Tea and eat.

It is terribly cold in Sofia these days. So much snow and low temperatures that ski fans cannot think of work at all because of snow, while the others just do not want to even think about going to work.

In such cold weather the only proper thing to do is just sit down somewhere warm and have a cup of tea (or other hot drink).
This is what I thought I've found one morning when passed by a small nice cafe and tea place and decided to jump in.
'Tea' is a part of a pastry-cafeteria-and-stores chain which I like because of their light cakes with modern taste and handsome waiters (only men, no women);-)

This forth site of their has:

a kind lady behind the bar,

no male waiters :-(

a great old-fashioned coffee machine

great horse-headed piles on the pavement in front

coffee and tea selection of the brand Richard

Italian food and wine and other bottles...

and last but not least - the tiny rounded paper for your chewing gum served together with your coffee.
It won my heart :-) Can you see it on the picture above?
Their ceiling was a strong competition to it though.

But it's too cold in the winter mornings there so I'll wait till April before visiting the kind lady again.

On Kathryn and TED

Honestly, I cannot tell you if they served coffee at the TEDxBG event held yesterday in Sofia as I did not attend it. Not that I didn't want to, just was late to arrange the tickets. And they were sold in few hours or days as far as I've heard. You can read some reviews in Bulgarian from bloggers I follow here, here, and here.

Although I didn't attend, I've read those reviews and I was really glad to learn that a very important speaker was presented there although not in person (if this was the case, I would have for sure regreted not attending the event). The organizers have shown a video by my most favourite speaker at TED events - Ms Kathryn Schulz with her talk 'On being wrong'. She has inspired me with it last year when I wrote here few thoughts on the importance of being wrong and accepting it. This woman has incredible sense for small issues that in fact are our big torturers in life. And has the passion to observe and analyze them, along with the empathy needed to calm the other human creatures around that these doubts are normal and they are what make us real and good people, not robots.

Enjoy her talks on being wrong and having no regrets - may be they will help you get in peace with yourself :-)

Christmas Vienna – close and personal

When I wrote about the Viennese coffee in Rousse, I did not have even a clue that I will drink it soon in its original version and original location. But that’s the best thing about life – unexpected things happen. And all we have to do is look for them and accept them as they come!



So I went to Vienna with two goals – to see Gustav Klimt’s paintings and drink punsch at a Christmas market in Vienna (these markets are called Christkindlmarkt which seems too long a word but very sweet once you get used to the sound of it).
I did visited three exhibitions of Klimt and 5-6 Christmas markets as you can see on the picture above. The orange punsch was great although prepared with artificial essences and not with real orange fruits.

But I really couldn’t miss the chance to taste a cup of real Viennese coffee. As far as I could see there were two major types of preparation – espresso with whipped cream and coffee mélange. There is the whipped cream one.
I did taste that at the Kunsthistorisches Museum café among great statues and rich secession arches after I’ve climbed the staircase painted by Klimt himself (I tell you, it’s incredible!).

Then I checked the mélange at two places – the Demel Bakery and a nameless café in the Kunsthalle building where many young artists gather for a nice chat in a cosy place. Here are the Demel mélange and cakes.

Conclusion is – it’s up to the place and personal taste. Melange is lighter and smoother for drinking. But the whipped cream café made me feel somehow special with that white curved top sneaking beyond the edge of the cup. And the cakes and strudels were great all around Viena ;-)

New way. New life.

Sometimes we need to change something in the everyday routine just in order to feel alive. This could be our way to work, or the type of clothes we chose to wear today, or the thoughts we chose to start the day with. I've tried with the thoughts and it worked... for about a month. I'll tell you another time about that. Now I'm trying to start my day without coffee. That doesn't mean I am not a coffee fan anymore. I just try to live without it so that I enjoy it more. As much as I used to enjoy it before I started drinking three cups a day between e-mail checking, quarrels at the office, and excel sheets browsing... I wanted to re-invent the pleasure of its taste, to remember how it was when I touched it for the first time. Also, that helped me find new tastes in life - those of different types of tea. When we are over with something old, we always find something new to replace it. Like these:


And I can tell you, it worked surprisingly well. I felt shockingly well :-) Shocking was my first morning without coffee when I realised I am still alive after not having it for a couple of hours after waking up! Long live the fresh tea!

My record was 7 days without a morning cup of coffee and 5 days without coffee at all. Now it's over, but I will try to not drink coffee whenever possible so that I don't get used to it... As ADF sang once: new way, new life :-)

Memento amore*

It’s been quite a while since I haven’t written anything here, but it is summer time in Bulgaria – get it? I prefer to enjoy the café places with friends more than writing about them at home alone. But it would be really a sin to miss mentioning that one – Memento, my favourite place for this summer.

