A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Day 3 - Part 1 - Puebla Breakfast Debacle
2/13/06

One of the mistakes tourists make is to have unreasonable expectations, i.e. the hotel rooms in Chicago have cable TV's and little shampoo bottles, so why doesn't this one? The trains in Massapequa leave on time, so why don't these? It's the ugly tourist syndrome, and it's hardly confined to Americans.

The morning of Day 3 the four of us, who thought ourselves excellently adaptive travelers, committed the Sin of Unreasonable Expectations. Or were we sinned against?

To preface, you must understand that we are from the Pacific Northwest, a rainy and mountainous land that specializes in irritating computer software, production of airplanes with little legroom, and ridiculously elaborate coffee drinks. By the age of five any semi-bright child should be able to order a Venti half-caf mochachino with extra whipped just from watching her mother go about her daily routine. The bottom line is when it comes to coffee, we know what we like and we'll go out of our way to get it. It's a sickness, really. There are thousands in Seattle who are considering checking themselves into Coffee Rehab right now.

So imagine how pleased we were the day before, after the undrinkable Folgers Crystals experiment perpetrated upon us at the Camino Real brunch, when we discovered the Puebla-based "The Italian Coffee Company," a chain of Seattle-style coffee houses serving all the major food groups -- lattes, mochas, cappuchinos, iced and frappe' versions of same, as well as sinfully calorie-filled desserts. To our delight, we were able to fuel the latter half of our afternoon with caffeine and sugar in the form of caramel and mocha frappe's (my selection, the Moka FriOreo Frappe', is there to the right) and made the enthusiastic determination that we would return for breakfast the following morning. A fateful decision indeed.

We have learned through experience in U.S. coffee emporia that unless you want a very milky latte, an extra shot is a must. So our first effort was to get the waiter to understand this concept, which we described as putting an extra portion of coffee in the same cup, with correspondingly less milk. Simple, no? We shall see. The three sisters all ordered lattes in this manner. Mom, who is far less infected by Starbucksitis and the obsession for strong coffee, ordered an ordinary mocha. Ah, the simple life of the non-urban dweller.

Coffee orders accomplished, it was time to move on to our breakfast order. Apparently Mexicans don't expect pastries at their coffee bars, as the menu consisted mainly of desserts, muffins (not in stock) and a few shiny croissant sandwiches (see left). So we ordered Five Easy Pieces style. Like an homage to Jack Nicholson, we ordered the ham and cheese croissant with no ham, no cheese, no nothing. The phrase "sin nada" was a key part of our order. Without anything. Naked croissants, in other words. And other words were obviously needed, since our waiter didn't in the least grasp the meaning of the ones we used.

The croissants arrived first, and I knew we were in trouble the moment I saw him crossing the room with two stale-looking croissants sliced sandwich-style with tomatoes peeking out from between the halves. No amount of clear speaking was apparently enough for the waiter at the Italian Coffee Company. Upon further investigation we determined that it wasn't just the tomato remaining. Instead of "no ham, no cheese, no nothing" it seems we should have said "no ham, no cheese, no tomato, no margarine, no sprinkled herbs, no mayonnaise, no nothing." Thinking we could get at least the other two in more classic style, we tried again. But when we asked the waiter to hold the tomato and bring plain croissants for the remaining two of us, we ended up with just the mayo and margarine. Ever had a stale margarine and mayo croissant to start your day? I don't recommend it.

Then came the coffee. Mom, the low-maintenance orderer, got exactly what she wanted, a delicious looking mocha. The three of us troublemakers, on the other hand, were a bit dismayed to see the first two lattes emerge in giant styrofoam to-go cups. As explained by our poor waiter, the barista just couldn't fit enough milk in the little cup, so he put both shots into the giant cup and filled it to the brim with milk. Obviously the whole concept we were shooting for -- stronger coffee -- was lost on waiter and barista alike. Since I wasn't enthralled with the idea of vaguely coffee-flavored foamy milk for breakfast, I took matters into my own hands, stopping the barista in the very act of making my latte. "Less milk, please," I politely requested. "All the coffee, and just half a cup of milk." And lest you think that language was a barrier, let me assure you that my Spanish is more than fluent enough to manage two simple phrases in the present tense.

In the end, I think it was a matter of the ICC guys just thinking we were insane to request the coffee (or the croissant for that matter) in any manner not explicitly laid out on the menu. Why would anyone possibly want two shots? Or less milk? Unlike the multitudinous variations on a theme available in U.S. coffee houses (each with separate charges, naturally, in the American style) in Mexico, apparently, one is expected to follow the rules. Seems odd for Mexico, a country of bargainers and driving scofflaws, but there you go. It wouldn't be a fully successful travel day if we didn't laugh our heads off at some glitch or other. Surely that's well worth the price of a hot milk and stale croissant breakfast. And just in case you were wondering, my instructions to the barista did help somewhat -- instead of my giant cup being 9/10ths full like the others, it was more like 8/10ths full. I could even taste the coffee!

© 2006 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 7:32 AM