Cafe Review 2 - Al Cafetero and Monolok

Introduction
As you know this blog has always been a place for me to experiment and explore my writing talents. I've written ghost stories, gangster stories crime and crime noir as well as my normal rompy stories.  Something I have never tried is to write creative non-fiction, until now. This week, to celebrate the launch of my new blog - Czech Hipster Coffee - I am publishing my cafe reviews here. 
Over the last few months I have been exploring the hipster coffee hangouts in Prague and I thought I would write a short blog reflecting on my experiences by writing non-reviews. Non-reviews don't focus on the wares on offer but try to describe the atmosphere and ambiance of the place. For the background to these reviews click here. Please let me know your thoughts on the new blog via the usual channels. Thank you.

Today we venture into Vinohradska and find two very different places.

Al Cafetero 

Al Cafetero on a Sunday- Closed 

This café is set up to look like someone’s front room. It is small and cluttered, with two tatty looking sofas dominating the space. The sofas look inviting but they always come with a reserved sign, meaning only the chosen few can sit there; I've never been one of the chosen few, so i've never found out how comfy they actually are. In many ways as a new customer you feel like you are invading someone’s privacy, that you are nervously sitting in their parlour, like some teenagers at their great maiden aunt’s funeral. This impression is made worse by the fact that the other customers all seem to be friends of the owners. It is them who the sofas are reserved for and they wander around the place in bare feet, nipping behind the bar uninvited for a glass or a napkin, putting their feet up on the tables and generally making themselves at home, like they've just inherited the place from the recently deceased aunt. 

I am reliably informed that this was the first café of its sort in Prague, that it was the trailblazer for hipster coffee, but to be honest I was not impressed by their offerings. I am told the breakfasts are fantastic, but the coffee, well... Older readers might remember adverts for Red Mountain coffee where a waiter can't be bothered to make filter coffee so makes the noise of a percolator while boiling the kettle and making instant coffee. His guests are fooled into thinking he’s made filtered coffee. (There's a similar one running at the moment, but the instant replicates the taste of an espresso.) Anyway I was reminded of those ads in here while drinking the coffee. The coffee was fine but it felt bit flat, one dimensional, in other words, slightly Nescafe. (This impression is not helped by the Nescafe mugs on the bar.) I wondered if the waiter had nipped out the back to put the kettle on while pretending to play with his Hario V60. 
So if you like enjoying your breakfast and drinking a good, reliable cup of coffee, while watching other people looking comfy on sofas, then Al Cafetero is the perfect place for you. 
For the website of the cafe visit here

A different version of the Red Mountain advert can be found here.

Monolok

Coffee in a Vase?
It has to be Monolok. 

Monolok? What does it mean? Is it a Czechlish* spelling of monologue? But surely in a cafe you would want at least a dialogue. Lok in Czech means swig, but mono swig? Surely you want more than one mouthful. 

Whatever its name means, I must admit I like sitting in this café. It is not as cosy as some places and the cushions are a little annoying, but it is light and airy with a modern bright feel to it and when busy it bristles with satisfied energy. The tables in the downstairs room is usually occupied by heavily bearded students with huge headphones multi-tasking - switching between their text books and their Facebooks on their Macbooks. Sometimes the beards are so dense you need a machete to hack through the thicket on your way to the toilet. Upstairs it is more urban and urbane. Here it is more the creatives who have escaped from their office for a cup of coffee, but not a break; there’s a feeling that business is being done. The staff are young and lithe, they speak very good English and look like they know what they are doing. The cakes look nice and the coffee is good. They usually have three coffees to choose from for the drip cone and it is measured and ground before your eyes, (if you sit in the front room). 

So, it sounds like the perfect place but (and there’s always a but,) three separate people have complained to me that they found Monolok a tad pretentious Friends complain that the staff treat customers like a great maiden aunt might treat her great nephews and nieces, like they should be seen but not heard, that they can’t possibly have an opinion of their own and if they do, then they are almost certainly wrong.(Hmm maybe it is this that inspired the name monologue.) 

Backroom with pointless
cushions 

I must admit that by living in my non-Czech speaking bubble I had not noticed this but now it has been pointed out to me I can see their point. But is this a bad thing? I am sure if you told the staff this they would be proud, I think they would think that they have achieved their objective; surely the role of a hipster cafe barista is to be a know-it-all, it's part of the training after all. 

So, if you like to be talked down to by staff who think they know what they are talking about, this is the perfect place for you.

* Other examples of Czechlish - business is byznys and ham and eggs is hemenex. 

For the website of the cafe visit here

If you enjoyed these reviews, and you would like a story to go with your coffee, please check out my short story blog here and my story inspired by hipster coffee here.

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