Cafehop.com — Café hopping in New York City

This is dumb, I know: Mario and I debated the morality of spending money in an Israeli-owned chain. Whether or not one agrees with our view on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, it’s obvious that wherever the Aroma location on Houston sends its profits, some of that money surely ends up in the coffers of the Israeli government — an organization we believe causes much harm to a people it is actively displacing. We eventually decided that since the parent corporation is in Israel that this might be set up like a franchise, with a flat franchise fee, meaning that whether or not we patronized the shop, the same amount was being sent to the fatherland. Justification can clearly be a mother of invention.

To our chagrin, the espresso is superb, and keeps us coming back if we’re in the neighborhood. I took Luis just last week. Mario himself lives across the street. There’s no way we’re going to be able to ignore this place, seductively wrapped in lusty red tilework and modern black and white accents.

One problem is the service can be rather incompetent. Mario tells me that they screw up his orders all the time, and that Friday night to Saturday night — for obvious reasons, the most competent managers are not working — it gets markedly worse. The last time I was there the cashier left Luis’ espresso off the order, only charging me for a mocha. It was a busy night, and when my order came up and the espresso was missing, the counter guy shrugged and said “she didn’t charge you for it.” You know, instead of apologizing to me and making me an espresso shot right then, which would have cost the company possibly 15 cents including labor, but bought a lot of goodwill. I’m amazed at how so many stores do not understand this.

Anyway, the mochas (and hot chocolates, I assume) are made by placing a few chunks of milk chocolate in the bottom of the cup and then pouring the appropriate hot liquids over it. It’s an attractive presentation and is cute in theory, but in practice you have to stir it for 5 minutes straight to get all the chocolate to dissolve. Not fun.

The food seems good, I had a “bureka treat”: phyllo dough “bread” surrounding hard-boiled egg, tomatoes, pickles, and tahini.

Overall, the product itself is good, but the service is bad not because of any bad attitudes but because of a total lack of competence. I’m sure it’s a problem that will be remedied eventually. The Israeli occupation of Soho is one that otherwise seems to be going well.

Aroma, 145 Greene St (Houston entrance), Manhattan

7am-11pm daily

The lesson here might be to start with low expectations. Mario took me to the Alessi store in Soho to show me just how undrinkable the espresso at their in-store café, Joe, was. The wispy shred of boy (how do his organs fit in a six-inch-wide torso!?) that manned (I use this word loosely) the machine made art of twirling back and forth from his coffee contraption to the counter where he assembled our coffee setup, and placed our tiny espresso spoons just so. I particularly liked the spoons.

The café is not comfortable — it’s too ultramodern and slick and bright and smooth to be able to chill out and drink your joe. As a store selling weird-looking Italian kitchen items and objets, the aesthetic is great. As we sat, backs rigid, on the shiny recessed benches and drank our coffee — which turned out, despite Mario’s previous experience, to be pretty good — another mop-headed attendant waited to recover our empty cups. When Mario explained he still had a little left, Mophead lectured him on the importance of drinking freshly-pulled espresso in three hot gulps. I wasn’t looking but I’m sure Mario made a face.

This is not a place to visit unless it’s bitterly cold outside and you’re within 100 feet. Or maybe if you absolutely have to have coffee and you can’t wait another 2 minutes to find another café. The espresso is fine but no better than any other decent place, the atmosphere rates our first “depressing,” and please, I do not need to be talked down to by the help.

Joe, the Art of Coffee at Alessi, 130 Greene Street, Manhattan

Mon-Fri 7am-7pm | Sat 8am-7pm | Sun 8am-6pm