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Gourmet donuts...it's about time!
Top Pot is what I was waiting for, while it seemed like the whole universe was doing backflips for the sweet lard-balls that Krispy Kreme sells. These are homemade donuts with substance, sold in an...
Top Pot is what I was waiting for, while it seemed like the whole universe was doing backflips for the sweet lard-balls that Krispy Kreme sells. These are homemade donuts with substance, sold in an appealing coffee house setting with wi-fi and some outdoor tables under leafy trees as well. Check out the Valley Girl lemon-filled ones; they sell out quickly, so you might have to go early in the day. You'll never eat another Krispy Kreme again.
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Small, personal, tranquil -- and great cinnamon rolls
This is the best possible retreat from the kind of morning at home where no one can find the permission slip for today's field trip and the printer runs out of ink before the homework can get printed...
This is the best possible retreat from the kind of morning at home where no one can find the permission slip for today's field trip and the printer runs out of ink before the homework can get printed out. Grab a few dollars and escape out the door and go have a blessedly peaceful cup of coffee at a table where you can read today's paper and eat something buttery and fruity and just sweet enough, and be surrounded with an atmosphere of quiet simplicity. The women who run this place move back and forth smoothly between the baking area and the front counter, and the food couldn't be fresher.
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Great bagels, great breakfast deals, aimless service
First, the food: excellent, authentic, fresh-from-the-oven NY style bagels. Well-designed, satisfying sandwiches which always exceed my expectations. Killer deals on breakfast combos, where you...
First, the food: excellent, authentic, fresh-from-the-oven NY style bagels. Well-designed, satisfying sandwiches which always exceed my expectations. Killer deals on breakfast combos, where you get some sort of egg-bagel arrangement and coffee for a very low price. This place opens at some ungodly hour of the morning (6 or 6:30) and if you have to get an early start on a long morning, there's no better place to grab a hot bagel sandwich for road food. They also have a sunny, open dining area which is popular with the local lunch crowd, and they carry the usual required side stuff: a cooler of juices, a rack of chip bags, big cookies, and so on. They also sell their own blends of (pricy) flavored cream cheeses.
The staff is young and sweet, but always a little foggy. Maybe it's the early mornings. The line can be 5 deep, and there'll be 4 people behind the counter, and everything still moves at an unperturbed crawl. Order an espresso drink and it's like putting glue in the gears. And you may get the wrong change, but they'll be really nice about fixing it when you point it out.
It's worth it for the great food -- just don't be in a flaming hurry, and you'll be glad you came.
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Inviting neighborhood pub
This is the perfect place to hole up on a rainy late afternoon and have a bowl of spectacular home-made soup. The Hopvine has the usual good offerings of microbrews, and a nice wine selection as...
This is the perfect place to hole up on a rainy late afternoon and have a bowl of spectacular home-made soup. The Hopvine has the usual good offerings of microbrews, and a nice wine selection as well. But it's the music and open mike, the skilled kitchen and general air of coziness which draw me there. Their chef wrote a cookbook in which he collected all his soup recipes -- ( you can buy it there at the pub -- which I did ) -- and all the food is thoughtfully put together. Service is easygoing and friendly. Overall, a comfortable neighborhood hangout.
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Some things never change... fortunately!
Cafe Allegro has been there forever. I think it's the first coffee house that existed, back before Starbucks, before coffee houses were even known outside of the university and its bohemian groupies...
Cafe Allegro has been there forever. I think it's the first coffee house that existed, back before Starbucks, before coffee houses were even known outside of the university and its bohemian groupies and perpetual grad students. The integrity of the place is unbroken. It's hard to review, because I now go there just to enter their time machine and relive intellectual liaisons with people long gone. The Allegro has a quiet room in back, good for studying, and a bulletin board that I've stood in front of at strange junctures of my life, contemplating the next group household. On sunny days people and their dogs sit out on the cement in the alley that it opens onto. Inside, it's hard to articulate its charm: it's not the most artful layout, but it's got a simplicity that grows on you. Bare bricks, plain wood, and it's an easy place to be alone in. The coffee and tea, of course, are excellent. The pastries are so-so, but then, that's not what you came for.
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Very personal bookstore
Bailey-Coy Books is a small bookstore done really well. I've spent long spells in there, reading whole bunches of little cards with staff recommendations, and being guided by them down avenues I...
Bailey-Coy Books is a small bookstore done really well. I've spent long spells in there, reading whole bunches of little cards with staff recommendations, and being guided by them down avenues I wouldn't otherwise have found. Who'd have thought that in a gay/lesbian-accented Capitol Hill bookstore I would have followed a staff person's high praise and left with a novel (Gilead) about an aging midwestern minister's gentle reflections on his life? Bailey-Coy also has some beautiful local artists' notecards for sale.
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A little burrow of used books
This place is like a nest built by some creature who needs only books in order to survive the long dark winter. It's in an old house in between storefronts on 15th E, and you wander from one small...
This place is like a nest built by some creature who needs only books in order to survive the long dark winter. It's in an old house in between storefronts on 15th E, and you wander from one small room to another and randomly move from one genre to another. The folks who work here are willing to be helpful, but sometimes you have to wait to get their attention because they'll be deep in conversation with a customer or co-worker about the obscure reaches of some particular author's work. The selection isn't as compelling as Twice Sold Tales, (some things are just plain too old, like travel and how-to stuff that doesn't age well), and the environment too cramped to invite lingering, but it's worth a visit because places like this need to stay in business. Good collection of sci-fi paperbacks.
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Uncompromising -- they don't care if you don't like it
One of the charms of used book stores is that half the reason they exist is that the owners just love acquiring and being surrounded by all those books. If you actually want to come in and buy...
One of the charms of used book stores is that half the reason they exist is that the owners just love acquiring and being surrounded by all those books. If you actually want to come in and buy something, they'll consent to sell it to you, but they'll go out of business sooner than pander to the public at large.
Don't like cats? Don't come to Twice Sold Tales. The people who run it do like cats, and they'd rather have the cats than have you. What they do worry about is if you mistreat their cats, and there are a couple signs warning about this.
The recommended book shelves hold unexpected nuggets of literary gold, and a random wander through the place produces an armful of everything you weren't looking for. It's true that the owners aren't going to come up to you and make nice and ask if they can help you -- but they also won't give you a hard time if you hunker down on one of the wooden stools and just read. They also have classy taste in literature. It's nice to see English majors find a niche in the world.
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Come worship at the Food Temple!
This isn't food for the purpose of nourishment, it's food for the purpose of bathing in affluence, food to reinforce your sense that you deserve only the very finest that the planet has to offer. ...
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