Day 35: Bean There, Done That - MMC Wraps Up

Ahem, ahem. This is a teaspoon-to-coffee-cup tribute. It’s time for the good-cafe toast, and the bad-cafe roast. Before we put ears to the grounds, MMC would like to thank those who drank. First, to Friend of MMC, Robin to the coffee drinker's Batman. Vibes, you're tank. Next, to T-Love and the Advertiser food liftout who recommended this write-up. Last, to Radelaide.net, the little website that could, and did, remind MMC to finish the damn blog. Which blog? Oh yeah. My Morning Coffee. The Order: 35 cups of coffee, 35 nights blogging and 35 bleary-eyed days of legal clerking.

Day 34: Cibo Marathon

In icon-happy Adelaide, local business is the ultimate in consumer chic. Does Adelaide plus coffee equal Cibo? With a chain-a-week modus operandi, the CBD Cibology caused MMC some head scratching. Which store, and when? Days of deliberation led to a diabolical solution - the final morning Cibo Marathon. Gouger, Frome, King William/Grenfell and Pirie were duly visited. The Order: one caffè (sized) cafe latte, takeaway. The Price: a consistent $3.20.

Phase one: North Adelaide ristorante. Phase two: Rundle St espresso bar. Phase three: world domination. Cibo Espresso is one of those small-town success stories that we love to love. It's a household name, and its takeaway cups are household recycling.

Day 33: Bistro Dom, 24 Waymouth St

On 33 Thursday, MMC goes bistro troppo. Waymouth street straddles work and play - it's the corporate jungle, colonised by chic. Along the Northern side, George's is too imposing for coffee alone. We agree to meet at Bistro Dom, down-the-road darling of almost three years. The Order: two skinny lattes, to go. The Price: a gasp-worthy $3.50, but for compulsory double shots.

With almost negative street presence, there's a good chance you've walked past BD blink free. The Shopspace: on the net as 'a long narrow lap pool', it's introverted in a way that conventional marketing avoids.

Day 32: Ciao, 14 Adelaide Arcade

Back from the Oz Day weekend that wasn't, MMC and friend meet a very significant other for coffee in Adelaide Arcade. A News Limited food writer we'd Love to name, we had hoped to talk blog over brilliant coffee. Ciao looked the wood-panelled part, an arcade island at the Grenfell-ian end. We talked, we were snapped, and we got the coffee. The Orders: one skinny cappucino, one medium flat white, one small latte. The Prices: smalls at $3.20.

Adelaide Arcade sure is pretty. Large and leadlit, it's chockas with old-school servicepeople - cobblers, tailors, milliners and chocolatiers. Built in 1885, it was the first mall in Australia to boast electric lights. With irony, or just bad luck, its 1887 caretaker died from a fall into the generator; he was investigating a flickering light. Ciao looks to be capitalising on trad cultcha a la Italiano cafe. The Shopspace: we've wrought-iron signage, and a gracious counter top for talkative takeaways and on-the-run have heres. At a glance, it's humming, happy and high-quality.

Day 31: Cikolatte, 133 Melbourne St

Australia Day on a Tuesday. Who woulda thunk it. To overcome the headfunk of the whole affair, MMC and friend decided to meet for coffee as if it were a workday. The differences? A luxurious 10.30am meeting, and North Adelaide instead of the scabby Sundayish CBD. The Orders: a small skinny latte and a medium cappuccino, have here. The prices: $3.30 and $3.80, respectably.

Melbourne Street almost has a vibe going on. Big guns like The Lion, Cibo and The Store are pulling posses weekdays and weekends. Further down the road, the boutiques - of clothing, cuisine and coffee - are thirsty for traffic. With some weekend buzz, Cikolatte has scattered bums on seats. We score a streetside setting between cyclists, and appropriate generous armfuls of news.

Day 30: Baretto Corte Caffe, 302A King William St

On our last manic Monday, all the cool kids have cashed their AL for an Australia Day weekender. To ease the pain, a leisurely have-here is planned for Vic Square. It's MMC's second attempt to visit Dragonfly's neighbour Brunch on the Square. Will there be brunch on the square today? Not so much. We make the disgruntled diagonal to Baretto Corte Caffe on King William. The Orders: to have here, a small skim flat white, and to take away, medium skim and medium soy lattes. The Prices: $3.20, $4.50, $5.30. (!)

In its former unglory as the Court Cafe, BCC was known for purveying Adelaide's worst cafe coffee. Now Italian both in name and reputation, rumour has it that the spouse of an Adelaide legal eagle took over in 2009. Cashing in on ridiculous proximity to the SA Courts, it is reasonably foreseeable that barista meets barrister on a regular and profitable basis.

