Choke
Choke
4157 Normal Ave.
open Tuesday -Saturday
10 a.m.-7 p.m.
(323) 662-4653.
Today, I had the pleasure of enjoying two of my favorite things in succession. No, not hookers and an 8-ball. Fish or Shrimp tacos and a cappuccino to finish. First a quick shout out to the taco spot.
Best Fish Taco in Ensenada
1650 N. Hillhurst
90027
Great tacos. Simple menu. cool owner and his mom works the register, so you better be honest with your taco count. You order them one at a time, because he wants you to eat them hot, and so do you, so be patient and enjoy. OK, back to the coffee.
Jeff at Choke has already been glowingly written up by some enamored writer from the LA Weekly, so I will stick to my opinions and leave out the back story. This guy has history with coffee outside of LA, which, like the rest of us, is how he knows about the good stuff. He has a water filtration and softening system and closely monitors the humidity in the air when determining his grounds. Get it? HE PAYS ATTENTION.
What that means to you and me and every other schmo who walks in the door is a great coffee, with little variation in the quality or flavor. I have been enough times to have tasted the variations in milk sweetness and coffee thickness, and I can tell you it's all good.
- Coffee -
***
Distinct flavor. Perfect thickness. Bitterness is well balanced with the milk/foam
(hear from grapevine that Jeff is gonna start using Coffee Intelligentsia coffee soon...they are taking over!)
- Foam -
***
Jeff's foam is not so much the Trieste micro-bubbled, semi-caramelized kind, as the thick milk, creamy goodness kind. In the grading of a cappuccino, I believe it is how the components come together as whole that determines it's scoring. For this reason, his foam gets 3 stars.
- Presentation -
***
You get Latte art in a scooter shop. You know, the shit you see on the cooking channel and in magazines. Little leaves or hearts or whatever.
Sadly, I often get my coffee here in a white paper cup. (Parking really, really sucks in the Choke hood.)
I see porcelain on the machine and have seen others drinking from it, so this is my fault, not his.
- Overall -
***
If you are reading this blog, you are either a friend of mine or you like good coffee. In either case you should go to Choke and have a cappuccino. Then we have something we can talk about and/or you have a new standard of excellence in your coffee spectrum.
2 comments:
this is what the getty museum uses for their espresso... http://www.newhallcoffee.com.
jesus, i just read the laweekly article on choke and i felt embarassed for the writer - actually, it was so unashamedly obsequious that i'm embarassed for the city of los angeles, for writers in general. for all mankind. jesus, what drivel. a few nuggets: "The alarmingly good-looking Jeff Johnsen"?, "the man behind the myth"?, "heart-murmur-inducing blue eyes"?, "the froth and crema laced together to form what looks like a Van Gogh painting in my white cup"?!?, and i just had to stop reading after "I hold my coffee two-handed like it’s a holy grail filled with sacramental liquid"!!!!. The fucking article is practically pornographic. christ, how many shots of his sacramental liquid did she drink, anyway? fuck.
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