Café Olé serves café au lait right way
Aaron Sakulich
Issue date: 2/18/05 Section: Entertainment
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Since you're reading this right now, I guess it's not all that pretentious of me to say that I'm a writer. For whatever reason, my ears cringe when I say that about myself, because it brings to my mind images of thick framed glasses, berets, scarves, and all sorts of eccentric accoutrements.
Be that as it may and on a not wholly tangential subject, I got a laptop computer about a year ago. Impressed? Don't be. It's ten years old, and was handed down to me by someone who got it as a hand-me-down in the first place. It weighs in at a very portable 50 pounds and has a battery life of one half of ten minutes, as Strongbad would say.
Anyway, the reason I'm telling you about this abomination of a computational device is that when I first got it, I imagined myself carrying it to cafés, sitting with a coffee and a sandwich (a ham sandwich, if you're curious) and cranking out homework, Triangle articles, or what have you. The problem being that the cafés in the Drexel area are, for lack of a better word, pretty lame. I've always thought to myself "self, wouldn't it be great if I could find a really cool place somewhere, where I could park myself for a day and crank out the meaningless paperwork that Drexel demands by the wheelbarrow full?"
I can't say I've been exactly scouring the area, but I finally found it. The place is called Café Olé and it's got to be the coolest café I've ever been in. I'm not a coffee snob, and to be honest I can't tell when coffee is good, bad, or the other. I have it on good authority that the coffee I brew at home is absolutely terrible, and this place's coffee didn't taste like that, so I'm going to advance the theory that theirs is pretty good. I had the Chai, which was perfect for the bleak, rainy day on which we stopped by.
The thing that really impressed me, though, was the food. They have sandwiches, wraps and salads, and from what I can tell they are absolutely perfect, the golden pinnacle of the sandwich-making art. Everyone knows that a sandwich really succeeds or fails based on its' bread. The bread they use here is that thick, crusty, rustic type stuff that you usually have to buy from that weird looking guy at the grocery store. Either that, or go to that one grocery store that doesn't use fertilizers and all the people there have enormous, gauged-out ears. Not only do they use great bread, there's a thing behind the counter that looks like a big waffle iron on which they grill your sandwich. Never before has a turkey sandwich (with lettuce, tomato, onion, swiss cheese, and mustard) been so good. It also came with a cucumber salad that is exactly the salad aliens would abduct if they were setting up some sort of space zoo for salads. That is to say, it was a prime example of its' kind. Behind the glass counter there were stacks of wraps and sandwiches, each of which looked delectable. What really caught my eye, however, were the salads. Big and green, with a pile of hummus in the middle and blocks of feta cheese, olives, and other goodies along the side. I'll be going back there just for a shot at one of them.
Be that as it may and on a not wholly tangential subject, I got a laptop computer about a year ago. Impressed? Don't be. It's ten years old, and was handed down to me by someone who got it as a hand-me-down in the first place. It weighs in at a very portable 50 pounds and has a battery life of one half of ten minutes, as Strongbad would say.
Anyway, the reason I'm telling you about this abomination of a computational device is that when I first got it, I imagined myself carrying it to cafés, sitting with a coffee and a sandwich (a ham sandwich, if you're curious) and cranking out homework, Triangle articles, or what have you. The problem being that the cafés in the Drexel area are, for lack of a better word, pretty lame. I've always thought to myself "self, wouldn't it be great if I could find a really cool place somewhere, where I could park myself for a day and crank out the meaningless paperwork that Drexel demands by the wheelbarrow full?"
I can't say I've been exactly scouring the area, but I finally found it. The place is called Café Olé and it's got to be the coolest café I've ever been in. I'm not a coffee snob, and to be honest I can't tell when coffee is good, bad, or the other. I have it on good authority that the coffee I brew at home is absolutely terrible, and this place's coffee didn't taste like that, so I'm going to advance the theory that theirs is pretty good. I had the Chai, which was perfect for the bleak, rainy day on which we stopped by.
The thing that really impressed me, though, was the food. They have sandwiches, wraps and salads, and from what I can tell they are absolutely perfect, the golden pinnacle of the sandwich-making art. Everyone knows that a sandwich really succeeds or fails based on its' bread. The bread they use here is that thick, crusty, rustic type stuff that you usually have to buy from that weird looking guy at the grocery store. Either that, or go to that one grocery store that doesn't use fertilizers and all the people there have enormous, gauged-out ears. Not only do they use great bread, there's a thing behind the counter that looks like a big waffle iron on which they grill your sandwich. Never before has a turkey sandwich (with lettuce, tomato, onion, swiss cheese, and mustard) been so good. It also came with a cucumber salad that is exactly the salad aliens would abduct if they were setting up some sort of space zoo for salads. That is to say, it was a prime example of its' kind. Behind the glass counter there were stacks of wraps and sandwiches, each of which looked delectable. What really caught my eye, however, were the salads. Big and green, with a pile of hummus in the middle and blocks of feta cheese, olives, and other goodies along the side. I'll be going back there just for a shot at one of them.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
BobFakeson
BobFakeson
posted 2/22/05 @ 1:11 PM EST
chai is tea.
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