Day 29: 227 Espresso Cafe, 227 North Tce

North Terrace, university heartland, has a self-conscious coffee strip of its own. It's a bit of a detour for an MMC, but with happy memories of Chris Jarmer @ Air, we duck in for takeaway before the uni crowd has awoken. 227 Espresso Cafe has picked up where Un Caffe Bar left off, or has it? The Order: one standard cappuccino, and one medium flat white. The Prices: $3.20 small and $3.70 for medium - one of the smallest and best upsize margins we've seen.

Countering the soporific lecture effect, Number 227 has for years been the closest refuge of lazy-eyed law students. As an early Un Caffe Bar, the jaywalk was always worth it to avoid well-priced, pallid in-house fare.

Day 28: Town Hall Garden Cafe, Prince Alfred Lane

Dreaming of inner-city deck-chair courtyard coffee? Dream no longer, desk rats. For at least a decade, Town Hall Garden Cafe has been serving food 'n' bev in its garden beds. Did people know about this? MMC was certainly surprised, and a thirsty Thursday was set aside for the big Taste Test. The Order: one skinny flat white, have here, and one skinny latte, takeaway. The Prices: a nice, round $3 each.

THGC seems to have it all. Location, location and location. Or as the uniniated would text message frantically, location? location?? um, location??? It's borderline buried in the square between Flinders, King William and Pirie streets, accessible via all three but visible via none.

Day 27: Phat Coffee, 207 Hindley St

On a warmly Wednesday, in breach of all commuter coffee proximity guidelines, Phat Coffee's shiny reputation magpies us Way Out West. At first, it seems like a manageable sidestep between train station and office. At second, an 'are we there yet' distress text from friend of MMC strongly suggests otherwise. Will it be the elusive 'worth it walk', or the wasted one? The Order: one regular skinny cappucino, and one medium flat white, takeaway. The Prices: $3.00 regular and $4.00 (ouch) medium.

Phat, adj: 1) Cool. 2) Pretty Hot and Tempting. As in "Dude! That shit is phat!'" What would we do without the Urban Dictionary? With a name so ghetto superstar we don't know what they are, Phat Coffee / Kitchen are pretty sure of themselves.

Day 26: Double Shot Espresso Bar, 16-20 Wyatt St

After riding the coffee train to 25 different cafes, MMC starts to crave consistency. We've been to good cafes and bad cafes, but our cafe eludes us. Hearing that Double Shot Espresso on Wyatt make coffee 'as you like it', the whiff of a personalised experience has us noses to ground. Screeching in after Tour Down Under traffic, MMC finds second and third opinions waiting. The Order: one small and two regular skim lattes, takeaway. The Price: small at a reasonable $3.00, and regulars at $3.80.

Day 25: Nano Ready 2 Go, 23 Ebenezer Place

On the hamster wheel of full-time work, morning motivation is something of an oxymoron. Out of necessity, the morning caffeine hit has to be On The Way. Off the public transport track, we'd decided Rundle street was more playspace than workplace, but all work and no play makes MMC a dull blog. Voting with the vox populi, we step across to Nano Ready to Go on Ebenezer Place. The Order: a small skinny flat white, have here, and a medium latte, takeaway. The prices: $3.30 and $3.80.

Ebenezer Place, for the uninitiated, is the one-way horseshoe shape that nuzzles Rundle street to the South. Ebenezer Place in Wick, Scotland holds the Guinness Book of Records title for the world's shortest street (2.06 m). Ebenezer Place in Adelaide, Australia is a front-runner for the SA title for the most cool per city square metre.

Day 24: Big Table, Adelaide Central Market and Zuma Caffe, 56 Gouger St

Aside from Friday morning sleep-ins, Friday morning breakfasts are the ultimate luxury. Foregoing the former to indulge in the latter, MMC meets an acquaintance at Adelaide Central Market's Big Table. The big plan at Big Table was to resist coffee, eat breakfast, and meet friend of MMC at Zuma's for blog fodder. What went wrong? Picture perfect pouring, that's what. The (unintended) Order: one skinny cappuccino and one flat white, have here. The Prices: $3.30.

Day 23: Rigoni's Bistro, 27 Leigh St

 If Leigh Street is little Europe, Rigoni's Bistro is little Italy. Down the lane, the Corner Bistrot has le petit francais covered, and freshman Casablabla is doing the Spanish-fusion thang nighttimes. Early Thursday, MMC trips across town to test whether Rigoni's coffee credentials out-rep their ripper breakfasts. The Order: two takeaway lattes, skim. The Price: $3.20 per cup.

