La Colombe Torrefaction -Cafe @ 130 S 19th St.

I said this blog is going to be about finding lunch. I wander a bit here. La Colombe is not a restaurant to find a quick bite for lunch. In fact it is just a cafe where they have some great Coffee and baked items that would qualify them for a good breakfast.

My intention of this blog is to find quick and inexpensive places for working professionals in and around Center City Philadelphia. Breakfast is an important meal to many and I decided to include cafes and breakfasts places as well in my blog. Having justified the reason for my wandering I request you to kindly read along.

I was compelled to visit this place about 3 months ago after reading a great review in a travel magazine. The magazine raved this place as the best coffee house in Philadelphia and I was bound to check it out. Today was my second visit to this place after a long time. I just had their coffee on my first visit.

I got myself a small coffee and a muffin with poppy seeds. The barista behind the counter was a guy named Rad or so I heard him pronounce after asking him twice. He was nice unlike the lady on my first visit. She was in a mood to send me off from her sight. I decided to give them a second chance as the coffee was good and I liked certain things about the place that I will describe later on.

The place is on the road side of a residential building in the rich Rittenhouse Square region. I found myself looking for this place on the chestnut street and on 19th street between chestnut and market as I did not vision a cheap coffee shop at Rittenhouse square. So I did some googling the next around and went to the cafe around 6:00PM. Even today I made it around 6:15 PM. I don’t find time to visit a breakfast place in the morning. But some do as most of my colleagues do and I thought this review would be nice for those trying to find a good breakfast and coffee in the morning.

The place has the feel of good campus cafe where students hang out with their books doing their project work excepting that here there were mostly young professionals from the city having a good time after work. The place is noisy with couples and group of friends chatting out loud. The cafe is not a place for a serious read. The ambiance has an earthly theme in color of the walls and the furniture. The walls have photos of kids from Uganda and proceeds from the sale of these go to charity. The first time I visited, they had pictures of Hispanic community from Scranton. That was a home run for me to come back to this place.

The coffee was served in a beautiful porcelain cup and not in a paper cup which adds to the appeal. The cup had roosters on them and the design was maroon in color. It gives it feel of a restaurant or a laid back country side cafe to it. These cups were comfortably heavy and easy to hold.

On the rear end of the counter they had regular sugar, brown sugar, honey, whole milk etc where you can help yourself after the coffee is given to you. They even had sugar in straw like packets which were better than the regular rectangular color coded packets with which you are fighting to bring the sugar out invariably spilling some out of the cup.

I paid 2 bucks for the coffee and 1.25 for the muffin. The cost of muffin was alright, but I felt the coffee was priced a little higher. $1.5 bucks would have been the right price.

The muffin was really good. Not too much sugar and crumby so as to take bites easily. It was not sticky or very sweet like the ones at Dunkin Donuts. The coffee was a dark roast I assume and the coffee was a little strong. I have to admit the coffee had a good flavor with sugar and whole milk that I added to make it milder. They normally have 3 types of roasts. You can ask the kind of roast you like. But you would know them only if you have been several times before as they do not have a menu display or menu card handout. So I asked what they server other than coffee. They have regular, decaf, americano, lattes, cappuccinos, muffins, bagels, Danish, biscottis etc.

I am sure this would be great place to grab a quick breakfast and coffee in the morning for work. They close at 6:30PM which makes it good for a small get together with old friends/colleagues after work. I also found that they have one place in Manayunk and one in Manhattan opened recently. They are fully owned by a French and American guys and do not have any franchises but they do a lot of retail and coffee selling as their core business.

There are certain things they could improve upon. I would like to see it close a little late, may be around 8:00PM and have more items to eat in the evening. The muffin I had was the last one and other than that all they had were packed biscotti. Overall it a great cafe but the coffee was expensive than Starbucks. Starbucks coffee by itself is a premium coffee place. Adding a menu display would help a lot for newcomers.

A Mandarin - Chinese @ 2102 Chestnut St

The event was to congratulate our colleague who accepted a full time position with the team she was working as a consultant. There was a Bistro place right across the street from our work place but we decided not to go there as it was not to the liking of some. Then we thought Mediterranean, but some friends found the Mediterranean food bland on their previous visit. So we chose a Chinese as it would satisfy the appetites of most.

The closest was 'A Mandarin' at 21 St. and Chestnut St. It is a relatively new restaurant in the center city. I have been there once before which probably was the first week of the restaurant. I could have mistaken it for another restaurant. But I am sticking to my story.

