Ants in my pants

I’m feeling incredibly restless and fidgety this afternoon.  The usual cheap thrill of grossing you out with the weird and extreme things I’ve eaten has nothing on the buzz I’ve got from today’s rather conventional foodie blog experiment – a coffee tasting.

A friend had heard good things about Coffee Supreme's Thursday morning coffee tastings, so off we headed to check it out.

I’m not quite sure what I expected but, had I thought it through, then embarking upon a coffee tasting tanked up with my usual breakfast time double-shot flat white probably wasn’t the smartest idea. 

Despite my love of strong coffee, I can’t drink a double shot after around 9 am if I plan to be asleep before 2 o’clock the following morning.  Tragic but true.  Today I downed around seven shots by mid morning so heaven help me tonight.

But it was worth it because the tasting session was amazing.  Every week’s session involves different types of coffee prepared using different techniques – espresso, plunger, filter, drip, etc.  

Today’s session used Chemex
filters and five different Ethiopian,
Brazilian and Costa Rican beans
and roasts that work best for filters.

Apparently it’s important to match the beans and roasts with the right type of coffee making technique.  Today’s beans (I can’t remember their names, apart from the Ethopian yergacheffe) are delicate wee things and their flavours would be ‘squashed’ by an espresso machine’s more forceful extraction.

As much as I’d loved to have lolled about sipping upon a succession of flat whites, a coffee tasting is an academic rather than a hedonistic experience because the samples are unadorned by either milk or sugar so as to enable you to experience their true aromas and flavours. 

We found there was a surprising variation in each coffee’s acidity, aroma, mouth feel and flavour.  My favourite was the one that smelled like Whittaker’s peanut slabs!

Coffee Supreme's expert spent a good 45 minutes with us and happily answered our plethora of questions.  It was an incredibly informative session and we came out buzzing in every sense of the word.

Coffee Supreme's tasting counter:
42 Douglas St * Ponsonby * Auckland

Ph 376 2784 * www.coffeesupreme.com

So, if you can manage to skive off work or other duties on a Thursday morning between 8 and 10, and don’t want to sleep that night, then head over to Coffee 
Supreme’s wonderful weekly tasting.

But wait, there's more! At the risk of lowering the tone, I thought you'd appreciate these...

Coffee art gone mad #1: At Kenzie Cafe,
Manukau Road, Epsom.  Crema cats, pandas,
pigs, butterflies - you name it.  All
rendered in impressive detail and
almost too unbearably cute to drink.

Coffee art gone mad #2: Our beloved Prime Minister rendered
in coffee beans. A "thanks I've 'always' wanted one of those"
gift to New Zealand from the Vietnamese government
at last year's ASEAN summit. 

Terrorist tagine

The prospect of eating tagine prepared by a former terrorism suspect proved irresistible, so off I trotted to the K’ Road food court to join my brother for lunch at Ahmed Zaoui’s stall, Salam.

As you may recall, Ahmed Zaoui made headlines about 10 years ago for being thrown in prison on trumped up terrorism charges after he sought refugee status in New Zealand.

To cut a long story short, the Government’s fears turned out to be groundless and Ahmed was subsequently released.

These days he is still making the news – but this time it’s for his delicious Algerian food.  So apologies to Ahmed for this blog’s tacky title and salacious starting sentence.  If it’s any consolation, I briefly considered erring on the side of good taste but political correctness failed to triumph over alliteratively titivating lexical temptations. 

Unsurprisingly, lunch passed without incident and only food-related intrigue was in evidence at Ahmed’s stall.

I tried to get brother John to hold off eating long
enough for me to photograph the chicken tagine.  But,
as you can see from the blur of fork action, he was
in no mood to wait.

My lamb tagine was so delicious - delicate
and flavoursome - that I'd woolfed
most of it down before I thought
to share the experience with you.  
 I especially liked the way
it was studded with little nuggets of
preserved lemon.

I was intrigued by this lemon honey drink but was
loath to buy some in case it was too sweet.
Ahmed kindly insisted that he would
refund my money if I didn't like it.
Fortunately it was delicious!

Ahmed Zaoui (left) and his helper at Salam.

Salam's food is simple, unpretentious and prepared with a quiet sense of pride.   If you're looking a tasty and very reasonably priced Algerian food experience then check it out at the K Road food court (184 Karangahape Road, opposite St Kevin's Arcade).