It was near the strip mall with the now defunct Nazca Grill.
The Forum Coffee House has a makeshift banner for now but it's under the auto insurance place...
It seems like a random place to put a coffee shop but let's go in shall we...
The quote you see on the wooden boards is made out of nail heads! That must have taken forever to make!
They serve drinks and a few savory and sweet items here:
Some of these jar contents are used as garnish for their drinks.
Drinks are named after tech lingo which Bert (as an IT guy) appreciated. Sadly, his Troubleshooter latte was pretty boring looking. No latte art in this day and age? This was espresso with salted caramel and steamed almond milk. He said it was too sweet for his tastes.
Two of these three were mine!
The Dreamer was cold brew house blend chai with milk, garnished with two star spice pods. The color is blue due to butterfly pea powder (that's a thing now, first experienced when the Educator GF's and I tried the drinks at Cake de Partie). What am I doing with a chai drink you ask? Research for the blog of course. My hatred of chai flavored drinks was overcome to try this. TC took one sip and said it tasted like "Christmas in a glass". Not sure if that is good or not. To me, it tasted faintly of potpourri. Had a few sips and yeah, still not a chai fan.
I would rather drink the blue milk that Aunt Beru gives Luke Skywalker at breakfast!
TC's Clickbait - Cold brew lavender infused Earl Grey tea with housemade berry sauce. TC ended up scooping out the lavender buds. You can still see the milk and cold brew layers in her drink and mine (before we mixed it)...
My "Elite" - White chocolate mocha with with rose syrup and garnished with rose buds. There was also a reddish pink powder on here (not sure what it was). This was a really smooth drink. The rose flavor was not that strong. I too, fished out the floral garnish.
Mixed and ready to go.
My mixed blue drink matched quite well with Bert's Aloha shirt (Costco!).
The very next day, I returned to The Forum Coffee House with D for a morning adventure. It was Labor Day and we had just come from the new Nomad Donuts Bakery & Cafe.
It was time for our morning coffees (plural) as well as Breakfast Part 2. If you recall, we had Montreal style bagel breakfast sandwiches earlier (we ate about a third so we could save our appetite for here)...
Below, three of our four drinks (D also ordered the Elite, which I had the day before but her version didn't have as many rosebuds):
The smaller drink above was called Over the Top which was espresso with creamy custard and whipped cream. The drink with the milk on top was the K.O.K.O. (cold brew with coconut milk and maple syrup) and the BB Code (cold brew with house made banana milk). ALL OF THESE DRINKS WERE AMAZING!
Our cold brew drinks before we mixed them.
This tasted like a very concentrated Vietnamese coffee. It was like an espresso con panna.
You can see D's Elite drink below - no reddish powder and only one or two rosebuds. Not as pretty as what I had yesterday but still just as smooth and delicious.
Our breakfast toasts, which we fully knew we would not finish (that's what the cooler is for folks).
Above, the Rule 34 - Smoked salmon and cream cheese, cucumber, lemon, dill and fresh cracked black pepper.
Below, 404 Error - Genoa salami with cream cheese, apricot preserve, arugula, tomato and shredded parmesan cheese. There was a slightly spicy aioli on top which was a nice touch.
Of the two, I liked the one with salami better. D originally wanted the Digital Detox (the everpresent avocado toast) but believe it or not, they were out of avocado! I didn't really like the bread and ate the toppings instead. We each managed to eat half and kept the rest as leftovers to enjoy for later.
What a spread man.
Those cold brews were so good. I actually drank coffee on a Monday. I justified it since I had a conference at UCSD the next day and wouldn't really be in the office, heh heh.
Dairy free drinks! Plus, totally wired!
[Update 11/27/17 - Kirbie's recent post here!] - featuring her lovely photos of their drinks and toasts
The Forum Coffee House
4340 Genessee Ave, Suite 110
San Diego, CA 92117
fb page + reviews on yelp
Just for fun:
I'm going to have to think of reasons to be in this area so I can try their other drinks. Although I'm not a big fan of green tea, I still want to try their colorful green tea based drinks...MFH and TORC's bday crawls have yet to be planned so maybe...maybe...
4 comments:
Ahhh! I love this post. I've been wanting to try this coffee house for weeks now. The cold brew with coconut milk has my name written all over it. Was the milk naturally sweet? Trying to count the calories/carbs in my coffee these days.
I'm glad The Forum seems to be doing well. Not sure the type of crowds - I heard mostly UCSD students?
So sad Nazca closed down - didn't know that until reading your post.
Have you tried Zumbar? That's my favorite latte right now.
Thank you Faye! :)
You should definitely try this place out. The coconut milk drink was really good and not overly sweet. I like that there are a few non dairy options here. I can handle milk...sometimes but I would rather do almond or coconut nowadays.
I went Sunday morning and Monday morning when it wasn't busy. I don't know what the "crowd" is like at other times. I was bummed about Nazca, I did like their food although Kirk had posted that they had gone downhill.
Yes, I've tried Zumbar in the past but not the latte (just the iced mocha). I need to do a revisit since it's been several years.
I drove to Forum after reading your post :) Couldn't wait. Didn't have a chance to try any food as I had a lunch meeting later on but did try two coffee drinks (within like a 1.5h time frame which gave me caffeine jitters). There wasn't a single table open by the time I settled in. Busy/popular place! They let me sample the coconut milk - I want to say they add something to it (maybe cream?) but yes it wasn't too sweet. Hoping to try the custard one - they said it was their take on tiramisu which I thought was so cool .
Oh wow! It was packed, eh? Try the drink with custard next time. It's not chunky like flan, but more like condensed milk-like. It was kind of like VN coffee but not iced.
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