home

♪ "... is where I want to be,
Pick me up and turn me around... " ♫

Richmond (District) Coffeehouses ~ #36

(No official-type web-site thing.)


Place: home

Location:  2018 Clement Street (between 21st and 22nd Avenues); phonicular contact: (415) 742-0038

Hours: open Monday - Friday at 7:00am, Saturday & Sunday at 8:00am

Meal: Let's AVO-Cuddle ~ toast made with thick-cut brioche, baby arugula, cherry tomatoes, avocado, & chilli flakes; to drink with breakfast: Lavender Latte; and for "dessert" after: Cookie Monster (another Latte drink) ~ made with Biscoff® Cookie Butter-stuff[1]

(We should all be so lucky to be able to dance with a lamp.)


You don't have to hit me on the head to let me know... I guess that this must be the place... so, let's not be naïve about it.

I just "discovered" this great new coffeehouse in my neighborhood, within walking distance of my apartment (if your walking-distance happens to be twelve blocks back and forth), last week. home has been open only since May of last year in this location. home does have another coffeehouse in the Sunset (on Noriega Street, between 19th and 20th Avenues; it is in the same building that used to house the Bashful Bull diner/restaurant) that is a few years older. I am not sure why I had never noticed them before now. That was a major oversight on my part and hopefully I will make up for it with many more return visits in the future.

I am not sure exactly what kind of business used to be located in this spot on Clement Street (it may have been yet-still-another Richmond beauty salon). I am pretty sure that it was not a restaurant or coffeehouse, though. In addition to having a very large seating area up front, they also have another large backroom space. Plus, there is an as-yet-unopened backyard patio area; there is a sign on the back door stating they are still working on getting the permits, etc. for it.

They do not offer any egg-laden (get it "lay-egg"... what-ever!) dishes at this location. Whereas, at their original Noriega Street location, they do offer several eggy-type dishes. However, that is because that location is still equipped with a complete kitchen. (Of course, now I have to make plans to check out that coffeehouse one of these days, too ~ next weekend, perhaps?) Even so, there are still a few other ideas that I would like to check out for breakfast: 

ABB's of Toast ~ almond butter, banana, & honey;

Matcha Love ~ organic matcha and condensed milk (??? I have no idea what that would taste/look like on toast, but I will try anything once);

and

some kinda cheesy-toast-thing (okay, so, I forgot to write down its description).

They also offer two non-vegetarian friendly items that I might still like to try less the dead, decaying porcine/piscine products:

BR-AVO ~ bacon crumbles, radish, & avocado (I happened to mention to one of the barista-ladies that I would have to just order that as "R-AVO"; unfortunately, it took her a bit to get that stupid joke);

or

Seoul Much AVO ~ spicy kimchi (which I was informed by the same barista-lady is homemade ~ coffeehouse-made, whatever ~ and does include some kinda fishy-element in it; which is too bad, as this was going to be my first choice this morning), seeds, & avocado.

Even if home didn't really offer any other interesting breakfastary/food ideas, I can see this coffeehouse becoming a "Go-To" place for other good snack/dessert-drinks... such-as:

(Coffee drinks)
Rose Latte; Sea-Salted Caramel Latte; Holy Cow (which they have listed as a condensed milk Latte; this was described to me by one of the other very friendly and informative barista-type guys, named James, as sorta a Vietnamese Coffee-style Latte); nutella® Latte; and Coconut Vanilla Latte; 

(Tea drinks)
Godzilla (listed as "iced sparkling matcha tea", whatever the h*ck that may be); London Fog (Earl Grey tea with vanilla); and Lavender Jasmine Tea Latte; 

and even a few variations of Hot Chocolate.

There was nothing really special about this dish. It was just another ubiquitous (which is a word that you see everywhere these days) version of avocado toast. I did like that it was served on an extra-thick slice of brioche toast; besides, I always like arugula, baby!

(I will let you guess which is which.)


I have just one word to describe all of their Lattes: "ridiculously disgusting" (or "disgustingly ridiculous", but that would be two words). Now these were the real find and the reason for which I will be going back again... and again! They currently make all of their Espresso/Latte drinks with Counter Culture 
Forty-Six roast/blend. 

https://counterculturecoffee.com/

https://counterculturecoffee.com/shop/coffee/forty-six

I know what you are thinking: "Lavender and Coffee, Brian?!" Trust me on this one; it really works. It was even topped with some organic dried lavender. I am not sure which disgusted me more, today's Lavender Latte or the Crème Brulee Latte at Rise & Grind (see 'blog entry from Sunday, October 16th. 2016); both are worth disgustingly repeating.

I would not normally get two different cuppas while at a coffeehouse-joint (because of which, I may not be able to get to sleep until later tonight), but I figured it would be nice to try another Latte as a "dessert" this morning. Luckily, the Cookie Monster really was not as sweet as I feared it was going to be. I was told (again, I pestered poor ol' James for this information) that they actually use Biscoff® Cookie Butter in the preparation (James even showed me the jar of it). I figured that it was going to be just some kinda cookie-dough flavoured syrup that they added.

I said "currently make" in the above paragraph, because when I had stumbled upon them just last week, they were still using the more locally-sourced De La Paz Big City as their Espresso-base. On that visit, I had to try the extremely disgusting Red Velvet Latte. I also really liked it, but it was even sweeter than the other two Lattes that I had this morning.

https://www.fourbarrelcoffee.com/collections/de-la-paz/products/big-city-blend

For any of you Coffee-purists, they do also offer plain-ol' drip and pour-over single cuppas, either using Colombian- or Peruvian-origin beans from Counter Culture. I will have to try those on a future visit... once I have tried all of their other utterly disgusting options, of course.

Not that it really needed any extra condimentary supplementing, but I had brought along a few of my own hot sauces just in case I went savoury (which I did) over sweet this morning. So I used some of my own Palo Alto Fire Fighters XXX Ghost Pepper Sauce on just one half of the avocado toast-thing.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Let's AVO-Cuddle ~ 6.4;
Red Velvet Latte ~ 6.9;
Cookie Monster ~ 7.1;
Lavender Latte ~ 7.3 (possibly higher, and I will definitely be ordering that one again)

___________________

1. You had to ask?!

https://www.shopbiscoff.com/biscoff-cookie-butter

If you have never tried this gunk, it is posilutely-absotively disgusting! (Which just means: I posilutely-absotively love it.)