Cafehop.com — Café hopping in New York City

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

Now that I’m done laboring on my house, I have free time once again. Last Thursday Mario and I met up for our weekly coffee outing, and this week he wanted to venture east.

The first thing to note, of course, is that Ninth Street Espresso is not on 9th Street, it’s on 13th. The first time I passed it I was worried because I thought I was further south than I actually was. The original is on 13th between Crazy and Dead. Mario and I walked in as we passed by after mistakenly eating at the crumbling, filthy Blue 9 Burger on 3rd. This was Blue 9’s polar opposite: monochrome, clean, bright, and comfortable.

They serve their espresso triple ristretto — you get a little cup 1/3 full with thick, reddish dark coffee. I find this is the way I prefer my espresso. It’s less bitter because it doesn’t extract too much from the beans. Mario disagrees, but what does he know — besides, he’s a terrorist.

We also got a little chocolate petit four thing, and it was gooood. With this, Mario agrees. Even though this place is close to Union Square, it’s not crowded, and conversation can be made in a normal voice.

Ninth Street Espresso, 136 E 13th Street, Manhattan

7am-8pm daily