Dave and I went down there this morning for breakfast. There are two places in Syracuse where you can get a superior cup of coffee with a great breakfast: Sparky Town and L’Adour French restaurant (and for the latter, that’s only Friday, Saturday and Sunday). To be honest, I’d rate Sparky Town’s coffee a notch or two better that L’Adour’s.

Dave had a breakfast sandwich of egg, ham and cheese on an “everything” bagel, a delicious and very affordable option. I went gluten-free: an egg scramble with fresh grated zucchini, summer squash and carrots, with home fries done right. That means each bite has lovely crunchy caramelization on at least one side. Gluten-free muffins were available, as were some pretty yummy-looking scones that we were too full to eat. The breakfast menu is quite complete and we know from experience that everything is fresh fresh fresh.

For total foodie happiness, a restaurant has to be successful in six areas: food, beverage, service, lighting, music, value. Very few places hit all six, but Sparky Town is one of them.

We know the food is good, we adore the coffee and teas. What we didn’t realize was that Sparky Town had just gotten its liquor license a few weeks ago, so now wine and beer are available. Some of the beer selections had us considering how well they would go with breakfast. We will definitely be back soon to try them out with dinner.

Service is attentive and friendly in an honest, non-corporate sort of way. You know what I mean. Nobody says, “I’m Jessica and I’ll be your server tonight.” We love hanging at Sparky Town because of the really cool people who run it and who walk in!

The atmosphere is what a cafe should be: welcoming, warm (love all the exposed brick), but not dirty-grungy. It’s a charming place to which you could take your grandmother or your attorney. The lighting is right, too. Not too bright, not stupid, not dark. And today’s music was perfect for a gentle wake-up: reggae. Easy on the ear, with that great groove that makes you want to begin to move.

There is only a small handful of restaurants in Syracuse that are as complete a value as Sparky Town. If you’ve never been there, it really is worth trying something new, something local, and something so thoroughly satisfying.

Sparky Town is at 324 Burnet Avenue, on the corner of Catherine Street and Burnet Avenue in the historic Hawley Green District.
Open Mon-Fri 11am-8pm, Sat 8am-3pm
(315) 422-8401

At a relatively early hour on a Saturday morning, the streets were quiet. Except for the rooster that crowed a couple times as we got out of our car. (Really!) We were the only ones in the cafe, which was great for us because it gave us a chance to chat with Steve, the barista who made us two delicious coffees.

Dave had one of his favorites, a macchiatto, and I had the “Eastwood”, that is, the perfect ratio of espresso to steamed milk served in the perfect size glass. If you want to taste what originally turned me on to great coffee, try the “Eastwood”. It’s exactly like a “café con leche” that I was drinking in the Canary Islands, the coffee taste that I searched out for decades before Kubal produced it for me.

601 Tully is fascinating in that it is a part of Syracuse University. Although the upstairs was closed at that hour, Steve told us that a professor has her office and a large space up there that can be used for classes or meetings.

The cafe itself is considerably larger than Cafe Kubal in Eastwood, with soft gray walls almost all the way around, one wall painted a screaming green that comes off nevertheless merely as an accent color. It’s covered with plaques that show artwork done by neighborhood kids, drawings of the buildings in the area. One large table is available plus lots of chairs and benches.

All in all, it was extremely pleasant, especially because Steve is such an easy person to talk to. Oh, and he makes great coffee. I suggest that anyone from any part of the city take a little ride to Tully Street and check it out. It’s a great excuse to get to know the good things that are going on in that part of our ever-changing city.

We were enjoying a sunny day off last Monday in Rochester and were heading out for breakfast at the popular Highland Diner, but had talked about trying to find locally roasted coffee.  Purely by chance, I happened to notice the Boulder Cafe on Alexander St. as we drove by.  It looked as though it was good-sized, and its sign and decor seemed to indicate a good product and atmosphere, so we decided to stop.

