The Bon Vivant Blog

Walking into this comfortable somehow homey (although still funky) cafe feels like walking into your friend’s place for a bite to eat among friends. In fact, we do run into friends in the cafe. The setting is a funky casual collection of tables and chair with friendly tattooed and pierced staff. It is not only [...]

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We had to sit down, away from the Internet, somewhere to go and write some thank-you cards. Thus – we thought – local, has good coffee, nice place to sit down, sky overhead – we thought about JJ Bean on Main Street. This place is actually really nice. There’s a pretty sketch Starbucks across the [...]

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Brewing a huge list of coffees by the cup – like a manual Clover system. I tried their most popular brew – Jason’s Blend but they seem to have a blend for all tastes. T tried the handmade espresso in a cappuccino – interestingly prepared with vigorously hand-shaken milk and I think they poured the [...]

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We had heard they had good espresso and yes – they do use 49th parallel beans but the latte was nothing special. Too many servers in a small space with a little bit of attitude. The space itself is not that nice inside and needs a little bit of dusting – particularly of the lights. [...]

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These guys know coffee. Assuming you have a decent espresso machine and a proper grinder, and you want somewhere in Vancouver to buy your beans? Drop that bag of Kirkland beans, my friend and head over to their cafe to pick up a bag of their Espresso. This stuff is awesome. The crema you’ll get [...]

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T: Our major research project of finding the perfect (for us) espresso maker showed that when it came to espresso, all roads lead to Rome – that is, to Intelligentsia Coffee here in Chicago. So – we’re here for a week – definitely a destination that we wanted to check out. Their ‘black cat’ blend [...]

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As the Seattle trip was all about the food, and we knew that Seattle has a great coffee scene, we decided to find out what this good coffee thing was all about. Looking around on chowhound, we found this place, and as it was just a short hike up the hill from downtown, we decided [...]

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One of the best pain au chocolat that we have had – and we have had many. Nice bakery with a few tables in a rather random place in North Vancouver – an industrial park with limited parking. We parked illegally the first time because all the spots were reserved although empty – go figure. [...]

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