This particular stripmall is in Grantville...
destination of one of my favorite donut joints plus a nice and new coffee bar...
First, coffee at the new'ish S3 Coffee Bar.
My online coupon was for 15% off for educators during the month of September (I noticed the assumption is that all educators are on the "traditional" school schedule; for the record, our district is what they call Modified Year Round and start in July).
Below, TC's acai bowl and Bert's mocha.
I know that acai is supposed to be healthy and all, but I just can't get into these acai bowls. It's like a dessert but kind of not. In any case, TC loves it and has even made her own with the frozen acai packs from Costco.
My blended banana mocha freeze which hit the spot on this hot day...
While Bert and TC were ordering their items, I made a quick run to Donut Panic...
Above, half a dozen vegan donuts (Linda's donuts are the only vegan ones I like and more affordable too). Flavors were the Maple (mock) bacon, Early Gray, the Homer, Churro, Thai Tea and an apple fritter which we really enjoyed.
Another revisit was a bakery Bert and I hadn't been to since earlier this year, Olive Baking Co., on Santa Clara St. in Mission Beach.
We'd just had lunch at Rosaria Pizza and stopped by here before heading back to Belmont.
It's a cute little bakery that also serves fresh bread and savory items and drinks (sodas, coffee, etc).
We liked seeing the framed historical photos of Mission Beach in the early 1900's.
Look up and you'll see rolling pins as decor.
I like how they repurposed this heart shaped wire basket. Cute!
The story of their Alaskan sourdough starter. We'll have to try their sourdough bread next time. I didn't see this until right before we were about to leave.
A crab shaped bread. They had other shaped breads near their counter.
We didn't get too much here - peanut butter cookie, a pumpkin snickerdoodle (despite my hatred for almost all things pumpkin; this was mainly for Bert's sake) and a raspberry cream cheese kolache.
Cross section of the kolache. The bread is eggy but not as eggy as a brioche. Personally, I didn't care for it. It was too "bready" for me. Bert liked it but we both thought that the kolache would be filled instead of just having the raspberry and cheese on top. The only other time we've had kolaches was at the Kolache Factory in Tustin but we only had savory ones rather than sweet; we visited a couple of times last year).
Cute house in front of the bakery.
These last few revisits were in PB.
I actually had to drop off a return at the UPS store next door and when I saw the sign, I figured I would make a quick stop here as well. It turns out that they are in the process of remodeling. They also enlarged their space and added a coffee bar, which wasn't quite ready yet.
Breads against the wall...
The coffee bar (cool handpaintedtiles!)...
I got a pack of sourdough rolls (some would be for us; the rest for Cathy and her Mister). The other item was a chocolate chip scone. I thought Bert might like it. I remember their scones as being ginormous last time and not really scone like but more dense and cake like. He did enjoy it over the next few days with coffee. The bakery didn't have the chocolate chip banana bread loaf that day so I may have to go back for that.
On that same visit, we traveled west on Garnet to do some thrift store shopping with TC. Before leaving we stopped into Pavaraga.
If you register with them, their system "remembers" the drink(s) that you ordered. In my case, they did not have my usual Ka'u coffee here but the worker suggested the North Kona beans for my iced mocha instead. The system also knew that I liked my mocha iced (instead of hot) and with almond milk. I like that it has a "memory". The North Kona beans were pretty good since it was a darker roast. It just wasn't quite as smooth as the Ka'u, but now I know what to get if the Ka'u is out.
The last revisit of this post was over in the Rolando neighborhood. This time with Cathy of mmm-yoso. We just had breakfast at the Daily Grind Cafe and I wanted her to give Duet Coffee a try for a specific drink. It was on the same street but just a few blocks westward.
We parked in this strip mall's lot, which was mostly empty. I noticed some utility boxes were painted with these rounded monsters (you can see a glimpse of it on the bottom right corner below). The same artist painted something similar in North Park (I'll have to see my older posts)...
Very cute, the pumpkin decor with Tillandsia plants as the "stem" or "hair" or whatever you want to call it.
I saw the sparkling drinks drawings AFTER I placed the order and by the time I decided I wanted that instead, it was too late. Frack! Ha ha. I really wanted to try that Gold Delight drink!
It was a Sunday and I opted not to get coffee. It's a self-imposed rule. No coffee for my during the work week except for Friday and Saturday. Or, if I'm on vacation, then those rules are thrown out the window and it's coffee every damn day.
So...this was the passionfruit iced tea. The same iced tea that Astroboi had back in April during my birthday crawl outing with him (post linked at the end).
For Cathy, she had the Orange capuccino which she really enjoyed. When Bert had this during a previous visit, I thought of Cathy and her husband's fondness for real orange flavored drinks and foods (like orange frost cruellers for one).
It was fun revisiting all of these places and trying some new items as well as old favorites, like Donut Panic's vegan donuts.
Previous visit to Olive Baking Co.:
January 2016
Previous visit to Charlie's Best Bread:
June 2015
Previous visit to Pavaraga (PB location):
June 2016
Previous visit to Duet Coffee:
June 2016
I can't believe the year is nearly over. The craft stores already have their Christmas items out and it's not even Halloween yet! Which reminds me, we need to buy some candy. Or do we? Well, yes we do. I already have my Halloween costume planned and some ideas for pumpkin carving (since we didn't do it last year). We'll see.
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