The decor was the characteristically youthful and funky style you tend to find in city cafes, splashy paintings, posters, ironic paraphenelia from the second-hand store, you know the drill.  It was very spacious, with plenty of comfortable seating.  Then the fun ended.  We went to the counter to order, and were greeted with “what do you want?” by a young white brown-haired woman.  We were both brought up short by this noticeable brusqueness, but ordered anyway.  I’ve written elsewhere about some cafe staff being distracted and apparently resentful of having a menial job, but at least they usually manage to force out a “can I help you?” or “what can I get for you?”  Maybe rudeness is the new assertiveness, a way of sticking it to the Man.

By contrast, when our coffee was served, it was very good.  We sat down to enjoy it.  They have a large sound system there, and the music was pretty loud for a cafe.  I enjoyed some of it, such as Regina Spektor, but much of the other music was standard-issue angry indie dreck, which actually went well with the personality of our tough little barista.  We finished fairly quickly and left, instead of our planned leisurely sipping, reading, and snacking.

One could easily, and rightfully, say that everyone has a bad day, other staff are friendly, the music is normally not so loud in the daytime, and so on.  But as any restaurant or cafe owner knows, you only get one chance for a first impression, and we will not be going back.  If it had been something like an honest mistake, as opposed to deliberate rudeness, we might have been willing to try again another time.  Hey, if you like very good coffee and have no need for friendly staff or tasteful music volume, this could be your place!

We went on to have a nice breakfast at the Highland, and decided to go to our usual favorite cafe, The Spot.  Although the music was pleasant and the atmosphere good as usual, even they managed a couple missteps.  We nearly always order the pie there, which is delicious and served in generous portions.  There was none this time, so we opted for a couple of fruit tortes.  These looked nice, but proved to be very dry.  We turned them back in, and the staff member was kind enough to substitute lemon tarts, which were much better.  She said that they bring in the tortes every other day, but even two-days-old tortes should be in better shape than that.

The other thing was the men’s room, which smelled really nasty, and definitely needed a cleaning.  They had the door propped open, which may have been an attempt to air it out until some male staff member arrived?  Ouch.  So I wonder if they are starting to deteriorate, or maybe are undergoing cost-cutting measures.

Our search for a really great cafe in Rochester will continue on our next visit – with all the ones they have, there has to be one!

I went there today with my friend and we were just blown away by the menu. All the right stuff there, folks: local, organic, whole-grain (quinoa!) enough meat to keep us carnivores happy and plenty of vegetarian or vegan offerings so we can invite all our friends.

My friend had the Mexicali Blue salad which she pronounced delicious. I could tell; every last bit was gone by the end of the meal. I had their quiche of the day (ham and cheese) with a house salad. This was the big test, for I make a darned good quiche and I grow my own salad greens. The results? I’ll give the quiche an A- and the same for the salad. The quiche was, like most restaurant quiches, not quite as custard-y as I would like. It was flavorful in a soft, comforting way but there were no herbs to make me stop, close my eyes and say, “What is that in there?”  That would have been nice. The crust was fluffy and in parts flaky. Good enough. But overall it was as tasty a quiche as I’ve ever had outside my own kitchen.

The house salad was a surprise. I normally avoid these things like the plague, as they are invariably made with iceberg lettuce (maybe with a bit of romaine tossed in to make it look “upscale”), flavorless tomato slices, lye-cured, canned black olives, unpeeled, tough and flavorless cucumber slices, and maybe some kind of pickled pepper. This salad, though, was made with the best greens most restaurants can get: a nice mesclun mix. The tomatoes were tiny grape tomatoes bursting with flavor, and the Italian salad dressing automatically came on the side so I could decide how much to use. It did have the unpeeled flavorless cucumbers in it, a few sliced, bland black olives and again, no exciting herb to perk it up. But it was miles and miles ahead of almost any other “house salad” that one finds in upstate New York.

My recommendation to the chef: go over to Samir’s and get a few scoops of their pitted Kalamata olives and slice those up for your salads. Just four or five slices (one olive) would go far in giving them a bit more interest. And surely someone must have more mint in their garden than they know what to do with… it is, after all, a pretty invasive weed. Throw in a few of the tender leaves and your customers will think they’d died and gone to heaven. This is, from April to October, a practically no-cost addition to an already very good salad.