We reached there around 11:55 AM and were the second group there. We were a team of 8 and the staff had to bring a 2 seater table to join with the 6 seater table. The place was full in about 10 minutes from the time we got seated. The interior was neat without any extravagance or gaudiness to the decor. It so happens that today was the Chinese new year of the Rat and hence they had some red lamps hanging outside and inside close to the glass windows.

After we got seated, the waitress got us a pitcher of water. A little later she got us Tea in these nice green tea cups. The tea cups were impressive that were unlike the typical small white cups that all Chinese restaurants have. These light green cups were more like tumblers and we were pleasantly surprised to see them. The tea was hot and good which was what I needed after a 10 minute walk in the extreme cold outside.

The menu has a variety of options including lunch combos and lunch specials. The lunch combo comes with steamed/brown rice and egg roll. The lunch special just comes with steamed/brown rice. I ordered The Fisherman's Delight which was a mix of sea food (shrimp, squid, crab) with onions and white lettuce in a very mildly spicy sauce. The onions were not to my taste. They were lightly sautéed that left it a little crispness but it not raw either. I like onions either raw or fully cooked to a colorless soft texture. I put aside the onions and enjoyed the rest of the meal with the sea food and sauce.

My other team members had Kung Pao Chicken, Eggplant with Chicken, and Chicken with Broccoli etc. I did take a bite of Kung Pao chicken and Chicken Eggplant. I liked the Chicken Eggplant. The eggplant was well cooked, soft, sweet and tasty. The Kung Pao was good as well. They all liked their meal and commended me on my choosing the restaurant, though it was a actually recommended to me by a colleague who lives in the city and has been to the restaurant several times.

The service was very nice, the waitress seemed to understand what we were asking, she was checking on us several times and the tea was refilled again at the end of the meal. The interior was very clean and had sufficient light. The tables were wide enough to not step on others toes and eat our food comfortably. The average cost of the lunch combinations were $7-8. I highly recommend this place and did I say the tea was great. Oh! Also did I mention that the tea tumblers were unique and nice as well?

Bonners Irish Pub - American @ 120 S 23rd St

As the name suggests, this page is a pub. It does have a good lunch menu to satisfy your mouth and wallet. This is located between Chestnut and Walnut St on the Sansom St and 23rd St Intersection. It looks like it is kind of nowhere, given its location and the look of it. It has a sort of rundown look to it, but I think it is intentional to give the boisterous feel of Irishness. The outside of the building is green and you can surely say it has that the place has something to do with Irish. I chose this place after a long walk to Mama Palmas Pizza of Spruce, only to find out it was open for dinner only. I was walking back to Market St on 23 st with my Business Associate who saw this place and said that it where he had met his wife. So we decided to give it a try. The interior was little dark, but we were pleasantly greeted by the lady at the bar, who placed us on a table to the left of the bar. The place is surely a pub that is converted to a restaurant on one side. We both had Iced Tea. The tea was unsweetened and little bitter. But a little sugar eased it out. A lemon wedge would have made it better. I ordered Crab Cake with Mashed Potatoes and Cajun Fries. My colleague had Grilled Ham and Cheese sandwich on a Rye Bread. She did ask both of us if we wanted our fries together with the main course which I thought was good to hear. Very few ask. I said yes and my colleague no. The fries were great. They were fresh, hot and mildly spicy just I had expected. It did not have the smell of grease either - Prefect. A few minutes later the Crab cake was on the table. It was all I expected of a crab cake, excepting that the cake was big. They should have made it into two, instead of one big cake. The exterior was nice and crispy; the interior was soft and creamy. A tard bid high on cream I should say, but it was good. The mashed potatoes were good as well. My partner liked his sandwich immensely and fries as well. Overall the check came out to $20 for the two of us with the drinks and tax included. The average price of a sandwich on the menu was like $6-$7. The place was not crowded at all for a beautiful lady like this. It was sixties in the early February. The food was quick. Also the host did mention that the patties they use on their burgers are fresh and not frozen. They do have some specials daily displayed on the board and the host did mention them again. Overall the pluses are the food, friendliness of the waitress and the host, cost of the items being very reasonable, not so crowded and time it took to bring the food to the table was quick. The only thing I would recommend they improve is the exterior of the place and also adding some light indoors would help.