I quickly walk over from the lovely Mizuhokan to the Ise outer shrine. The site is beautiful. I learn that the empty lot next to the shrine is where they build the building anew every 20 years. A tradition, shikinen sengu, I had heard about before but didn’t think it would be here. They started the 63rd rebuilding this year.

My inspiration for this walk—the amazing Craig Mod—gives his permission to skip this section, so I go to Iseshi station, grab some breakfast and wait for the train to Tamaru near the edge of the city. I’m walking Craig Mod’s GPS trail following it sometimes even including the exact road crossings. Having a ghost whose trail you walk in is uncanny but also the only way I can swing this in the first place. The wayfinding this provides and the research it saves are indispensable.

I drop by the Higashitokida shrine and am seriously impressed by the sense of space it creates nestled in the trees, accessible through its gated gravel path. Leaving the shrine feels like coming back to the real world.

The rain is a permanent fixture which could explain why I see so few people out and about. In my first hour of walking lots of kids cross my path on their way to school wearing their uniforms and helmets.

I take shelter at the local post office to wait out the worst of the rain. A jovial old man jumps out of his car and asks me where I’m going. Misedani he feels is beautiful but I’m too early because the leaves haven’t turned yet. It’s been way too hot this year. He goes in to do his business. I go on with my walk.

The Japanese weather forecasts report on the colors of the leaves. I wonder why Germany doesn’t do this given how nice autumn colors here can be.

Making my way from one provincial road to another, I arrive at the first pass, Meki-toge. It’s hardly challenging with just a couple of steep segments and switch backs. Moving off the road and making your way over the mountain is beautiful and feels secluded even if civilization is only a couple of hundred meters away.

At the guardian deity there is a box with a trail booklet. Even though it’s quite thin, it goes back years because there are so few people on this trail. The person signing in before me did so three days ago.

Then comes a long uninspiring stretch along the main road. At this point I’m hungry and sick of the rain and the cars. I cut around the route to make my way to Cafe de Touhenvoku which with its funky interior and pizza toast on the menu reveals itself to be a genuine Kissa. I order the Katsu Curry and scarf it down. How excellent it is to eat something warm after a whole day of walking through the rain.

I consider taking the train at Tochihara to skip to the end but my legs still being good, I loop back to the track and continue along the route. Good that I did, because otherwise I’d have missed a romp through the riverbed and a bamboo forest.

From what is already a quiet road behind the rail tracks I go down to the river. It feels like another portal into a different world. The trail carries me along the stream which is reduced to the point where a small makeshift bridge gets me over it.

Then I pass through a bamboo forest the likes of which I only know from movies. It’s dense, imposing and makes this detour from my detour well worth it.

A brief stop at bread and coffee in Kawazoe which true to its name sells bread and coffee, and children’s toys. From that point on the walk is an incessant plod along the road. My painful feet and the fading light sap my morale. Official sundown is at 16:45 but that doesn’t mean much if there’s a huge mountain between you and the sun.

I pass a bunch of derelict buildings and a very weird one which turns out to be a church/cult.

Mr Bear, the roadside stop pictured above, didn’t make it unfortunately. It’s one of many shuttered businesses along the road here.

The stretches of this walk along the road will not be appreciated much by hiking purists. In my treks through the Alps, any route that takes you on more than the absolutely necessary amount of tarmac—noticeable by the click-clack-ing of your hiking poles—is considered to be unacceptable.

By now I’ve walked for more than an hour along the road and will have at least another half hour ahead of me. My legs are increasingly feeling the weight of the 9+ hours I’ve been underway. I see on Google Maps that there will be a bus passing by in five minutes. Not giving it a second thought, I get on at the Shimo-Mise bus stop. The entirely empty bus takes me the rest of the way to Misedani station. I hobble the final steps into my hotel.

I’m staying at the Fairfield which is bougie and has a continuous stream of foreigners passing through. My shower today will not be in a communal ofuro. In town there aren’t that many restaurants open during the week. Many places are open during the weekend when there are more people in town.

I find a bowl of ramen and alcohol free Kirin at a “famous” ramen place where lots of kids with their parents eat. The ramen is nothing to write home about but the electrolytes and vegetables are very welcome. My legs come back to life.

