Bert had asked if Mostra carried any more of their coffee from the Philippines...
That batch sold out quickly a few years ago, however, Sam said that House of Black Coffee shop offered beans from the Philippines. It wasn't too far away, located in this strip mall in the Sabre Springs area. He also said that if you try to find House of Black through Instagram, type in the initials HOBCoffee instead of spelling it out. I made that mistake and ended up seeing some sort of XXX page, yikes. We thought it was cool that he recommended this place...shows congenial support.
Simple menu + specialty drinks (I really like seeing how different shops set themselves apart with their creativity via these drinks). They also sell croissants from the French Oven bakery. There was an ube spong cake which the server said was from a bakery in Penasquitos (but he didn't remember the name).
What we had/bought this morning:
Espresso con panna, a small square of the ube sponge cake, and a bag of their specialty Philippine coffee from the town of Belis, Benguet Province (located in the southern Cordillera region in northern Luzon). There is a small collection of farms there where they sit 1,400 above sea level. HOB Coffee partners with Kalsada Coffee (you saw the burlap bag a few photos up) which strives to improve farmers lives by paying them above fair trade. HOB is the only direct trade partner and retailer of this coffee in California and the southwestern U.S.. It's a blend and honey processed which is supposed to give it a more clear and pronounced flavor than natural processed coffee. (By the way, all of this info is from their IG posts).
Their kitchen hasn't passed inspection yet, so only paper cups for now and no serving plates or utensils. The ube cake was so soft with a coconut cream filling (macapuno!), which we liked. Kind of hard to eat neatly unless you shove the whole thing in your mouth.
I liked the shirt so much, I bought one for myself. :)
The housemade whip is vanilla and luckily, did NOT have cinnamon powder sprinkled on top. This espresso con panna was much easier to drink and enjoy than the more over the top version (which I still really love) at Mostra.
We had a nice chat with Ryan, one of the four co-owners. He happens to be Filipino American and is a pretty nice guy.
I dig the Barbara Krugeresque "No Cream". And yeah, if coffee is done right, you wouldn't need that shit in there to begin with!
As with Mostra, I went back the very next day with CAB. She was willing to give this place a try on short notice.
No ube sponge cake today but they did have ube pan de sal.
I couldn't believe I missed the Taro Latte the day before with Bert. I was just fixated on having another espresso con panna. Well, today, I got both the Taro latte and the 1904 (a code word for San Diego; the 19th and 4th letters of the alphabet = SD) latte which is vanilla/raspberry flavored. Their specialty drink names show their GOT loyalties, heh. I'm done with peppermint anything so no Winter is Here for me.
Their taro latte as depicted on their IG had pretty latte art. This is what I got that morning:
Hello? Maybe the barista who knows how to do latte art was out that morning? Or was too lazy to do it? Or doesn't know how? I was a bit disappointed because it's like getting Danny de Vito instead of (insert current hot male celebrity here). W.T.F.
As you can see, the lack of latte art extended to the 1904 and to CAB's salted caramel latte. Despite the lack of latte art (which really shouldn't define whether or not a drink is good or not), all of the drinks were pretty good. I probably should have gotten the 1904 iced. I normally don't get hot drinks. We ended up having to put mine in the car because we were not allowed to bring them in the next place we went to for lunch (post is next).
CAB enjoyed her salted caramel latte (her second caramel drink that day). The taro latte was quite nice. I had the milk subbed with coconut, which was a good combination. The 1904 latte was subbed with almond milk. The girl made it with soy, which I didn't ask for so I politely asked them to redo the drink.
One thing that peeved me for the second visit was when I saw my receipt. Since I bought a shirt yesterday, my emailed receipt came with a 20% offer for my next visit, which I thought was nice. I figured, hey, I'll use it when I go back the next day. I showed my phone with the offer to the girl before she rang me up. When I later saw my receipt, she had only given me 10% off. Yes, it's only a few cents, but wow, just wow. I didn't make a big deal of it in store. But later, when I got my emailed receipt for today's purchase for a 20% offer for a future visit, I will make sure to remind whoever rings me up to give me the full amount.
No articles thus far. See, I do try to dig up information. Once they do get written up, I'll update with links.
House of Black Coffee (HOB)
11385 Poway Rd., Suite 110
San Diego, CA 92123
(858) 883-0019
www.hobcoffee.com + the (so far) 7 reviews from you know where
Earlier we tried to have brunch at Nutmeg Cafe; Cathy had posted on Nutmeg last fall. I was curious since they also provide the pastries at Mostra. The line was ridiculously long and after spending seven to ten minutes in line, decided to FK that and head to HOB and our eventual lunch spot, which was chosen because it was in the same strip mall...
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