We’ll be back for many more food adventures, including dessert. This time we drank water (excellent, free Syracuse water in a glass goblet), so we’ll have to try the coffees as well. There’s free wi-fi in there, so you’ll want to add this to your list of fun places to sit and get that online work done.

Sparky Town is located at 324 Burnet Ave in Syracuse. Notice: it is a destination restaurant. It has no great parking – just three spots in the back. As in real cities, you will park on the street and walk about a block or two at most. It is well worth it.

Hours
Monday – Thursday, 8 am – 3 pm
Friday – Saturday 8 am – 8 pm
www.sparkytown.net
Phone: 315-422-8401
Fax: 315-422-8403

We ate the same dishes we find at our favorite Indian restaurant in Syracuse, Sahota Palace, but I have to say, everything was a notch better.  For instance, the homemade cheese in the Palak Paneer had been lightly browned, adding another layer of flavor. The pastry of the Vegetable Samosas was light and crisp. The tamarind sauce was the best I’ve ever had and made me think that every other tamarind sauce I’ve had was not homemade. The chicken in the Chicken Tikka was unbelievably tender, juicy and flavorful and the bright orange sauce was rich and complex. The Lamb Korma was pleasurable in the same way but with a darksauce that brought out the best in the lamb. The Vegetables Malai Kofta, “mixed vegetable balls in a mildly spiced thick sauce,” provided the same satisfaction one gets from fresh Italian sausage floating in a dish of pasta and homemade sauce. That says quite a lot for a non-meat dish!

In short, this restaurant does better than any in Syracuse what Indian food should do: orchestrate a symphony of spices and flavors in a way that creates harmony not only within the individual dishes, but within a meal consisting of many courses. Dave and I agree that were we to ever “go vegetarian,” we would be eating a lot of Indian food. I have to wonder, though, why doesn’t Syracuse get this quality of cooking? We don’t find it in the local Indian, Chinese or even Vietnamese food (although New Century comes pretty darned close). What prevents the great chefs of ethnic cuisines from moving to our easy-on-the-wallet city?

Puzzling over that, stuffed to the gills, we hopped on the trolley and headed downtown where we could walk off a bit of the feast and consider our next move.  Dave had done his homework (find gelato! find ice cream!) and steered us quite directly to Capogiro Gelato Artisans. Between the two of us, we tried four flavors: cioccolato scuro, green apple marscapone, cranberry apple, and pineapple mint made with fresh mint bits. Each one fairly screamed its flavor. But let me tell you about just one, the dark chocolate.

Last year, about this time of year, our-son-the-chef came home on vacation from the Culinary Institute of America where he was finishing his baking and pastry studies. With him he brought a huge block of Valrhona chocolate. In our little Eastwood kitchen he proceeded to make the most delicious dark chocolate truffles. We helped. We nibbled. We watched and nibbled some more. Weeks later we were finding tiny drips of 70% Valrhona chocolate in the oddest places, bringing back memories of heavenly dark goodness.

So our first two flavors at Capogiro were the dark chocolate paired with the green apple marscapone:

Yes, it was really just about that black (terrible picture taken with phone!). Just as I was savoring my first bite, the young chef called. So I answered and launched immediately into a full description of what was at that moment melting in my mouth: a memory of last year’s Christmas truffles. Just as dark, just as intense, but cold instead of warm. I would never have thought it possible. The pleasure nearly matched a moment I’d had only two days prior, sitting in Anthony’s Italian Coffee House…

An espresso con panna, made with Philadelphia’s favorite coffee, La Colombe, was sitting before me on a little marble table. My best friend and husband was with me and holiday coffee drinkers were all around. We could hear Pavarotti singing “Nessun dorma” over their system. I brought the coffee to my lips and sipped. At the precise moment when the espresso and lightly sweetened cream filled my mouth, Pavarotti sang “Vincerò! Vincerò!” Did I hear someone say, “I’ll have what she’s having”?