Syphon Coffee Addiction

Hidden in the city of San Gabriel, there is a little coffee shop that is quite enchanting. With little knick knacks of random decorations hung and placed all around the shop, its almost like visiting your favorite grandma in a cute cottage home. This is where Ginger get his daily dosage of coffee addiction and I seldom come as well. I really enjoy the environment and vibe this place has. Local hangout place for all ages who loves coffee or even freshly squeeze fruit juice. Locals sip their coffee with the morning newspaper, regulars would stay for hours to work on their term paper. Fresh Roast really makes you feel at home.

pictures taken from Yelp

Even an hour before he has to go to a banquet he decides to call me up and ask if I like to join him with a cup of coffee. Ginger looking all POSH! Like his cousin said he's the missing F4! LOL!

Somehow I find myself taking a bazillion pictures of him and he only takes one of me. Yet I can't complain he takes really good pictures. =] I felt pretty tired that day, no make up or hair. A beanie really helps when your hair looks like a Halloween drag queen. We sat here patiently waiting for our coffee, doing a little chick chat, and camwhoring.

Ginger sports Hello Kitty! I helped him picked it out since he needed some GLAM in his phone.

The main attraction is this science experiment, aka syphon coffee or vacuum coffee maker. This is quite unusual for me as well, but since Ginger has been raving about syphon coffee to me day in and day out I had to go and experience this myself. It amazes me how this device works and how it can brew coffee using this upside down vacuum concept. I had the Columbian bean and he had the Ethiopian bean coffee. It was quite nice to have two different beans in syphons so we can compare the two beans a like. Ginger can drink it straight black coffee since he's been slowly weeing off on sugar and milk. But I still needed to add a little bit of milk and sugar in mine, since I'm not a hardcore drinker like him. I still openly tried both coffee without milk and sugar to its raw form and I could really taste the difference! These coffee are not your regular cup of joe so they can cost a little pricey but well worth a try!

About:

Syphon brews coffee using two chambers where vapor pressure and vacuum produce coffee which is clean, crisp, rich, and smooth compared to other brewing methods. This type of coffee maker is also known as vac pot, siphon or syphon coffee maker, and was invented by Loeff of Berlin in the 1830s. These devices have since been used for more than a century in many parts of the world. Design and composition of the vacuum coffee maker varies. Taken by Wiki

Workings:

The principle of a vacuum coffee maker is to heat water in the lower vessel of the brewer until expansion forces the contents through a narrow tube into an upper vessel containing coffee grounds. When the lower vessel has more or less emptied itself and enough time has elapsed, the heat is removed and the resulting vacuum will draw the brewed coffee through a strainer back into the lower chamber from which it can be decanted. The device must usually be taken apart to pour out the coffee. Taken by Wiki

Feast! Like I said, this is not your regular cup of joe. The caffeine in this is insane. After sipping on this for 10 minutes my heart was pumping and I felt so energized and uplifted. Mainly I went on a coffee high feeling content. I never thought coffee can make you feel that way but I love it. After finishing up my cup of joe, I try to drink water.... and it tasted SWEET! Funny how it changes my taste buds. Gahhh! I just hope I won't become an regular here. I already have too many addictions in my life.

Overall, If you want to experience something beyond Starbucks. Go to Fresh Roast they will serve you the right kind of coffee without the green straws and the fake mocha double shot frappuccino stuff.

Man, frappuccino is not even a word in the dictionary... Starbucks made that up!

Taken from Yelp.

They will also serve you kitty lattes made by their cute and friendly staff. =]

No advertisement here, I just love your coffee shop. My 2 cents.

I hope Ginger won't get mad that I have expose his secret garden. =P

Cafe Hooters, Red Dessert, Snails at Westminister

I had quiet an interesting adventure on Sunday and decided it was noteworthy to blog about. Alan's been searching for a great coffee joint and I been craving to eat snails. So we concluded to go to Westminister for some authentic Vietnamese coffee and snails along with exploring the city.

