Elliott C. Back » Food

Starbucks Via: Mediocre Instant Coffee

Elliott Back — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 06:48:07 +0000

I tried out the new overhyped Starbucks Via Instant Coffee they introduced yesterday and today. The marketing material is over the top. It’s just fine-ground dehydrated coffee. When you rehydrate it, it’s lost most of the essential oils that make for good coffee.

Now you can enjoy our bold and roasty-sweet Italian Roast in an instant. Just tear open a pack of Starbucks VIA™ Ready Brew and add water. Let the coffee brew 10 seconds, stir, savor and enjoy. It’s not instant coffee the way you know it. This is genuine, dark-roasted Starbucks® coffee. 100% arabica and ethically sourced. Isn’t it wonderful? There’s now an instant coffee that you can start a whole new tradition with.

I noticed a couple problems with the coffee:

It tasted good with milk and about 5 oz of water. With 7-8 oz, it was extremely watery. Maybe hotter water would help?
The grounds formed a suspension in the water, the didn’t seem to dissolve very well. I stirred thoroughly.

The NY Daily News says it doesn’t taste very good, and bnet calls it a tough sell. At $0.99 per coffee, the price isn’t right for the casual drinker (their grande drip coffee is $1.70). I would recommend sticking to heartier fare–like the latte!

Broad Street Festival & Food

Elliott Back — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:13:27 +0000

Today at lunch I came across something interesting–a street fair on Broad Street in downtown Manhattan, NYC. It’s officially a Community Day Festival. There were lots of street-food vendors, small trinket sellers, and a shop selling reggae music! I got a nice shishkabob for lunch:

Here’s a picture of a “sweet roasted corn” stand:

And the whole scene:

For more festival schedules, check out Cititour’s festival guide.

Ghost Goblets: Wine Glasses inside Tumblers

Elliott Back — Fri, 30 May 2008 00:54:01 +0000

You have to check out these wine glasses from Cocktail Vibe. A set of four handblown glasses can be bought for just $74.95; the unique design features a glass sculpture holding your drink inside of a clear tumber; absolutely unique!

I know the above reads like ad copy, but these are the most innovative glasses I’ve seen in a while. SO COOL!!

Alcohol Infusions Look Tasty

Elliott Back — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 04:09:46 +0000

A company called 267 has a new product, which blends different fruits and spices into your choice of Vodka or Tequila. The big attraction is the packaging, which features a glass bottle and the suspended vegetation. Take a look at their Tequila Chile Peppers product:

*drool*. … .. . . yes it’s gorgeous. There are also rum and vodka infusions with citrus, olives, etc. I googled a little, but I haven’t seen anything like this either online or yet in stores. Looks good, though! Whenever I see “lemon vodka” in the stores or some other flavor, thoughts of artificial nasty flavours just gross me out. This looks better.

Buy Pistachios, Nuts Wholesale, Bulk

Elliott Back — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:25:05 +0000

I wanted to feed my addiction to pistacios so I looked around for a good distributer of large amounts of them, and found Nuts Online. I was quite pleased with their service–for about $100 I ordered 25lbs of Pistachios, which arrived within two days. They arrived in a shapely box:

I quickly opened my nuts in the box:

Yes, it sure is full of luscious nuts:

This makes me want to compose a song like:

Hey girl I got somethin’ real important to give you
So just sit down and listen

[...]

Somethin’ special girl
It’s nuts in a box, those nuts in a box babe