Cafehop.com — Café hopping in New York City

It was a whirlwind day: we started at the Whole Foods and were working our way to the NYU student center cafeteria which Mario said had great views of Washington Square and the city. But along the way, we got sidetracked by La Lanterna di Vittorio — what idiot decided to go down MacDougal, street of irresistable delights?

I felt as if we were entering someone’s apartment, except that all it has is a giant counter with amazing pastries, various coffee machines, and beverage glasses. Toward the back is a patio covered with a massive iron structure that supports a single shred of canvas. Aside from the sort of gaudy iron tables, it has a nice ambience among the twisting vines and trees. There’s also something cozy about relaxing in the space behind clusters of old buildings.

Our waitress was very nice, but a bit…well, she was incompetent. She chattered too much, made fun of my making fun of the giant size of the menus, took way too long to bring out my raspberry tart which turned out not to be the raspberry thing I wanted (I had seen it in the pastry case upon walking in), brought our espressos after I had finished the tart, and then took another 10 minutes to get us two small glasses of water we requested. And when she brought the coffee, she mentioned that we should ask for money off for the wait! Mario reminded me that in Italy, one eats one’s pastry before coffee anyhow, so I should be grateful for the opportunity to be civilized.

Besides all that, the tart was excellent: the preserves base wasn’t too sweet and the fresh raspberries on top were perfect, unblemished and firm. The espresso was pretty good, nothing to write home about but hit the spot.

Despite the weird service — I hesitate to call it bad — I think I’ll come back, because the pastry case looks great and I really want to have that other raspberry thing I saw and didn’t get.

We eventually did get to the NYU cafeteria, and it did have amazing views.

La Lanterna di Vittorio, 129 MacDougal Street, Manhattan

Fri-Sat: 10am-4am | Sun-Thu: 10am-3am

When I think of Israel, I don’t think of chocolate. Max Brenner aims to change that with a blitz of new stores in the New York area. Two are already open: one in the East Village, and one on Broadway around the corner from Union Square. The atmosphere is chain-like — it looks like a fancy Starbucks, which doesn’t exactly make me feel like hanging out. But then I think it’s geared more toward people looking for a meal, not someone with a laptop who wants to nurse a coffee, as evidenced by the cluster of tall bistro tables shoved in the corner almost as an afterthought.

We ordered our standard — two double espressos. Disappointingly, they came served in two giant paper cups, a trend I will never understand or accept or forgive. They were a hair worse than okay, meaning not passable. And since we were, after all, in a chocolate shop, we got a warm chocolate cake thingy, which came in the most ridiculously huge and wasteful cardboard packaging — we were sitting right there at a table, give us a damn plate! Once we figured out how to remove the idiotic box, I cut into the cake, took a bite, and shrugged. No big deal. I mentioned it sort of tasted like ham, but not in a totally bad way, if that makes any sense. Mario thought it was fine.

I’m not surprised about the coffee. We’re talking about a chain from a country where the national coffee drink is Sanka shaken up into a gallon of milk. Ugh. But the chocolate should have been trans-frickin-scendant for all the buzz given this place, and the Willy Wonka décor. Not to mention the 2-inch cake was $7.00. A resounding “feh.”

Max Brenner, 841 Broadway, Manhattan

Mon-Thu: 8am-11pm | Fri-Sat: 8am-1am | Sun: 9am-11pm

It could be motor oil if it weren’t so thin.

The late 70s were a depressing time in New York, by almost anyone’s account. That’s why when Dean and DeLuca opened in the up-and-coming SoHo district, it must have been a bellwether moment for those New Yorkers who wanted more than what they could get at the corner store in those days. The market has always conjured not just images of luxury in food, but luxury in food shopping — a significant achievement.

But it’s now 30 years later, and we’re all a lot more sophisticated as a society. I remember the first time I walked into Dean and DeLuca a couple years ago — I shrugged. Okay, it’s nice. But I had seen better as a teenager in stripmalls in suburban South Florida. Sure I’d love to having something similar in Bushwick, don’t get me wrong — but as blow-your-mind, overwhelm-your-senses gourmet food scenes go these days, Dean and DeLuca doesn’t slice the speck quite so thin anymore.

So no surprise for me when I go to their café on University Place and get stared at like I’m a waste of time, have my total mumbled to me and my change all but tossed into my hand, and god forbid I or Mario ask a question — you’d think we were the most annoying people on the planet. Their sandwiches are consistently dry; I usually stop eating something bad after two tries, but for some reason I gave the mavens of gourmet three separate chances. The ginger cookie is really good — chewy and well, maybe a bit too much extra sugar on top but dunked in a latte it’s awesome. Too bad the lattes suck. The drip coffee is a bitter abomination and the espresso…

The espresso needs its own paragraph. It is the worst espresso I have had so far in New York City. The Archive in Bushwick, whose espresso is the absolute pits, at least has a pathetic attempt at crema on top. Dean and DeLuca’s product is served to you in a thin paper cup with the lid on — a good thing for the help because by the time you pull it off and realize the contents are jet black with no crema whatsoever, you are safely in the seating area on the other side of the wall. The only good result of gulping down such a horrific beverage is that I got a facial muscle workout from all the wincing I was doing. It’s one frickin ounce of liquid, and I still couldn’t bring myself to finish it.

Otherwise, the place is pretty okay for what it is — a nice old Village space for hanging out with your computer, especially if you’re a student at a nearby university. The ceiling is an awesome sight, and the floors are a beautiful, crumbly old mosaic. And any café is incomplete without marble-topped bistro tables. The location is perfect. It’s just too bad about the, uh, products and service.

Dean and DeLuca, 75 University Place, Manhattan

Mon-Fri 7am-10pm | Sat 8am-10pm | Sun 8am-8pm