Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Late latte with Lulu
Ed finds the perfect people-watching spot in the Gaslamp.
A latte, some chocolate, and thou?
See, this is what I really really like doing best. Late night. Sitting with a cup of luscious coffee, dipping chunks of chocolate into it, soaking in the atmosphere, watching the night world go by, thinking deep thoughts. Like, dang! This coffee/milk/chocolate combo beats just about anything I can think of. I'm naming this the best place and the best time and the best atmosphere for late-nite coffee drinking downtown.
Looking through the sidewalk window
Talking Cafe Lulu here, around 11 at night, with music drifting in from nearby bars and street musicians and passing pedicabs rigged with awesome lights and awesomer noise machines.
And all around me, the smell and gurgle of hookah pipes. And the mumble of conversation that goes with them.
So okay, the Russian girls who used to run this place like it was a sexy high-class brasserie are all gone. They gave it an atmosphere you could never franchise. But some of that remains.
Customers here seem like they all believe in the credo of Live Fast, Die Young and Make a Beautiful Corpse. And you want languages? Serbo-Croatian, Polish, French, Spanish, Korean, Turkish, Vietnamese, Arabic, Portuguese, even some English every now and then.
The conversation kinda tones down as this drunk guy weaves into view. He's muttering something about "Coming and taking our American women. Ain't putting up with it, hear me?"
The passing parade. Another good reason to come here for coffee, desserts, and hookahs. I don't smoke cigarettes, but there's something really social about passing the hookah around. Even if you're just watching others doing it. Good sweets, too. If I had time I'd go for that little chunk of wickedness, the chocolate marquise chocolate cake dessert ($8).
My latte
Meanwhile, on with my latte. Yes, it costs five bucks, but this time o'night, it's worth it. The kicker? You get two blocks of chocolate in the saucer. And here's the technique. You wait for the coffee to cool enough to swill around in your mouth. Then take one of the pieces of chocolate and stick it on top of your tongue.
Now, take a sip and swirl the latte around your chocolate chunk. Go ape with pleasure as the coffee melts the chocolate and makes for an über-rich swallow.
Right now, I'm doing this and watching a couple of musicians attack a song at the corner of E and Fifth. A little crowd gathers around them. This couple starts dancing as they rev up the beat. Pretty soon they're jiving wild on the corner like they should be wearing zoot suits.
Then they come to the end. And, hey, crowd drifts off, the couple hugs, then the man drops, like two dollars into their guitar case. Two bucks! Man, that sucks. Should have been $200, the performance those two musicians gave.
But it's just part of the life you catch as the hubble bubbles start gargling again and your lips pucker with the pleasure of this late latte at the legendary Café Lulu.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Late latte with Lulu
Ed finds the perfect people-watching spot in the Gaslamp.
Late latte with Lulu
Ed finds the perfect people-watching spot in the Gaslamp.
A latte, some chocolate, and thou?
See, this is what I really really like doing best. Late night. Sitting with a cup of luscious coffee, dipping chunks of chocolate into it, soaking in the atmosphere, watching the night world go by, thinking deep thoughts. Like, dang! This coffee/milk/chocolate combo beats just about anything I can think of. I'm naming this the best place and the best time and the best atmosphere for late-nite coffee drinking downtown.
Looking through the sidewalk window
Talking Cafe Lulu here, around 11 at night, with music drifting in from nearby bars and street musicians and passing pedicabs rigged with awesome lights and awesomer noise machines.
And all around me, the smell and gurgle of hookah pipes. And the mumble of conversation that goes with them.
So okay, the Russian girls who used to run this place like it was a sexy high-class brasserie are all gone. They gave it an atmosphere you could never franchise. But some of that remains.
Customers here seem like they all believe in the credo of Live Fast, Die Young and Make a Beautiful Corpse. And you want languages? Serbo-Croatian, Polish, French, Spanish, Korean, Turkish, Vietnamese, Arabic, Portuguese, even some English every now and then.
The conversation kinda tones down as this drunk guy weaves into view. He's muttering something about "Coming and taking our American women. Ain't putting up with it, hear me?"
The passing parade. Another good reason to come here for coffee, desserts, and hookahs. I don't smoke cigarettes, but there's something really social about passing the hookah around. Even if you're just watching others doing it. Good sweets, too. If I had time I'd go for that little chunk of wickedness, the chocolate marquise chocolate cake dessert ($8).
My latte
Meanwhile, on with my latte. Yes, it costs five bucks, but this time o'night, it's worth it. The kicker? You get two blocks of chocolate in the saucer. And here's the technique. You wait for the coffee to cool enough to swill around in your mouth. Then take one of the pieces of chocolate and stick it on top of your tongue.
Now, take a sip and swirl the latte around your chocolate chunk. Go ape with pleasure as the coffee melts the chocolate and makes for an über-rich swallow.
Right now, I'm doing this and watching a couple of musicians attack a song at the corner of E and Fifth. A little crowd gathers around them. This couple starts dancing as they rev up the beat. Pretty soon they're jiving wild on the corner like they should be wearing zoot suits.
Then they come to the end. And, hey, crowd drifts off, the couple hugs, then the man drops, like two dollars into their guitar case. Two bucks! Man, that sucks. Should have been $200, the performance those two musicians gave.
But it's just part of the life you catch as the hubble bubbles start gargling again and your lips pucker with the pleasure of this late latte at the legendary Café Lulu.
Comments