What is your favorite restaurant for breakfast in Ajijic?

Try the coffee at Black Coffee Gallery.

David wrote:Try the coffee at Black Coffee Gallery.

Correct as they use good quality Bunn gear. But what about the village?

Z

bman2 wrote:I'll be moving to Ajijic by the end of June and staying near LCS...a good old fashioned breakfast with great coffee is what I'm looking for. Hopefully you can share your favorites with me. Thanks

Try Chimi's, directly across the street from LCS. Tiny place, run by a wonderful Mexican couple and incredible prices and great food.

bman2 wrote:I'll be moving to Ajijic by the end of June and staying near LCS...a good old fashioned breakfast with great coffee is what I'm looking for. Hopefully you can share your favorites with me. Thanks

The Early Bird has the best coffee that I have had down here, but it is not a place for those watching their calorie intake. However, their food is better than good. I would love to go everyday, but my expanding waistline has cut me down to once or twice a month. Also, free entertainment is provided by Rick, the owner, who is an interesting man

Yves' on the lakefront near LCS. Same block as the Old Posada and the lakefront art galleries. Great breakfast starting at 8 a.m.; also serving lunch and dinner. Closed Wednesday. Reasonable prices; good coffee.
Braying donkey below.....free.

Zedinmexico wrote:

coffeeguy wrote: Don't expect great coffee in any of these places, but Café Grano Café by the church, as others have recommended, is excellent for that.

I don't understand. The coffee itself is fine but when I get a cup of coffee to go it tastes like diluted expresso which is not coffee. If I take the same
coffee and make it with a cone filter or a Mr Coffee it taste fine. It makes me miss starbucks which isn't much to say quality wise. What do
they do to ruin a normal cup of coffee?

Z

I agree with you Zed. I usually just buy roasted beans there but when I do order coffee it's either straight espresso or a cappuccino and I watch them carefully. They don't know how to make a Caffe Americano (espresso diluted to drip strength) - they add way too much water. Since they are a coffee roasting company there's really no excuse for not doing a better job...I'd offer free remedial bar training if I could figure out a way to do it that wouldn't be perceived as insulting, but you know how that goes. The basic problem in Mexico is that everyone has jumped on the espresso bandwagon because they want the profit margins without having any training. Espresso is to drip coffee what grad. school is to kindergarten and most coffee places have failed kindergarten, if you know what I mean.

In a perfect world we'd go back to strong drip coffee or better still caffe de olla (strong drip coffee made in an urn with piloncillo and canela - really classic stuff), but I don't think that's likely to happen. When you do find drip coffee here it's usually weak and has been sitting around for hours (I was not impressed with the coffee at Black Coffee either). Starbucks, my old alma mater, at least has brewing standards and recipes, but honestly if I HAVE to order coffee at a restaurant in Mexico (or for that matter at most places in the U.S.) I bring along packets of Nescafé's Molienda instant (which is really very good for instant coffee) and "depth charge" the weak swill they serve. NOB you can buy Starbucks Via Instant (the Tribute Blend is pretty great) and do the same thing.

Now you begin to see why I have breakfast (and coffee) at home...

P.S. My favorite coffee sign of all time is at a diner we used to eat at (though we avoided the coffee) in Silver City, New Mexico: "Don't complain about our coffee. Someday you, too, will be old and bitter."

OK COFFEEGUY... the instant coffee crack shows ya ta be a total fraud....
There are a few decent coffees to be had in all of Mexico....
But I'de drink the damned Dishwater before I drank the Instant Stuff

Change Yer Handle from Coffeeguy ta CheapDate

hockables wrote:OK COFFEEGUY... the instant coffee crack shows ya ta be a total fraud....
There are a few decent coffees to be had in all of Mexico....
But I'de drink the damned Dishwater before I drank the Instant Stuff

Change Yer Handle from Coffeeguy ta CheapDate

Actually, you're mistaken. Instant coffee in the U.S. is generally pretty dreadful, but what few non-professionals know is that Nestlé, the giant of that business, dials in its instant coffee offerings to each market in which it does business, and has the technology to make instant coffee taste pretty much as great or terrible as they want. Since the U.S. is home to some of the worst mass-market coffee in the world (Folger's, etc.) it gets instant coffee that's only slightly better than what they sell in Russia.

Mexico doesn't fare too badly, and regular Nescafé instant here is enough better than what they sell in the U.S. that some schlep jars of it home. Nescafé's Molienda brand, which I mentioned, contains microground fresh-roasted coffee and higher-quality instant and is better than 90% of the brewed coffee you'll find in Mexico. There are much higher end coffees available - something like 80 different formulations - but you'd have to go to Europe to try the really good stuff made from Costa Rican and Kenyan beans.