The stats for the day say 33,53km and some 42k steps (strava).

Today was brutal but it established what the upper limit of my output can be. Walking here needs to have an exit plan at around 3pm before dusk sets in. It’s obvious now that I’ll not be able to walk to Shingu in five days. I retire to my hotel room and plan the next day’s steps.

The last day and the final bit of hiking. After that, instead of walking along the beach for 25km, I’ll take a quick train ride to Shingu. It’s been an amazing couple of days but it’s time to wrap this thing up.

My host makes me a lovely and scrumptious breakfast with self-baked rolls and gives me rice and fruit for on the trail.

The first part is Hadasu-no-michi, the road to Hadasu, and it’s a breeze. At the top of a hill some animals come running at me which startles me until I realize it’s just a chicken coop. I almost miss the exit to Hadasu which features the oldest Kamakura era stone path.

Then the next bit, Obuki-toge, will be the real deal. The last ‘high’ pass with 300m of elevation. Not a huge amount, but still the equivalent of 1000 steps on the stairmaster.

The signage is scant here and the path is barely visible. I track along the stream trying to keep the GPS bearing. Down here between the trees it isn’t that accurate but I manage to find something of a path going up.

Then the overgrowth takes over and everything is covered by high ferns. I can’t even see the rocks on the ground two steps further, let alone anything that at some point of time may have been a path. I don’t know what else to do other than push in the general direction and bushwhack my way to the top. There the path picks up again and I see signs pointing to the pass.

From then on it’s a quick romp along a wall meant to fend off wild boars. This seems an odd place to do agriculture but otherwise these walls would not be there.

Walking is pretty easy by now. The trouble with hiking is that your body becomes conditioned after 5-7 days and from that point you want to do more and more of it. But usually the trip is over at that point and normal life kicks back in.

I come down at Odomari and am met by another amazing sight. The beach here is lovely and a dip in the ocean is a must. I strip and change into my swimming clothes on an entirely empty beach and plunge into the water. I brought my swimming trunks and a tiny towel specifically for this moment.

The water isn’t even that cold and the first waves hitting my poor feet feel divine. The waves are strong and pull at me but I don’t have time to go swimming.

I dry up, circle around town and get ready for the last trailhead and the Matsumoto-toge. This pass has 135m of elevation and no switchbacks. It will be over very quickly now.

I go up and down and before I know it, I’m in Kumano pushing along a grim—not even beachfront—straight road. I shimmy to the Mos Burger for my lunch, then to Chikotto in front of the station for a coffee. It’s a lovely place that has opened very recently.

My train leaves and I get out at Shingu so I can already buy the train ticket for the last fast train to Nagoya at 17:31. There are more than a few foreigners here, mostly from the other Kumano Kodo routes, and station staff to help them work the ticket machines.

I quickly walk to the shrine, stand in line to clap my hands and buy an ema with Yatagarasu on it. This shrine is big and very busy with people coming here from all over for all kinds of reasons. A family with children is dressed in traditional clothes receiving a blessing from the priest. Some Japanese people make a point of praying at each of the shrines. Tourists gather here to get their stamps and buy their souvenirs. But me, I’m done. Done!

Arriving in front of the shrine is a mixed feeling of accomplishment, being tired and somewhat elated and also of not really knowing what to do now. Walking here was something of a purpose and now that purpose is gone.

I walk around town a bunch but I’m not that hungry. I find a bakery, Megane, where they have a Marzocco machine and know how to use it. They serve me the best coffee I had so far on this trip and an incredible pastry. This place can stand the test with the best anywhere.

I try to find interesting souvenirs or a store where I can buy some fresh clothes, but come up empty on both counts. What is open is very sleepy and I’m done with walking. I find a cute takoyaki place, Paso, on the other side of the tracks and I call it a day.

The stats for the day say 14.32km and some 30k steps (strava1, strava2).

Sitting in the train to Nagoya then and seeing all those stations pass by that I walked through: Owase, Kiinagashima, Misedani. It makes for a weird mood. I’ve been at all of them over the course of days and now we roll the entire thing back in the span of a couple of hours.

The walk is done. I’m going on to Tokyo to complete this trip but I will be back. There is so much more Japan to be walked in my future.