Although it is located at the corner of two busy streets in the ideal centre of Sofia, the feeling you get when seated there is as if you are at a seaside bar, or even, at a seaside bar on a Greek island. I’ve read an interview with the owner and this feeling was confirmed as it appeared that he is from Crete. So the guy has just managed to bring the same air of freshness and leisure to the noisy and relatively dirty centre of Sofia.

He tried it twice in fact, as there are two Mementos in Sofia, but I prefer the one on the crossroad of Gurko Str. and Rakovski Str. Even the trash containers on the street are not an obstacle to the nice view as they are fenced with some branded metallic cover with cute golden fish on it. Sorry, I didn’t take a picture of it, but look at their cappuccino (this one is grande, taste is very mild - the best coffee I’ve tasted recently! ) and tables , and flowers. And not as expensive as those at Costa and Starbucks, sorry, guys – Memento coffee is better and plus, you’re getting it served, not self-served!

And I loved the blue chairs hanging from the large tree above the café which were recently removed for some reason!

The inside rooms are very well designed and I guess they will be great and cozy in winter evenings – I will test them in October-November, you bet! And also, they offer a tea menu with quite a lot of choices. I went once with a friend who says the masala tea prepared at Paper cake is better… but as they have all other tea types in Memento except for masala, we couldn’t compare ;-) Oh, dear, I miss the feeling of that evening when I even declined a last-minute offer to go for free to the Sting concert in town (can you imagine? ) as it was sooo nice just to stay there and talk and relax…

And it is a great crowded lively place to go at a Friday night after a terrible day and a week and have 3 drinks and get pleasantly drunk with a couple of friends, hunting men and greeting life as it comes. So I have my great day and night memories from Memento, get your own if you like to!

*Hopefully, in Italian this could be read as a word play of ‘Remember love’ and ‘Love Memento’

Bio coffee - no, bio sweets - yes, yes, yes!

Finally, I had the chance to taste a real bio coffee, produced according all the requirements for coffee to be licensed as bio (or at least, I guess it is according to them as it was prepared in a specialized bio shop). It was a pleasant experience to taste the coffee as there was a corner for drinks outdoors at the event I was attending, the weather in Sofia was beautiful that day and all the people were in good mood although they were trapped to spend the wonderful Saturday indoors staring at the stage or at the screen of their smartphones twitting questions to the speakers....

The coffee wasn't quite good, I should say, although with loads of milk added... It tasted as if prepared from sugar beet or something :-( Traditional (non-bio???) coffee won the match!

And don't ask me what the little thing beside the cup is - it was made of paper, very nicely designed, a small stone and a garlic inside - to keep us safe from the wind and the flu, probably ;-)
But the amazing thing were the sweets we were given to serve ourselves with....Wow! A woman owning a guest-house in a village somewhere in the Rila mountain has prepared them for us - the unknown guests of the event she was a speaker at. Thank you, Deshka!

Those were tasty amazing things - four types, but I liked most two of them: one made of pumpkin (the yellow ones at your left), and the other which looked as small meatballs steeped in sugar syrup which dripped all around (the brown ones at the right) and everybody's fingers were sticky with it, hankies were the most wanted good around... But it was funny, and nice, and - most importantly! - tasty in the old-fashioned home-made way :-)

Back to Viennese: city and coffee

It's been a while as I have last written about drinks and cafeteria. But here is the inspiration I needed - I visited a city I love and moreover, I visited it accompanied by the right people, in the right time. 'No, it's not Vienna', a friend called the album of pictures showing in a creative way some of the best building in Ruse. Yes, it's not - it's even better because of the warm, friendly and relaxed feeling you get when walking around. No posing, no stiff-upper lip, but still very aristocratic. See here for yourself.

But let me tell you about coffee drinking there. For many year now, the speciality in the Ruse cafeteria was the so called 'Viennese coffee' - espresso with cream on it and cocoa powder on the top. Now I notice this otherwise obligatory part of the menu in each cafeteria and restaurant has been at some places replaced by the so 'modern' moccaccino, late, etc... The thing closest to Viennese was the so called coffee con pana. Ok, I respect the different languages but I'd really prefer to have back my good old Viennese coffee, which I remember from my school years - looks more or less that that (couldn't find a more exact picture):

After some arguments on choosing the best place to sit our choice for the first day was a cafe (and a curious fast food place) on the main pedestrian street - Planet Food. After an exhausting sightseeing tour the fresh coffee, great indoor design and many people around was what we needed. But we god a bonus - how I love nice surprises! - home-made lemonade, correct proportion of sugar, lemon and orange juice and water, price - twice as cheaper as it would have been in Sofia. We couldn't believe it, some of us had two glasses:-)

On the second day we visited a cafe/restaurant which offered us a green garden on the roof, relatively good quality coffee, great pizza and poor sandwiches :(


The place offered as a bonus an interesting view towards the backs and roofs of some major old buildings in the city centre and a couple of small waterfalls in the garden. So it was worth seeing it. All of it, all of Ruse :-)