Local Food

Yes, beet is spelled correctly: beet as in that beautiful dark burgundy root vegetable so dear to my Central European heart. I love beets so when the recently opened Cartel Coffee Lab got a new lunch menu which included a beet salad, I took a chance and had it.

Not really a chance. I've had many of their culinary choices in Downtown Phoenix which are excellent: Try the omelet or the Big Ben or even a simply yet awesome BLT.

Intermission: What's a salad review doing on the real estate website? What's a city without food? The better the food the better the city, the lifestyle and I bet it's good for real estate prices as well, just look at what La Grande Orange did for the 40th Street and Campbell area.

Greens, red onion, roasted beets, cherry…

A Sunday morning in an almost empty quite and recently opened Cartel Coffee Lab in what used to be Sola Coffee Bar which I never visited.

The interior is awesome. With several couches, lots of seating ares and plenty of tables: 3 large ones in fact. Enough to spread out for a few hours of working or sitting and reading the newest book good enough to actually be read.

It's at once elegant, modern and rough. Probably the use of natural materials like wood and steel and the concrete floor all lit by a warm glow of several spot lights.

It feels warm and inviting, a comfortable place to be and enjoy some of the best coffee in town, though the food selection on Sunday sparse. This is actually good for those trying to avoid the temptation of those…

While ordering coffee. "I don't need a lid, thanks" I said. The nice girl replied, "I have to put on the lid for hot beverages. You can take it off after you leave the counter, but I have to put it on." All I could do is smile and take my coffee and dump the lid a few feet away before I sat down to drink it.

The Business of Real Estate

The business of real estate can and is often a stressful job, that is if one cares, about the outcome. When a client need to close on a home because he's moving here and an appraisal comes in completely off the mark, that's a problem that may or may not be resolve. It's stressful situation for everyone, even though it's one of the hurdles that comes up in some transactions, though it can't always to resoved to…

Moving the series Urban Bike, over from PhoenixMarketTrends, is becoming hard work. This post was released in mid fall last year and makes me very impatient for fall in 2011. I can't wait to jump on my bike an ride over fallen leaves and listen to how they crumple under the skinny wheels.

It’s been a gruesome while since my bike saw much pavement in the last 2 months.  I guess when I think of the places I may ride to, I immediately get a tingle of boredom, but that’s more because of a lack of imagination or the forgotten realism that there are places to discover in Phoenix, that nooks and crannies lie all around and that cycling is a pleasure.

The latter is a, ‘not doubt’, it’s just the city that got me down. I’m a bit mad at Phoenix…

[ This is a repost of an urban bike excursion originally posted at Phoenix Market Trends. We'll be doing another one when the weather cools off becasue the coffee scene has changed a bit. ]

Compare downtown Phoenix to just a few years ago and the difference is almost dramatic, startling and intriguing.   Not so many years ago there was no place to go, nothing really to do and there were few people around. 

Now, while still far from urban, Central Phoenix has lots of places and reasons to be there and Coffee shops have become a staple in Midtown and Downtown Phoenix, especially independent coffee shops.  So when Arizona Coffee put a list together of the independent coffee houses I decided to visit my favorites and check out the new ones, I’ve…

Since the demise of the Coffee Plantation at the Biltmore Fashion Park a few years back there was no coffee shop with good coffee at this mall. That's not to say that Coffee Plantation had good coffee, they did not, but what they had was a place for people of all sorts to meet, sit and lounge about while discussing topics from local to international. I loved that place as much as I disliked the coffee, but I still drank it.  

I met some great people while sitting about reading or draining the battery on my laptop. Amongs the languages spoken were, Spanish, French, Polish, Russian, Serbian etc. Yes, there as a heavy influence of Europeans who so much enjoy the type of cafe culture this place provided. 

When it died and closed none of these people…

Did you ever bite into something and said to yourself, OMG or at least your buds were perked like a buoyant spring flower when a bee sits on it? 

When the combination of ingredients, textures, smells all come together just right and nothing else, for the moment, seems to matter.

I'm not exaggerating about what I felt when I bit into a BLT - bacon lettuce and tomato - sandwich in Cartel at the downtown Phoenix location.

Crisp, juicy, fresh lettuce and tomato, thick buttery Sweet bacon: a crunchy euro style crust on the sourdough bread: ooh la la.

Cartel keeps surprising me from the awesome coffee, to the superb baked goods to the food. An unlikely place to good such goodness,  but it's here, it's local and worth the extra few quarters in the…

Good food is often found in the most unexpected places. I found the best breakfast burrito 2 years ago at Bomberos Cafe and Wine Bar, but it had closed recently for reasons other then good food. 

Left to look for a replacement I tried breakfast burritos in many other places and most were good, but ordinary. Then I finally took to eating something at Cartel Coffee which I frequent for their truly amazing high quality coffee including the rich flavor and unique coffee from the Clover machine which I highly recommend and which you'll need to drink there, not from a paper cup.

The burrito was fresh as can be, full of vegetables with the ideal crisp and soft ratio, eggs, bacon by choice, cheese and soft light tortilla. It was a perfect balance between…

If you like beer then the 2010 Oktoberfest coming this weekend should be excitement enough, but it's also the 200th anniversary of the original Oktoberfest in Germany which is unlike anything you'll see in Phoenix and should be on your list of things to do before you ______ (fill in the blank).  

I'm Polish so I should have a lot to gripe about the Germans.  The Polish and German history is one filled with conflict and distrust some of which continues to this day, but this is the minority: unfortunately some are politicians on both sided of the border.  The history is worth a read.  

Anyway we share a lot as well.  Women, sauerkraut, beer, sausage, potatoes, land, history, beer and beer.  

Oktoberfest is not all about beer, but that's what…