I saw this thing called December Adventure though and that fits in nicely with my current push to release a major update for Cuppings. If I’m going to be programming until late this month, then I’d prefer it to be on something that I can release.

I can’t promise that I won’t do any AoC (Factor is looking mighty cool) but I won’t force myself to do anything. With that, let’s get going.

1/12

#

I started working on the map view which clicking around looked like it could be really annoying. I found some dead ends and was afraid I’d have to hack in Leaflet support myself but I found a dioxus example hidden in the leaflet-rs repository.

Yes, I’m writing this website in Rust/WASM, why do you ask?

That example required a bunch of fiddling with the configuration and a couple of false starts, but now I have a vanilla map view.

I can say that I’m amazed that in this ecosystem 1. an example exists 2. that example works 3. it works in my project with a bit of diffing and 4. it seems to do what I need.

I raised a PR to the project to advertise this example on its README just like it does the others so that others wouldn’t have to search like I did. That PR got merged:

https://github.com/slowtec/leaflet-rs/pull/36

2/12

#

Today I’ll see if I can tweak the map view to show the location of the cafe we tapped and get things to a point where I can commit the change.

To do this I need to figure out how to pass information along to a router when we tap a venue. That should be easy enough but the Dioxus documentation is between 0.5 and 0.6 now and a lot of it is broken.

A tip from the Discord said I need to put the data into a context from a parent and then get it out again in a child. It’s a bit roundabout and required some refactoring, but it works.

Done on time even for a reasonable bed time.

3/12

#

Turns out my changes from yesterday did not make it to the staging server. I’ll fix that and manually run the job again.

That’s these annoying wasm-bindgen version errors that keep happening and that require a reinstall of this: cargo install -f wasm-bindgen-cli --version 0.2.97 and the dioxus-cli. Dioxus which by the way is preparing its long awaited 0.6.0 release.

Yes, I build this on the same Hetzner box that hosts it. So here you go: https://staging.cuppin.gs

Other than that not that much will happen today since I spent most of the evening noodling around with Factor (despite my intention not to do any weird programming). It’s a nice language that’s very similar to Uiua which I tried out a while back but not being an array programming language makes it feel somewhat more ergonomic.

4/12

#

I can’t describe how nice it is to wake up and not have to deal with a mediocre story line involving elves and try to find time to attack a programming problem.

After today, I’m going to need that quiet morning, because I spent until 01:30 debugging an issue: Going to a detail view from the frontpage worked, but loading a detail view directly would throw an error.

There were two issues at play here:

Leaflet maps don’t deal well with being created multiple times so either we have to call ` map.remove() or we have to check whether the map has already been created and keep a reference to it somehow.

I solved it by pushing the map into a global variable:

thread_local!(static MAP: RefCell> = RefCell::new(None));

These are Rust constructs I would normally never use so that’s interesting. More interesting is that they work in one go and that they work on the WASM target.

Then the error was gone but the page was blank. Not entirely sure what was happening I poked at the DOM to see all the map elements there but simply not visible. Turns out that because of the different path, the path for the stylesheet was being added to the URL like this: http://127.0.0.1:8080/venue/176/main.css

It just has these two lines:

#map {
    width: 100%;
    height: 100vh;
}

But without a height the map is invisible.

Both issues are solved but not committed. I’ll see tomorrow whether I’m happy with the solution and how to package this up. Also I’m not sure how main.css is being served on production and whether the same fix will work there.

5/12

#

I couldn’t help but noodle on Advent of Code a bit. Here’s my day 1 part 1 in Factor: https://github.com/alper/advent-of-code/blob/main/2024/day-01/day-01.factor

I like Factor the programming language. It’s like Lisp or Haskell but without all the annoying bits.

The environment that’s provided with it, I’m not so keen about. It’s annoying to use and has lots of weird conventions that aren’t very ergonomic.

6/12

#

I’ve been bad and I’ve finished part 2 of day 1 of the Advent of Code: https://github.com/alper/advent-of-code/blob/main/2024/day-01/day-01.factor#L27

Not so December Adventure after all maybe. I’ll promise I’ll finish the mapping improvements I was working on tomorrow.

