RTP-area local music and culture

[grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>]

OK, I get it, y'all were pulling my leg. Ha ha, very funny.

I just got back from Chosun Ok, the new Korean joint in that same 
shopping center. Oh man, that was some tasty BBQ beef. The Be-Bim Bap 
was pretty good as well. The menu is also insanely loaded with all kinds 
of authentic and/or bizarre items like baby goat soup and a huge variety 
of fish dishes.

Based upon y'all's "recommendations", I then proceeded down the 
stripmall to Ideas! It being mysteriously warm outside, and thus even 
hotter inside my coat, I decided to order a tasty iced coffee beverage.

Y'all can make fun of me if you want--I almost certainly deserve it--but 
I will argue at this juncture that yr basic set of tasty iced-coffee 
beverages are well within the normal/expected repertoire of any decent 
modern coffee joint. Or, more to the point: if you're gonna have them on 
the menu, then you should care enough to make them correctly. If you 
want to be a coffee/espresso/cappucino-only purist establishment, then I 
applaud yr purism & I'll order one of those. Ideas! is not a purist 
joint, however.

So, being lactose intolerant, I politely inquired as to whether they 
have soy milk. Receiving a response in the affirmative, I proceeded to 
order a decaf soy iced mocha.

I then sat there in horror and watched as the dude pulled down a big 
plastic tub from the shelf and shoveled several scoopfuls of powder into 
the blender, added a bunch of ice, and hit "frappe" or whatever the fuck 
the button says.

I will admit that for the first half of the process I wasn't paying 
complete attention, so I can't really say for certain whether any 
espresso was harmed in the making of my franken-beverage. I *can* say 
for certain that I didn't see any soy milk *or* chocolate syrup go into 
the thing.

Thoroughly skeeved but not wishing to get into a long discussion about 
why mystery powder isn't a normal coffee beverage ingredient, I paid & 
left.

My subsequent internet research was unable to turn up an exact 
ingredient list for the "Big Train Iced Mocha" mix that he used, but I 
*did* find an ingredient list for the "low-carb" version of same; 
difference presumably being the substitution of Splenda for the crapload 
of sugar that was clearly part of the high-carb version I received:

"Ingredients: Protein From Nonfat Milk and Calcium Caseinate, 
Erythritol, Sunflower Oil, Cocoa, Coffee, Natural and Artificial 
Flavors, Carrageenan, Salt, Xanthan and Guar Gums, Disodium and 
Dipotassium Phosphate, Mono and Diglyceridees, Lecithin and Sucralose 
(Splenda Brand)."

http://www.bigtrain.com/pages/blendedicecoffee.html

So not only did the motherfucker charge me $3.50 for a noxious brown 
substance with an assload of sugar, a bizarre McDonalds Shake-like 
consistency, and virtually no coffee flavor, but he fed me dairy 
products in the process.

It sorta boggles my mind that Counter Culture can be roasting tons of 
their remarkably good beans less than 2 miles away--filling the air with 
the aroma of roasting coffee, driving me slowly mad--and yet we can't 
seem to muster up a single decent coffee shop in RTP. WTF?

Then again, isn't there a McCafe out Miami a ways?

Ross

rick sawyer wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 17:04:37 -0500, Rick! wrote:
>
> > grady wrote:
> >
> >
> > > p.s. and a coffeeshop not run by crazy people. If such a thing exists.
> >
> > Ideas!  (Next to Spice and Curry.)
>
>  
> amen.  my favorite thing about getting car fixed (at WASP, natch) is
> the opportunity to stop by Ideas!  the city of durham does not have a
> suitable, civic minded, local business-y analog (though it does remind
> me of the long (and loudly) mourned jimmy's bagel bakery.)  and i'd
> rather have a crazy person fix my coffee than a bored hipster any day.