Chicago Eetcafe

Chicago Eetcafe

45 Rue de Flandre

1000 Bxl

http://www.caat.be/chicago/

A great place to bring your friends... and your kids!

I'm so sorry for the late post (even though I don't have an official schedule, I try to make them once every 2 weeks, so just late for me and my 2 readers), I've actually been sitting on this post since I first created the blog, having been here a total of 3 times to photograph/review the place, it's finally time for Chicago Cafe to have its CACS spotlight.

This place is the epitome of cool, from the outside in!  It's set over a really wide building and has all these posters and notice boards in the alcove before the entrance. It's actually quite hard to tell what it is from the outside, you wouldn't notice straight away.

Just fyi, my friend is not pregnet, she just
keeps her baby camera under there!

Once you enter, there are sort of 2 areas, the front one is warmly lit with a long table in the center and then the further in part is really bright, with this big sky light in the middle. Then at the very back you can find a kids' play area, which i find an absolutely great idea! I have raved about this aspect to several people although I know almost no one who has kids of the right age. BUT STILL. And it's good for the people who don't actually like kids, cause the underlings are mostly sitting eating cake or in the play bit. (no photos of the play area for obvious no creep reasons). 

Another thing I love in this cafe is the NEON SIGN(!!) If you follow me on instagram (username: hempfloush), you will know that almost any neon sign that I come across must be manifested on my feed! (for you nonestagrammers, that just means that i love neons signs a whole lot). There also seems to be a potted green plant wherever you may look, this also gets me going. 

Ok and now i need to make a whole paragraph about the seats because they're just so cool. They have some wooden cinema-style seats, the ones that you have to be sat on for them to be down (is there a name for those?). And the others, OH MAN, they are awesome. it's essentially a bench made of wooden slats that are just lined up and rounded off and I want 20 in my house.

Now let's get to the essentials, Food&Drink. 

This is one of the main reasons why this post is so delayed; I really wanted to have lunch here before I could review and it's never been possible till last weekend. but now, let's get cracking. 

They have a pretty wide selection of basic type lunch foods, like croque monsieurs, eggs, pasta plates, etc. What got my friend Issi and I excited was however the quesadillas! She ordered one with aubergines, brie, apple and nuts. It was so good! and It came with a side salad because there, all vegetarian orders come with either side salad, coleslaw, or chips. I got a salad cause I got the halloumi burger. The burger was basically a giant slab of halloumi with smoked mozarella on top which somehow worked alright, but if given the choice, I'd definitely take the quesadilla instead. But I must say. both of our sauces were lush, mine being a spicy tomato one and hers being hot apple and cinnamon.

 After mains... come desserts! And theirs are not to be missed. If you only come once, HAVE THEIR CARROT CAKE! It is so good, not the best I've ever had (more on that in a future post ;)) but an incredibly close second. The texture very moist but still crumbles as a cake should and there's just enough spice (maybe a tad more could be added) and the icing is so creamy. One time I came with a bunch of my school friends who got the crumble cake (pretty good) raspberry meringue tart (lovely but extremely hard pastry), and a cheesecake (also pretty good).

SERIOUSLY GET THIS

As for drinks, most times, there's been consumption of their nice hot chocolate, which comes as milk with little chocolate chips on the bottom. I've also had their green tea which was pretty standard. 

So this place is, I'll say it one last time, super cool. It's got some laid back design elements and good hot food and amazing carrot cake. The kids area really sold it for me as a more familial place to go. I kno that a colleague of mine also went with her friends for a coffee and a cake. It's really the ultimate spot for that catch up! 

. Alrighty! now for me to run off and finish my homework and go sleep for another 2 weeks, I may actually make a sneaky extra post this week to make up for my lateness but who knows if that'll be possible :(

Either way I hope you all have a great weekend (I may be getting a little ahead of myself here) 

xx Lara

Avenue G - GLASGOW cafe

Avenue G

291 Byres Road

Glasgow G12 8TL

http://avenue-g.com/

Great tea and probably great coffee

I have a confession, I'm gonna need you to be very open and accepting of this, it's hard to come to terms with personally and accept it as an integral part of me. I hope you won't think less of me...

.............................................

... I'm not much of a coffee person. 

I feel like this is really bad for a cafe reviewer.I apologise that I can't rave about the beans of a place, but I have a few good friesds who are coffee lovers so I'll from now on ask them. Sadly my caffeinated friend who has visited Avenue G has only ever tried their tea. I can understand why she would maybe jsut stick to the tea though, as it is GREAT! I got the peppermint tea and absolutely loved it. it came in loose leaf form in a metal basket that fitted perfectly into the little coffee cup. You got enough hot water for two cup-fulls, which made me a happy little bunny. I'm guessing that if their tea was so lovely, their coffee will be even better. It's one of those places that prides itself on it's coffee and variations, different origins and not just the one standard cup of Joe. (UPDATE: apparently my friend went to Avenue G and had the coffee and thought it was TERRIBLE. she said she'd had better instant coffee :/ Sorry for the assumption!)

                                          

Avenue G is the first place I went to in G-town and I just kinda ended up in there by accident, walking down Byres Road, I remembered my friend mentioning the spot, so I just popped in. I walked in and striaght away knew it was right up my alley (or avenue...). The cafe is very basic and monochrome and stripped back, just how I like it! It's a rather narrow space for a cafe but it's got an upstairs area with more seating, i also discovered that this is a very common configuration for places in Glasgow. The upstairs area could be described as a indoor balcony that looks onto the downstairs shop. They also have a few usable plug spaces so you could settle down for a while and work.

I only got a very short time in Avenue G, so I only had time to get myself the tea and a granola bar. Granola bar was pretty standard, maybe a bit too much dried fruit in for my liking, kinda dominated the thing. They offered quite a large selection of little cakes that did look lovely. I wish I'd gotten another chance to come here and try out their lunches but I wanted to build up a base of several Glasgow posts

My "barista" was super lovely, and we had a chat about all of the other good places in Glasgow for lovers of cool cafes, he even had this card with all companies that revolve around quality coffee! The sill was also really nice (strange thing to notice, I know) there were all there products that they were selling like the Dalfour jams and some mints. 

 

tice, I know) there were all there products that they were selling like the Dalfour I had a good short sit down in the place but didn't properly set up as I was at a high chair and in a hurry. I hugely recommend the peppermint tea. I can't give a comment on the savoury food service but the sweet stuff was pretty good. A good place for a quick stop if you're around the uni, as Byres road is really close-by! 

Next post shall be in a few weeks, I originally wanted to post weekly but I've now had to realise how impossible that'll be, so Once every 2-3 weeks will be the regular posting schedule. Bearing in mind that my "regular" is about as reliable as a film camera's aperture settings.

 Have a good monday,

Lara xx