Café: Aranti Cafe
Date: 23 June
Time: 8am
Location: 100 Flinders Lane
Drink ordered: A cappucino
Price: $3.50
Coffee rating: 2,5 cups (high quality dark chocolate on top, bitter, perfect temperature, but the milk was almost sour)
Service: Pleasant and friendly
Book: The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
What’s on the menu: Huge big café with breakfasts and lunches. A sign says $10.50 hot lunch and wine special
Why go: For the cozy seclusion and to feel as if you are stuck in the evening for ever
Observations: At $3.50 for a drink-in cappuccino, this is the most expensive coffee shop on the Street.
It’s at the back end of 333 Collins Street, a neo-art deco building, very grand. I guess the café serves the big wigs that work in the building, hence the price. Mind you the coffee is good (well almost) and the big space cozy. The windows are tinted so it feels like it’s the evening when its actually 8am in the morning.
I order and the lady behind the till with a thick European or South American accent asks me if I would like something to eat as well, her eyes looking down at a display of tempting muffins and banana bread. I resist.
I take a seat at a table, sitting in the beige leather bench that runs the length of the half the wall. A queue of people forms all dressed like they are going to a funeral – either black coats or black suits. This is a place for business breakfasts and deal making!
I read and feel quite content. The coffee is served with a rich helping of dark chocolate sprinkled on top. It tastes good at first but then I seem to taste something sour – is the milk off? I finish it anyway.
Reading Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna – about a boy working in the house of Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera when Trotsky comes to stay. I have visited the very house in Mexico City and long to be back in that colourful, wonderful city.
According to Kingsolver (well one of her characters), there are three phases of your life
- your childhood
- your children’s childhood
- and then old age…
Having no kids yet, I must be young!