7/12

#

Went on my weekly long bike ride. Then in the evening I didn’t have that much energy for programming other than finishing Advent of Code day 3 part 1: https://github.com/alper/advent-of-code/commit/0a74c38e7641141e10b4c48203c9e414cc492e1c

(I looked at day 2 part 2 but that just looked very tedious.)

8/12

#

Got in a ton of commits on Cuppin.gs today. After fixing the map, I wanted to see what would happen if I would add all 2000 markers to the map.

Performance seems to be doable but this is probably not ideal for a webpage. Dynamically rendering the venues is something for later. For now I can probably get away with filtering for the 100-200 nearest locations by distance and dumping those into the map view.

Now I’m back debugging Github Actions. I’m splitting up the build and deploy of the backend and the frontend into separate actions. Compiling dioxus-cli takes forever which is a step I hope I can skip with cargo-binstall.

Iterating on Github Actions takes forever and there really doesn’t seem to be a better way to develop this or a better CI solution that everybody is willing to use.

10/12

#

Spent some hours massaging the data that goes into the app. I had to add all new venues and after that I wanted to check whether any place in our 2k venue set had closed so we can take them off the display. This is a somewhat tedious multi-step process.

I have an admin binary that calls the Google Maps API for each venue to check the venue data and the business status (CLOSED_TEMPORARILY and such). But to be able to do that you have to feed each place ID into the API. The only issue with place IDs is that they expire from time to time. There’s a free API call that you can use to refresh them.

That expiration does not happen that often. What happens more, I found, is that a place will disappear entirely of Google Maps. For some reason it will be deleted. I don’t handle that case yet so there my updaters break entirely and the quickest fix around it is to delete the venue from the database and restart.

The only data issue that I still have outstanding is when venues move their location to a different address. I have a place around here that I think is still showing on its old spot.

11/12

#

Tried to run Cuppings in Xcode to be met with some weird compilation errors. Turns out that there’s an Expression type in Foundation that’s overriding my SQLite.swift Expression. It’s a pretty silly reason for code to be broken: Expression - name space conflict with Xcode 16/iOS 18

Also still fighting with the frontend deployments which seem to need a -- frozen passed to them to not proactively go update package versions.

14/12

#

Love to have a crash on startup for the Cuppings TestFlight build and then sit down today to bake a new one and upload that and for that one to work. No clue what the issue was even though I took a look at the crashlog (that I sent in myself).

I’ve also automated building the iOS app to be done by Xcode Cloud which should making new versions (whenever the database is updated) a lot easier.

16/12

#

Upgraded the frontend to Dioxus 0.6.0 which just came out and has lots of quality of life issues. For my case, I did not need to change a single line of code, just change some version numbers and build a new dioxus-cli.

I hope that maybe solves the wasm-bindgen issues on the frontend deploy. The annoying part about the build is that it takes so long that it’s very hard to iterate on.

It’s too late even for me to see what this does. I’m off to bed. You may or may not get a new version of the website by tomorrow morning.

18/12

#

Spent some iterations running the frontend deploy and rerunning it but now it should be working.

22/12

#

I spent the evening doing manual data munging and correcting some venue locations that hadn’t been updated correctly through my data life cycle.

That forced me to clarify the two name fields the venues table has.

• name was the original name field and was pulled from the Foursquare metadata
• google_name is the name field that’s pulled from Google Maps and was effectively leading but not updated correctly yet when refreshing the data

So to figure that out I did a bunch of auditing in the list to see venues where there was a large discrepancy between the names. Something that happens is that a place will change its name but keep the same location and Google Maps place.

I also added a label to the iOS app to indicate whether this is a DEBUG build but that messed up the layout and I guess I might as well remove it. Sometimes I get confused what I’m running, but since it’s just me running DEBUG builds on their phone, I think I can do without.

I also started a rewrite that I’m not sure I’m going to pull over the line: I wanted to remove the search dependency on Alpine.js and replace it with htmx. For this I asked Cursor to do the translation which it did a stab at but ultimately rather failed to do even the basic steps for it. Then I did it myself and while htmx is super easy to setup, the data juggling I have to do with what I get from Google Maps is very fragile and needs to be cleaned up (which I may or may not do given that things are working right now).

