Cafe Spotlight: NYC edition & recap of November 2020 vlog
Happy December! I don’t know about you, but I woke up today to a thin blanket of snow outside to greet the start of the last month of 2020. Even though it was cold, it all got better after a hot cup of coffee (courtesy of Hugh’s Blend by Laughing Man Coffee). Speaking of coffee, I bring a special cafe spotlight of three cafes in NYC that I tried during the last couple weeks of November.
*Two of the cafes are from these lovely coffee guides so feel free to check it out!
Maman
239 Centre St
The first of the cafe from the coffee guides (though this is the Union Square location: the storefront for this is one is much bigger but in my opinion less ‘aesthetic’ compared to the one featured in the guide). I went simple and got a cappuccino. Wasn’t able to sit there for too long, but there was some nicely decorated outdoor seating and limited indoor seating. The coffee was nice, but the ambience wasn’t really my style, especially compared with the next one (i.e., I don’t see myself going there to do work say in another time).
Rating:
Coffee: 9/10
Environment: 7/10
Consistency: N/A - first visit
Overall: 8/10
Laughing Man Coffee
184 Duane St
The other cafe from Ashleigh’s coffee guide, Laughing Man Coffee, located in the Tribeca neighborhood of NYC, is actually actor Hugh Jackman’s coffee shop! Right from the outside, I had a feeling this would be my type of cafe. It was also in a nice residential-y type area with other cute restaurants and cafes. The outdoor area with the plants had a really comely feel. I recalled from Ashleigh’s story when she visited so I had recognized it was pretty nice, but seeing it firsthand confirmed it. The shop inside was spacious, so it wasn’t too much trouble to maintain distancing (there was a steady flow of people). I got a honey lavender latte (supposedly one of their signature drinks), and it also did not disappoint. (I normally would’ve wanted to get a simpler (i.e., espresso-based, etc.) drink and not flavored latte on my first visit so to get more of a baseline assessment of their coffee….especially since often times the flavored ones might be more on the sweet side, but this was one just right with the sweetness.) Ended up picking up a bag of Hugh’s blend to-go (to bring back to Pittsburgh)…and to support coffee growers from the proceeds as well.
Rating:
Coffee: 9/10 (since I didn’t really get an espresso-based coffee drink)
Environment: 10/10
Consistency: N/A - first visit
Overall: 10/10
Cha Cha Matcha
1158 Broadway
Not really coffee-based, but it mostly caught my eye with the name reminding of ballroom. They had some posters on the wall about cha cha, but that seemed to be the extent of the ballroom-theme in the cafe. It had more of a tropical, festive feel. In a way, it kind of seemed more like a poke shop than drink shop to me. They had some fancy flavored matchas, but I went with a matcha latte. It was pretty small, and there was only limited outdoor seating at this time, but since this location was close to Madison Square Park so we ended up sitting there.
Rating:
Drink: 9/10
Environment: 7/10
Consistency: N/A - first visit
Overall rating: 8/10
Finally, please find a short vlog recapping the higlights of a day trip to NYC!