Day tripping: an opportunity, denied!

Last weekend, we when up to town to see the Lucian Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Excellent, exhibition that allowed you to understand how he constructed his works. Going up to town also gave me the opportunity to go to Taylor's HQ and tick it off the todo list as well as allowing me to go to a couple of my favour shops. I did my homework and found Taylor's on google maps and bookmarked it on my phone as it is a bit off the beaten track, hidden be hind Clarigates.

A : See Details(Google Map)

We arrived in London and took a tube to the closest station and then followed the phones instruction to find the coffee house, tucked up a back allay. The one thing I didn't check was if they actually opened at the weekend, they do not. I mean who doesn't open at the weekend, apparently they don't.

Its now mid morning, I have survived public transport, the place I've actually made the effort to find is shut. I need coffee. On route to the shut Taylor's we passed a couple of interesting / independent looking coffee houses.

The one we chose was a place called Everbean, what a peace of luck, from walking in to walking out again, it was a pleasure. The environment is contemporary industrial, the atmosphere is intermit and friendly and the coffee......

Is first rate, every bit as good as the coffee I didn't have at Taylor's because they don't open at the weekends at the London shop.

A : See Details(Google Map)

More in hope than expectation

You never know what you might find or see in Brighton so some times its a pleasure to turn left instead of the usual right.

Whist searching for more detail on darkfluid and where I might be able to get some beans, I came across this link. The link details some of the better coffee shops, dotted around Brighton. As we go to Brighton quite often, I'm keeping my eyes open and as I come across one on the list I'll update with some photos and opinion.

On this weekends trip to Brighton, we stopped in at Taylor's for the obligatory breakfast, before going shopping and wondering. In the back of my mind I was hoping their would be another food market and we would just trip upon Lawrence and darkfluid again.

There was another food market much bigger than the previous one, so we checked every stall and ......nothing, lots of great food other coffee sellers and even some selling a coffee substitute. Like there can be a substitute, I ask you. But no darkfluid, so we went for sushi as a consolation, a little Japan's place hidden in one of the lanes, that if you don't know where it is you will never find it. Servers tempura, sushi and sashimi and no I'm not telling where you can find it.

After lunch we continue up the lanes and where we would normally turn round and head back to the car we turned left and headed up the hill towards the station. That's when we spotted coffee@33, having read the reviews on line, not had coffee after lunch and not wishing to miss an opportunity to try a coffeehouse that I hadn't had the pleasure of before, we popped in.

Friendly staff and an excellent selection of cakes and chocolate, stodgy looking pastries....we'd just had lunch so we gave them a miss but they did look very tempting. There's an Italian feel to the place, decor is minimal but functional, didn't spot any free wifi but didn't real look for it.

I ordered a cappuccino and a mocha, the chap serving gave me a look, then I remembered, that in Italy cappuccino is a morning drink and drinking in after 10 am is frowned on. Just as well I'm in England and don't really give a damn, I'm more interested in how good your coffee is and if your good enough to tempt me away from Taylor's.

The coffee was good, the cappuccino wasn't, classic thirds but the mocha was chocolate heaven, dark and strong, luckily I only ordered the regular any more and a headache would have been guaranteed. The outcome, I will continue to go to Taylor's. In short, as I have said before, its about the coffee and the coffee is better at Taylor's.