23/12

#

Working with the backend was very annoying because every time the server restarts, it would log me out. To fix that I changed the persistency of tower-sessions from MemoryStore to FileSessionStorage and that fixed it without issues. There is now a .sessions folder in the backend which needs to be ignored for cargo watch but other than that it’s a drop-in replacement.

That means I will need to write a logout view at some point.

First I think it’s great that McDonald’s is doing this. It would be nice if they switched all their meat to what is at least a nominally biologically produced variety. I’ve seen people hating on it but large food producers having to shift over is a sign of victory. Read this Fortune article about the war on Big Food.

Second I don’t think McDonald’s understands why it is that people eat organical food. I and many others eat it because it tastes better than the other stuff. There are other reasons to eat organically but if those were the only ones then it would be nowhere near as popular as it is now. The problem with the McB is that it’s just as bad a hamburger as you are used to eating from McDonald’s but now with a bio patty.

This makes it a great burger for the staunch McDonald’s customer who was thinking of switching away because they started worrying about meat quality. For Berlin’s actual burger lovers this is irrelevant and you should just keep going to Tommi.

I had picked my hotel to be on the right side of the city to be off to a running start so I could visit places right from the very first day. So landed at Narita, got my Mifi and while waiting to checkin I made my way to.

Little Nap Coffee Stand

#

I had a quick lunch and walked to the Little Nap Coffee Stand (checkin, tip) which I had seen a video of over at My First Coffee and was totally smitten with. As promised the store was beautiful and the coffee was excellent.

Fuglen Tokyo

#

Then I walked over to this place recommended to me by Companion Coffee. This Fuglen (checkin, tip) is a sister to a store by the same name in Oslo ¹. This place turned out to be more of a cafe with an event program and cocktails in the evening and a diverse group of Japanese people and expats hanging around with laptops during the day.

The decorations are lush Nordic wood and the Kalita Wave pour over that I had was terrific.

Omotesando Koffee

#

Then after some more walking around at the end of the day I finally hit the promised place: Omotesando Koffee (checkin, tip) which had been recommended to me by countless people and where Eiichi Kunimoto practices his craft. I had an iced cappuccino here because —what I hadn’t counted on— the weather was extremely pressing and it was rainy humid and very warm all day. It stayed that way for most of my stay.

The iced cappuccino at Omotesando is more of a milkshake like concoction with the espresso shot put into a blender along with some ice and milk, the result is poured out into your cup and sprinkled with —I think— cinnamon. Drinking this at that moment in the idyllic garden of Omotesando was a near religious experience and felt like the best coffee I have ever had. I returned to Omotesando a number of times during my visit for the coffee, the amicable staff and the quiet ambiance of its garden.

Bear Pond Espresso

#

The next day I walked from my hotel to Shimokitazawa, a 20 minute saunter in the heat through the quiet residential area of Hatagaya. I don’t have any pictures of Bear Pond (checkin, tip) because of their policy but this was the other summit of my Tokyo coffee experience.

Katsuyuki Tanaka (and Eiichi Kunimoto of Omotesando) are very different and have a totally different style of coffee and shop but both elevate making coffee to a level which can only be called artistry.

The ambiance at Bear Pond is slightly forbidding but with the American radio playing it is rather easy to unwind on one of the stools and wait for your espresso to be served. That espresso when it comes out is one of the shortest shots you have ever drunk and probably also one of the most intense.

I ordered an espresso on an empty stomach which I normally never do because it gives me problems. But this espresso was so smooth that not only did my stomach not get upset, it was so delicious that I chased it with another one. With the reduced quantity it becomes something of an effort to get every last bit of taste out of the cup.

I brought back a bag of Bear Pond’s house blend ‘Flower Child’ and even when made in Berlin (by the heroes of Companion Coffee) after two weeks, it still had that characteristic deep chocolate like flavour.

Cafe Obscura

#

The next stop was Cafe Obscura (checkin, tip), a somewhat out of the way place with lots of nice leather sofas and good siphons on offer. Obscura also have a laboratory which I skipped in favor of this place. The siphon coffee is expertly made and really good.

Nozy Coffee

#

Then it was a quick visit to Nozy Coffee (checkin, tip) which is a small but very nice looking coffee place. I had a solid cappuccino and saw that they have lots of beans on offer. Unfortunately I had no time to come back and bring some of these with me, but this place is one to look out for.

