear about and visit some independent coffee shops with ridiculously high price tag ($8-9 for a cup of dripped coffee or cappuccino!) since the late 90s. Also many cake shops opened with small coffee bar as well as big bakery-cafe chains such as “Twosome place” and “Paris Croissant.” (Korean bakeries are very much like Japanese bakeries, which was largely influenced by French baking style. The cakes are much smaller and lighter than the American varieties, and the selection is much larger.)

Quite a few really awesome cafes with great coffess with $4-5 price tag became popular during the past 3-4 years. These shops are usually run by young people who recently finished their barista training, who roast their own coffee in the store, and who run a coffee academy along with the cafe. This kind of artisanal cafes seem to be replacing the cheap, small chains and become more and more popular. In 2007, a soap opera called “Coffee Prince No. 1″featured a high-end cafe that hired only men as their baristas and became a mega-hit in the TV box office. I think that raised the awareness on the good coffee, barista, and so on. One interesting thing is that a lot of these artisanal coffee shops focus on the hand-dripped coffee. To me, it’s like a very delicate version of Costa Rican Chorreador – the barista takes great care of the water temperature, texture of the coffee, and height and direction of the water poured into the ground beans. Watching this kind of coffee-making is almost like watching a painter working on an art-work. This kind of dripped coffee is 10 times better than machine dripped coffee, but still my passion lies on espresso drinks…

One of the best coffee shops I visted in Korea is called “Club Espresso,” and this shop serves really amazing espresso drinks. They have a big roasting machine in the store, and they sell freshly roasted beans by the bag. Pretty spacious and comfortable as well. This shop also serves really fantastic cookies, cakes, and cheese cakes, all baked in the store. The only problem is that it is a little difficult to get to unless you have a car. The owner here worked in various coffee shops in the early 90s and self-taught a lot of things before he went to Japan to learn some more.

Here is the direction:

Take the subway line 3 (orange line) and get off at the “Gyungbokgung” station.
Take a bus (1020, 7022, and 7018) and get off at the “Buam dong office” – it’s on the way to the “Bookak san” road.

Website: www.clubespresso.co.kr (only in Korean)

* There is a very famous dumpling restaurant called “Sonmandoo” if you follow the “Bookak san” road. They serve homemade Korena style dumplings at its best with nice view of the Bookak Mountain. Have a bol of dumpling soup or steamed dumpling there and walk down to get some coffee at the Club Espresso – a perfect day.

Octane Coffee Bar and Lounge, Atlanta, GA

Recently I visited Montgomery, AL, to attend a music festival (See www.clefworks.org). Since I had a few extra days after the festival, I took a day trip to Atlanta to visit a few coffee shops in the city. My dear friend Deborah, who is one of the sweetest people I know but directionally challanged almost to the same level as I am, kindly agreed to drive with me. (Her husband Charles got worried and spent considerable amount of time teaching her how to use the GPS machine…)

I did some research through http://www.indiecoffeeshops.com/ and reviews on google and yahoo. After a few days of web-browsing, I came up with a list of 3 coffee shops: Octane Coffee Bar and Lounge, Joe’s East Atlanta Coffee Shop, and Aurora Cafe. (Java Monkey and Dancing Goat looked great but they were more like a smaller “chain” not an independent coffee shop. However the beans from Dancing Goat turned out to be really great, so I am sure I will visit that cafe next time I am in Atlanta.) 

With the GPS shouting out loud, we had almost no problem finding the lovely store, tucked in betwen Jefferson Street and Marietta Street.  (The store is right on the corner, so it’s easy to miss.) As soon as we entered the store, we knew it was going to be good – it was a large space with nice and relaxed atmosphere, high ceiling, and a lot of customers, and a La Marzocco machine!

We ordered a small latte and a double espresso macchiato along with some yogurt+granola and hummus snack plate. At Octane, they call the prepared coffee and the customers go to pick them up. I think this system works better because the time that coffee sits around, making the espresso go rancid, is shorter. Both drinks were prepared with such care and high quality – caramel colored espresso with pleasant aroma, deep and balanced flavor, and golden crema topped with beautiful foam and some art.

Before my visit I contacted them via email, and only the manager from Octane replied. He was not there when I arrived but one of the baristas was happy to help. (Thanks again, John!)

From John Deborah and I learned why La Marzocco machine is good – I always knew I liked espresso coming out of that machine, but did not exactly know why. John told us that it’s because of the separate boiler system that allows the supreme consistency and controll over steaming and extracting. We also learned that they use coffee beans from the Counter Culture – famous roastery in North Carolina. John explained that the baristas are trained with 3 steps – consistency (focusing on the consistency of dosing, extracting, and foaming), 100 Q and A test, and then a mock barista competition! Also they have a latte-art competition that’s purely for the visual pleasure and fun. 

Their granola was a bit too cinammon-y for my taste, and hummus was on the salty side, but for a cafe-food they were good enough. Their main focus is coffee, and they do have one of the best coffees I have tasted.

It is always nice to see people who really care about what they do and who are proud of their work. I will continue my journey to meet more people like the ones at Octane! (more information on this shop at www.octanecoffee.com)  

* I changed my plan and went to the “Tilt” coffee room as John recommended. Tilt was a beautiful looking cafe, but the drinks (latte and macchiato) tasted too bitter. I think I am just not a big fan of Intelligentsia beans.. Joe’s East Atlanta Coffee Shop was very much like the Soma cafe in Bloomington, IN – a bit smelly, not-organized, but comfortable. Their espresso drinks were too mild and lacked the intensity and flavor. Joe’s cafe is one of the oldest independent cafes in Atlanta, and it seems to be still very popular.

A good friend of mine, Christian Gentry, just won a Barlow Commission to write a violin-piano duo piece for me and Ben. He will write a piece that is about 20 minute long, and we look forward to premiering it!

Oh, and Arsenal Trio was in Banff, participating in the Chamber Music Residency at The Banff Centre during the first three weeks of June 2008. We worked with Phil Setzer (of Emerson Quartet), Mark Steinberg (of Brentano quartet), Stephen Prutsman (an amazing and versatile pianist from SFO), Henk Guittard (artistic adviser of the Banff Centre’s music program), members of Gryphon trio, and Barry Shiffman (director of The Banff Centre’s Music Program). Also we had a great opportunity to record Ravel Piano Trio with awesome audio engineers, Alexis Baskind and David French. Part(s) of this recording will be posted on the “Media” section soon.

I and my great friend -and a great composer-Derek Johnson applied to the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust’s International Competition for pianist-composer collaboration and today I found out that WE WON!

I am the happiest person in the world at least for a day.