It's two months since I wrote about our morning coffee at Gloria Jean's. We decided to try different places in Larnaka for coffee, every Friday morning, when doing our 'house admin'.
The following Friday we were about to fly to the UK, and were frantically catching up with things we needed to finish. Then the next two Fridays we were in the UK. After that, we had a friend here, doing the accounts for Richard's organisation - they worked hard, and there was no time for a morning doing house-related work. We did do one or two jobs - and some shopping - on a couple of Fridays in March, but Richard was away for the other one.
And we forgot all about our coffee experiment.
However, last Friday, I wanted to go to the PO Box and we decided to have another coffee break. This time we opted for Coffee Island, another popular place with young people. We had heard that the coffee was good, and the prices quite reasonable, by comparison with other sea-front places. Several Coffee Island cafés have sprung up in the last few years, but the one we decided to visit was near the Post Office, on a corner of Larnaka sea-front near the fort:
It's a nice location, and it looked very busy - though mostly with young adults, late teens and early twenties, at a guess, mainly male. There's an outdoor 'bar' with stools, and a few outdoor seats too, but it was a sunny day so we decided to have our coffee inside.
The first thing that struck me as we went in was that it was extremely messy! Some of the decor was nice - there were coffee bean machines, and coffee grinders, and other interesting paraphernalia. But there was also a central long table which we had to walk around, which contained an apparently random selection of objects, from jars of honey to small coffee machines, and even a mostly-empty bottle of blue spray cleaner:
The taste was smooth, with no bitterness, and I enjoyed mine very much.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of noise in Coffee Island. Music was blaring through speakers, some of them apparently in the roof, so there was no getting away from it. It wasn't particularly unpleasant music, but was highly distorted, and with the Cypriot-style lack of furnishings, quite echoey. It made conversation difficult, so much so that Richard had to sit right next to me in order that we could hear each other.
Add to that almost continual sounds of clattering and banging, ice being crushed and poured, beans being ground... and I was feeling quite overwhelmed with the noise by the time we had been there about ten minutes.
But we did enjoy the frappés.
Perhaps we should try a different branch, or find a quieter time of day.
The following Friday we were about to fly to the UK, and were frantically catching up with things we needed to finish. Then the next two Fridays we were in the UK. After that, we had a friend here, doing the accounts for Richard's organisation - they worked hard, and there was no time for a morning doing house-related work. We did do one or two jobs - and some shopping - on a couple of Fridays in March, but Richard was away for the other one.
And we forgot all about our coffee experiment.
However, last Friday, I wanted to go to the PO Box and we decided to have another coffee break. This time we opted for Coffee Island, another popular place with young people. We had heard that the coffee was good, and the prices quite reasonable, by comparison with other sea-front places. Several Coffee Island cafés have sprung up in the last few years, but the one we decided to visit was near the Post Office, on a corner of Larnaka sea-front near the fort:
It's a nice location, and it looked very busy - though mostly with young adults, late teens and early twenties, at a guess, mainly male. There's an outdoor 'bar' with stools, and a few outdoor seats too, but it was a sunny day so we decided to have our coffee inside.
The first thing that struck me as we went in was that it was extremely messy! Some of the decor was nice - there were coffee bean machines, and coffee grinders, and other interesting paraphernalia. But there was also a central long table which we had to walk around, which contained an apparently random selection of objects, from jars of honey to small coffee machines, and even a mostly-empty bottle of blue spray cleaner:
We decided to order frappés; there were only a couple of people in the queue but the staff were busy at another window so we had to wait awhile. Still, once we reached the front, we were served quickly: one with milk and no sugar for me, one with sugar and no milk for Richard. The cost was two euros each, which we thought quite reasonable for a large drink, even if a lot of it was ice. Definitely better value than Gloria Jean's.
We thought of sitting in the outer of the two indoor areas, until we realised that people were smoking.
It's not really allowed in any indoor areas, but many restaurant owners seem to get around this by claiming that their 'outer' areas are temporary rather than truly outside, as the doors will be removed when summer starts. And since ashtrays were provided on the outside tables, it's evidently acceptable.
So we sat in a smaller inside area, which was reasonably comfortable. The frappés were good, too. This is the one with sugar and no milk:
Unfortunately, there was a lot of noise in Coffee Island. Music was blaring through speakers, some of them apparently in the roof, so there was no getting away from it. It wasn't particularly unpleasant music, but was highly distorted, and with the Cypriot-style lack of furnishings, quite echoey. It made conversation difficult, so much so that Richard had to sit right next to me in order that we could hear each other.
Add to that almost continual sounds of clattering and banging, ice being crushed and poured, beans being ground... and I was feeling quite overwhelmed with the noise by the time we had been there about ten minutes.
But we did enjoy the frappés.
Perhaps we should try a different branch, or find a quieter time of day.
1 comment:
That table does look a bit odd.
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