Location: 155 W Center Street Promenade, Anaheim, CA 92805 Hey guys and welcome back to another post! Get yourselves a well earned coffee break and discover this amazing shop located in the Anaheim Colony Historic District. Ink & Bean is located on a promenade lined with small businesses and lots of places to eat. This shop is also walking distance to the Anaheim Packing House (which include places like Popbar and Mini Monster among other bars and cafes). It's definitely in a prime location and the coffee explains why they are there. Just walking along the promenade tells you that this is the spot where all the cool kids hang out. All the small specialty shops are connected with their windows and doors wide open on nice days; inviting to any passerby. Ink & Bean is a small coffee shop and modeled after buildings I have seen when I was visiting London. Above shows the front counter which showcases lavish granite and a fair amount of gilding. Their menu is simple to read with not many extraneous items such as frapps or smoothies. All you get is coffee and tea which usually indicates (to me at least) they know what they are doing. It basically screams to me that their coffee speaks for itself and don't need any gimmicks to draw customers in. This place also claims to be a word shop where you can buy writing materials such as pencils, pens, sketchbooks, vintage typewriters, etc. Anything a writer needs, they have. If you are an avid reader or inspiring author, you'll appreciate all the bookshelves and display cases they have which they use to show their products. I was actually talking with my girlfriend that our house will need a whole wall dedicated for bookshelves to display all of our books and figurines that we collect. To amplify this word shop atmosphere, they have one communal table in the center of their small shop. When we arrived, there was a couple of people on their laptops and tons of paper scattered across the table. By the time we got our order, more people arrived with more papers and started to have lively discussions about something. As you can tell, there isn't much seating within the shop itself, but there is a plethora of them outside. If you've ever been to San Francisco, you'll see it's actually common to have part of the street partitioned off and either a deck or mat placed on the street where tables and seating reside. I'm unsure if the city placed this deck or if it was a collaboration between all the neighboring stores, but it was nice to sit outside and people watch while drinking our coffees which we will now review! I ordered my go to cappuccino while Jessica got their seasonal Peppermint Mocha. The latter you can have hot or iced. Unsure if she wanted it hot or not, Jessica took the advice from the barista and ordered it iced. Now, normally I dislike mochas or anything with syrup in it because it makes the drink too sweet for my liking. However, this drink was EXTREMELY good... The peppermint syrup didn't overpower any other ingredients of the drink and was not too chocolaty either. It was a smooth drink and could hardly get any of the harshness from the espresso which was in it. If all their iced drinks are like this, you won't be disappointed and will actually enjoy your coffee without it being overly sweet or too bitter. The harmony they were able to create between all the ingredients speak about their knowledge for coffee starting with acquiring the right ingredients to the execution of the drink from the barista. Their cappuccino was just as enjoyable and well balanced. The micro-foam they created was exceptional and made drinking the espresso smooth with little bitterness. This might be due to the beans that they use, Stumptown Coffee. If you don't already know, Stumptown is one of my favorite coffee roasters right after Blue Bottle Coffee Co. All in all, Ink & Bean knows their coffee from creating the perfect atmosphere and communal feeling to what they put in the cup. You will enjoy your visit here and most likely, you will want to return again and again. Atmosphere and Decor: 10/10 Coffee: 9/10 Recommend: Anything in your favorite style of coffee. lunar new year bonus: disneyland!The reason why Jessica and I were in Anaheim was to celebrate the Lunar New Year at Disneyland's California Adventure Park. They were having food booths in front of the pier representing foods and drinks from Korea, China, and Vietnam. Jessica wanted to try the soup dumplings they had at the China booth (which was delicious) and I opted to try the Vietnamese iced coffee and sugar cane shrimp skewers. I kid you not, guys... I had the biggest smile on my face after taking my first bite of the shrimp... It was so freaking good that I wanted to buy like four more orders because they only gave you three small pieces. The iced coffee was decent and nothing really to note. It did pair well though with the shrimp and the sweet potato macaron that Jessica ordered. Thanks for reading guys and hope to see you out there at coffee joints I visit during my adventures!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Coffee SenpaiJust an Otaku who also loves his coffee. Grab some coffee and watch anime with me ٩(θ‿θ)۶ Blog is currently on hold. Sorry for the inconvenience ._.
Archives
March 2017
Categories |