Dallas coffee

So much for posting every day on this trip. I apologize for that. I simply didn’t anticipate GOING so much that I was only checking my email on my phone, and otherwise not touching a computer.

However, I’ve finally settled down for a bit in Dallas, and I wanted to say something about our previous and current visit here. Namely, about some of the restaurants & little spots we’ve encountered here in the DFW area. This entry will just be about coffee, as I try to formulate my thoughts on the restaurants I wanted to point people to.

So, Bill is suffering. He’s suffering mightily. Just horribly. Bill, you see, is a coffee snob. A weird one, I suspect, because he takes coffee at the brewer’s stated or implied claims. So, he’ll drink coffee in a 24 h diner and not blink at it. He just assumes it’s “diner coffee” and sets his expectations accordingly. (Except at the diner nearest our house, because they claim to have “the world’s best coffee”. He really hates their coffee, presumably because it’s “diner coffee” but they claim the sublime.) He drinks Starbucks, but recently called it a “palatable version of what they sell”.

He wants that independent coffee place. That one that may have several locations around the city, but probably doesn’t go beyond the city. Roasts their own beans. Where the baristas sigh when you order in Starbucks terms. And, so far, he’s SOL. Last year he found two places that worked for him (each only had one location). This year they’re both gone. He’s drinking a lot of “just beyond diner” coffee these days. And Starbucks. So, if you’re in Dallas or have been to Dallas recently and like coffee, please help the poor guy out.

(Also, I strongly recommend you comment here and ask the guy to give you his own run-down on both coffee in general and Dallas coffee in particular. Maybe it should become a MetaCookbook feature. “Coffee in places we visit.” That’d be fun, but I think New Mexico would also come out poor in the showings.)

I’m lucky, for the record. I don’t like coffee. Except in Portland, at Stumptown. We’ve only been once, so I’m unlikely to acquire an addiction.