Review: Prado Cafe

Thanks to Darren Patrick over at www.timinganddelivery.com for letting me share this little review:

There’s something to be said, I think, about waking up on the right side of the bed.

Well, there’s no bed involved in this experience and there’s no real ‘waking up’ going on, per se. Instead, it was how the day started (because of one employee at Prado Café on Commercial Drive) that my day fired on all cylinders from that point on.

It was a sunny Sunday morning in Vancouver and I had a meeting on ‘The Drive’ with a business that has been following timinganddelivery.com for a few months and was interested in partnering. I should tell you that I enjoy taking these meetings from time-to-time if my schedule permits. What I haven’t yet told you, though, is that this particular meeting was early and, me being me, was in dire need of my Americano misto ‘fix’.

In fact, I recently discovered that Prado Café sources coffee from the 49th Parllalel! How cool is that? Props to chinese broccoli for the photo, by the way.

Prado Café, if you haven’t been, is what I like to call a minimalist coffee experience. Picture a warehouse/lofty/industrial/bricks-n-sticks layout (although, I didn’t see any bricks) with just enough furniture to make George Orwell wake up and take notice. Then, throw in a scattering of tables and some pretty hip clientele (you know what I mean…imacs, books, bongo drums, and the like…artistic types!). I have really gotten into the whole Commercial Drive ‘vibe’ lately and Prado Café is just another extension of this.

Read the full article here: http://www.timinganddelivery.com/prado-cafe-on-commerical-drive/

Food Review:Virtue vs. Ambiance, it's a bean-off

Virtue vs. Ambiance, it's a bean-off

Found this great little blog with some fun pics and great reviews.

It's called Full Bodied: Two Hot Fat Chicks on Wine and Other Good Things In Life.
Very fun stuff!!
Read their review of the Calabria and Prado.

This was me this Sunday, sitting in the window of Café Calabria on Commercial Drive, Frankie Murdocco's perfectly prepared cappu in front of me. All was right with the world: the sun was shining, a significant portion of the weekend was still available to be enjoyed, and my honey and I were about to take a walk around Trout Lake and then head over to the home of friends for tea and Wii.

Ah, the weekend. I remember it like it was two days ago.

Café Calabria is my absolute favourite coffee spot. It's friendly, busy and noisy but somehow never loud. It's a family business, run by elderly Frank and his handsome sons. Young Frankie pulls the most flavourful espresso (at least to my taste), while his father tends to pull it a bit scuro. Younger brother Vince is usually wrangling the terrific fresh panini (Franks's Special is my fave).
Read the full review here:

http://full-bodied.blogspot.com/2008/02/virtue-vs-ambiance-its-bean-off.html