Atlanta Early Morning II

Ponce de Leon Rd, 6:30am April 24, 2012

Seventeen Coffees in Seven Cities

I love finding good espresso on the road (and at home).  I started shooting these illy moments out of thin air while sitting there sipping a coffee and it became a sort of subject matter for me.  The espressamente illy bars are always a welcome sight (especially in airports) and the chrome and the red make for great images.  This slideshow has shots from Dubai, Shanghai, Italy, Spain, France, Greece, and USA.

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Ajiaco Open Flame

In the mountains of Colombia where the local crew was cooking Ajiaco (Colombia three potato soup) on the open flame cowboy style.  This was delicious.

Morning in Campo dei Fiori

Took a morning stroll through the market of Campo dei Fiori in Rome.  The scene is great for coffee, cornetti, and fresh ingredients.  There are other localized markets in the city but this one is on a path so many walk down.  When the market is over late morning the piazza goes quiet until evening when a restaurant & bar scene comes to life.

Shanghai Street Food

Walking through an area of Shanghai near Loshanguan Road there is a stretch of road with food vendor after food vendor all selling what they have that day.  This particular guy was chock full of kebobs and the air is full of every flavor you can imagine. He posted his place’s health inspector certificate on the wall too – 99A all the way.

Late night coffee in Dubai

Again I’m always amazed at how companies find the “matching” (if that’s possible) font in other non-Western alphabet languages.  I took this shot while heading back to my hotel in Dubai.  Starbucks outside of the US is an interesting experience because for the locals it’s not so much for the coffee but more for the visibility of being seen in what they perceive as an “in” place.  I think the best examples of this with Starbucks in particular are in Shanghai and Tokyo.

Shanghai Bread Street Vendor

… Early morning sesame bread fresh cooked and on the fly.  This stuff is great on a cold China morning. Everyday this guy bakes loaf after loaf and you get it warm.

illy break in Shanghai

A great place for breakfast or lunch in Shanghai is Wagas (it’s a small chain and there probably about 8 or so around Shanghai).  Excellent food and they serve illy fresh from the nitrogen pressurized cans.  If you think about it this is an amazing shot because the coffee beans come from Brasil, it’s roasted in Italy, shipped to China, and consumed by an American – and it’s only about a few milliliters of coffee.  Click the photo and you’ll almost be able to smell it.

Espresso Bar Milan

I have a hard time resisting a good shot of illy espresso.  Whenever I’m out and about if there is a cafe serving illy in a machine like one of these I try to take a 5 minute pause from what I’m doing and throw one back.  This machine happens to be in Milan in a bar not to far from the Piazza del Duomo.  Years ago I had the opportunity to tour the illy factory in Trieste, Italy where the coffee beans are sorted and roasted and I can tell you that the amount of work that goes into making that short cup of espresso in incredible.  What’s cool about a lot of places (but particularly in Italy) is you can easily find places like this with machines like this just walking around a city.  That cup was delicious.

Shanghai Xiao Long Bao

One of my favorite foods in Chinese is Xiao Long Bao – a steamed soup dumpling.  There is (was – it’s gone now) a killer street restaurant just off Nanjing Shi Lu where the line out the door to eat these little gems was 30 deep at 10pm.  You order a six pack of these that come in a styrofoam box, you go upstairs and find a seat under the K-mart lights wherever you can picnic table style, and they bring you big bottles of Tsing Tao to wash them down.

Here’s the pre-game line:

And post-game cleanup outside the place…..