The sad thing in Mexico is how little coffee you get is actually better than Nescafé brewed strong.

I don't understand. If Nestle dials in its coffee according to the country and Mexico generally has lousy brewed coffee, even worse than the US, then why does Nestle offer a better instant in Mexico?

seisdedos wrote:I don't understand. If Nestle dials in its coffee according to the country and Mexico generally has lousy brewed coffee, even worse than the US, then why does Nestle offer a better instant in Mexico?

Mexican coffee unlike U.S. canned stuff is at least actually roasted - indeed often quite darkly - vs. the infamous "cinnamon roast" of U.S. institutional coffee so Nescafé here follows suit and is fairly bland but not sour. As bad as it is, typical Mexican drip coffee is still a cut above Farmer Brothers and Folgers and the like, and in some areas (e.g. Oaxaca City, Coatepec and Xalapa in Veracruz) there's actually a pretty good local coffee roasting and brewing culture here.

the coffee in montana was just brown water

Coffee Guy knows his stuff! On his recommendation we recently purchased a Breville coffee maker and it produces one of the finest cups of coffee we have ever consumed:
[img][/img]

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/breville-youbrew-coffee-maker-with-thermal-carafe/

In a coffee-snobby way, I used to giggle and scoff at the jars of Nescafe I saw sitting in restaurants in Mexico when we first moved here. Not any more. (I had seen them for decades traveling in Mexico, but I was surprised Nescafe was still so ubiquitous when we moved here.) Based on Coffeeguy's dissertations on the matter, I decided to try it. And now it's, "Yes, please..." if there's nothing better available, which is often the case.

We even keep a jar at home for emergencies, or to accomodate other guests who like their coffee, or Nescafe, just their certain way. Like food, coffee is so personal.

Nescafe? Hardly my first choice, but it will do in a pinch, which I never expected.

You still get instant nescafe at most places if you ask for decaf.

Z

My taste buds, like my hearing, eyesight and other senses have been laid to waste after a lifetime of self inflicted abuse leaving me not giving much of a rip about the finer coffees. Gimme a big cup of triple scoop instantaino first thing in the morning and the fat boy is ready to rock. It's all good.

I should also have warned that Nescafé is in a league of their own with their instant coffee technology and any other brand of instant coffee you buy, here in Mexico or anywhere else, with the exception of the unbelieveably overpriced Starbucks Via, is going to taste just as horrible as you remember instant coffee tasting.

Having already thoroughly hijacked this thread about breakfast places I'll add a link to a post I wrote some time ago about coffee options here at Lakeside:

http://eatinglocalatlakeside.blogspot.mx/2012/06/buying-brewing-good-coffee-at-lake.html

If anyone does stumble on any breakfast places where the coffee is as good as the food please let us all know!

In reference to your comment that they "want the profit margins without the training", that sounds like so many things here. The big box stores and places like Sears are copies of American businesses without the oomph. They are treated like over-priced specialty shops, when they should be large-inventory, lower-cost outlets.

Kinda like most of the bathtubs here: made out of tile with square corners... not a comfortable place to lie down at all. It's like they've seen it in the movies and tried to replicate it, but haven't figured out how things work.

So, what you are saying RoofBob is that for you coffee is just a caffein-delivery system?

HelperGuy wrote:In reference to your comment that they "want the profit margins without the training", that sounds like so many things here. The big box stores and places like Sears are copies of American businesses without the oomph. They are treated like over-priced specialty shops, when they should be large-inventory, lower-cost outlets.

Kinda like most of the bathtubs here: made out of tile with square corners... not a comfortable place to lie down at all. It's like they've seen it in the movies and tried to replicate it, but haven't figured out how things work.

Another idiotic post.

Sears in Mexico is owned by Carlos Slim and does not resemble Sears in the USA at all. Sears Mexico is like a mall of branded shops such as Pier 1. As for "big box" stores, Costco here operates exactly like Costco in the USA including the top notch customer service.

Yes, CostCo is pretty good, but Home Depot for example is not. Complete lack of inventory, even though it looks like it has lots. Just try to find a range of torx screws, for example, or even one size. And overpriced. Same with BestBuy: completely overpriced. Their Apple products cost even more than an Apple outlet here. And WalMart is ridiculous. Radio Shack? Forget it.

I agree on Home Depot. I haven't been to the others.

Who's been having their favorite breakfast at Home Depot?

People on a diet obviously or people who like nails and glue.

They do have a popcorn machine...