Alan found this place called Cafe Di Vang 2 that serves coffee and smoothies, literally they only serve these two types of drinks. What I might as well call it "Cafe Hooters". When we first arrive, we saw with smoke tinted windows and the old rickety sign, I thought it was closed. Once I walked closer, I realized it was actually OPEN. So from what the reviewers say on YELP, Cafe Di Vang it is full of men from the age 25-50. I had to brace myself to think I will be the only girl at this cafe. Haha Oh boy am I right! I had these weird looks from everyone in the cafe... kinda like "WTH are you doing here?" The expression were priceless. I was technically the only girl customer there, aside from 3 lovely waitresses dressed up with little to nothing lingerie.

The place inside was dark and smokey, it kind of reminds me of a big outdoor cafeteria with lots of flat screen tvs and poker machines. Not the kind of vibe I was expecting. There was no menu, you pretty much have two choices coffee or smoothie. Since we read reviews before we went there, we ordered coffee. We were expecting the coffee to taste damn good, since that is all they serve, but it was all hype.. it wasn't as strong as I would like it and it was a bit too sugary for my taste. The coffee cost me $5 for an 8 oz glass... I guess the people that come here, are not coming here for the coffee but a good show of the girls walking around with cute lingerie.

Here is the cute girl that serve us

I asked if I can take a picture and somehow spark up a conversation about their job. They were very friendly with me and openly answer all my curious questions like, How did you find this job? Does this job make good money? Does your parents know you work in this type of job?

I find that the service is AWESOME since I have a cute girl refilling my drink everytime i took a sip of it, but it lacks decor and ambiance. You really just pay to see girls, its not the Coffee. Overall it was my first experience being in a cafe like this and I thought it was pretty interesting. Its the first for everything.

Fox News was even covering this

Sexy New Vietnamese Cafes: MyFoxLA.com

hmm wonder if I will be coming back for more?

After that we went out searching for places to explore... since there were so many plazas around we decided to pop into one of them to see what they offer.

We ride down some plaza and saw this store called SUPER CHEAP ahha i had to take a picture of that.. how cheap? SUPER CHEAP outlet. Anyone looking for cheap cigarette you'll find it super cheap here.

While chatting with the lovely gals at Cafe Di Vang she said there are about 20 other cafes around Westminister, she mention this one Cafe YoYo. I finally realize how you can distinguish these places, tinted windows and a huge fish tank in the front entrance. That's when you know it's a Cafe Hooters.

We went to this T&K Food Market/ Plaza and walked around.

Realized that this restaurant had a lot of people lining up out the door. So I started to line up too. To see what all the fuss is about. Haha

I asked people around us to see what is good here. All their response was, EVERYTHING is good! Somehow we had a whole flock of people recommending us different desserts and we choose these..

This is called, "Soy" its sticky rice with some coconut milk in it. The texture is chewy and sticky. Not too sweet just how I like it.

I forgot what this is called but it is really good! It has jackfruit, longan and various jellies coated with coconut milk juice. Very tasty! I find that most vietnamese places make desserts just too sweet for my taste buds and this places makes it just right.

Judging from the yelp reviews we hit the jackpot for Thach Che Hien Khanh. This place is well known for their vietnamese desserts and one of the famous one! You question why there is a line out the door.

After dessert we went to Little Saigon Plaza so get some snails..

I love food courts! I like to walk around to compare what I want before I order.

This is called "Oc len xao dua" snail dish. Sweet, spicy, savory just very tasty, drench with spicy coconut milk sauce. If your into exotic food then you gotta try this. kinda acquired taste.

Alan got the "Bo luc lac" basically beef cubes stir fry. But their sauce is addicting! So delicious!

We wanted to try out another famous coffee shop review on yelp, but by the time we went there it was closed. So next time for another great adventure!