The tiled toothpick between Hindley and Currie, there's something otherwordly about Leigh Street. 

Day 22: Funk Coffee + Food, 45 Grenfell St & Saldechin, 21 King William St

It's a sad day when work gets in the way of blogging. MMC and friend had agreed to meet at King William Street's Saldechin, but MMC's eleventh hour deadline left friend of MMC in the lurch. MMC needed somewhere quick, somewhere close to the office, somewhere to dash in-and-out-of without the superiors noticing. With Pirie all blogged out, it was coffee franchises to the rescue. Enter Funk Coffee, newbie on Grenfell. The Order: one lonely latte, hit and run. The price: $3.20.

Funk Coffee + Food are so well set up it's almost scary. A stone's throw from legal eagledom at 'the black stump', the newest Funk sibling is the essence of clean, white-collar marketing.

Day 21: The Perfect Cup, 77 Grenfell St

By law of averages, somewhere on Grenfell must make a killer coffee. In ramshackle red, The Perfect Cup, by name, can talk the talk. Hushed in peak-hour, we've the choice of leather-look seating. We set up near the beans-for-sale, and wait for the walk. The Order: One large latte, one small flat white, and one ristretto have here. The Price: small for a finicky $3.15, ristretto at $3.00.

Day 20: Glow Cafe, 98 Gawler Place (now closed)

Melbourne's a litany of laneways. Canberra's one big roundabout. Sydney has harbour drama, and Brisbane's a one way street. Adelaide has a rep for straight streets and no-nonsense navigability. How, on a melting Monday, did  friend of MMC lose the way to Wyatt? Street-corner stranded and lateish for work, we're clutching at stirring straws. A standing street sign promises Cafe Espresso Cucina, and Gawler Place's Glow is our beacon. The Order: two takeaway lattes with extra shots. The Price: tres reasonable at $3.50 - single shots at $3.00 flat.

Day 19: Buskers Cafe, Rundle Mall (now closed)

<Coffee al fresco - the height of luxury? With time for breakfast, MMC and two friends waltz into Buskers Cafe, the mall's answer to outdoor dining. Sandwiched between King William St, Haigh's and Darrell Lea, Buskers has a sweet location. A cafe that you don't even have to walk into; the crazy convenience compensates for loss of shopper shuffle-space. The Order: two skinny lattes and one flat white, have here. The Price: $3.20 p/p, and no separate accounts.

Day 18: Sylvia's Cafe, Hindmarsh Square

Sylvia's Cafe, Hindmarsh Square. Dangerously close to the Citi Centre (McDonalds) arcade, it's a homey, hot-dogging hideaway. There are plastic tablecloths. There are plastic-looking donuts in a display case. There is a ridiculous amount of Lavazza signage, and somehow, Lavazza's apparent faith gives MMC faith. The Order: one small skinny latte, have here, and one medium latte, takeaway. The Prices: a rounded $3.00 for small, $3.50 for medium, and you guessed it, large'd be $4.00.

The poster-cafe for all things old-school, trad hospitality and a wi-fi hotspot are a deliciously incongruous combination. Thanks to easy-peasy Internode, baby boomer cafe owners are putting wi-fi in the e-trolley right after facebook profiles.

Day 17: Caffe Amore, 162-170 Pulteney St

Is this Adelaide's biggest cafe? It's almost eerie to perch in an empty Caffe Amore early Wednesday. Patrons or no patrons, the coffee machine/s must go on. The Order: an earlybird large cappuccino for friend of MMC, and a later-comer's small flat white for MMC. The Price: at $3.20 for a small, we're approaching boutique pricing.

With a 300+ liquor licence, Amore is a powerhouse on Pulteney (or Pulteny, according to its website). They're impressively equipped for coffee, with multiple machines glinting behind slipper-red benchtops.

Day 16: Energize Cafe, 53 Central Market Plaza

On the twelfth day of Christmas, true love sent to MMC, twelve closed cafes and a juice bar that makes good coffee. On January 5th, twelve whole days after Christmas Day, the city’s hospitality honeymoon continues. With Hindmarsh Square still snoring, we ducked between the Hilton and the Courts building into Market Plaza, joining a decent queue at cafe island ‘Energize’. The Order: one small cappuccino and one medium latte, take away. The Price: small for a cheapish $3.00, medium at $4.00.

With three staff crammed into their bamboo-framed space, Energize offer ‘coffee, juice and snacks’ in a family-business kinda way.