Be A Good Neighbor (Sendagaya)

#

The following day started out at the tiny Be A Good Neighbor (checkin, tip) store in Sendagaya. The cappuccino and the cake were both excellent and the barista was very helpful in offering tips about where to get more coffee. Especially useful was his pointer to Paddlers which I started the next day with.

Streamer Coffee Company Shibuya

#

I then walked on to Shibuya to try the coffee at Streamer (checkin, tip). The type of coffee which they serve here and which I had is a latte. I normally don’t drink them but in the light of trying out the coffee as it is being served locally I had one. Shockingly this was the first place in Tokyo I encountered where the coffee was not fantastic.

What Streamer does do really well is to be a nice place to hangout. There were lots of people in the store with and without laptops having a great time and relaxing which is exactly what I did as well.

On the Corner No. 8 Bear Pond

#

The last stop this day was the Shibuya On the Corner Bear Pond No. 8 (checkin, tip) take-out bar which is a beautiful store front with attached coffee bar where you can sit on a handful of stools and recharge your phone or as it seems to be the intention: take out your coffee. You get an expertly drawn coffee with milk in it and a no photo policy is in effect here as well, so I can show you the cup I drank it from:

I did not visit the restaurant and instead had an awesome burger around the corner at Whoopie Gold Burger.

Paddler’s Coffee

#

The next day I trekked to the area around Sangubashi station in the morning and had a terrific start of the day at Paddlers Coffee (checkin, tip) a brilliant setup lunch place with Stumptown coffee on offer. I had a spectacular iced coffee in the stifling heat.

Cafe Kitsune

#

I then made it out to Cafe Kitsune (checkin, tip) whose presence I had just been alerted to. This is a fashion store in Omotesando where they have a fabled Slayer Espresso machine.

Then it was off to Kyoto to see some sights and sample the coffee outside of Tokyo. This was something of a disappointment, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Specialty Coffee Unir

#

In Kyoto I found it rather hard to get a coffee that I would term drinkable. Most of the local brews are very dark roasted and ridiculously over extracted to a point that I can hardly drink them even with milk and sugar (or gum syrup).

One exception to his in Kyoto was Unir (checkin, tip) where they make a very nice cappuccino and which I visited a couple of times because of this.

アカツキコーヒー (Akatsuki Coffee)

#

Based on some research I found Akatsuki (checkin, tip) which is a nice place in a different part of town. This place gets the filter brew almost right and the shop itself looks beautiful.

Omotesando Koffee

#

What I didn’t know until my last day in Kyoto and after my camera broke down is that they have a branch of Omotesando (checkin, tip)in the city on the main shopping street in a fashion store of United Arrows. The same impeccable Omotesando branding and the same fantastic coffee. I’m half glad that I didn’t know of it before because given the Kyoto coffee scene I would have been at this place all the time.

Hood Cafe

#

Then it was off to Osaka to do the same. My experience here was a bit better than in Kyoto but not much. Hood (checkin, tip) is a very nice coffee shop which manages to hit all of the cultural paraphernalia associated with third wave coffee and also serves a bunch of different beans and methods but still it does not seem to hit the level of Tokyo. Still they serve very good coffee even without comparing it to the stuff on offer in the rest of the city.

Espresso Bar Millpour

#

Next up was Millpour (checkin, tip) which is a tiny place in the city where they make a near perfect cappuccino.

After that detour it was time to get back to Tokyo and to finish this visit.

The Monocle Cafe

#

I dropped by the Monocle Cafe (checkin, tip) in the basement of a clothing store and was disappointed by the coffee though the food was rather ok. The coffee is not terrible, but it does not have the quality that you would expect from Monocle which is more or less the same for the rest of the store.

Be A Good Neighbor Skytree

#

Then I made my way over to the Be A Good Neighbor (checkin, tip) store in the Skytree. The Skytree itself is a pandemonium of commerce where people are screaming at you all the time to buy something. Finding your way through the mall to the exact location of Be A Good Neighbor is no mean feat, but finally having arrived there the coffee is as excellent as in their other store. I would only recommend going here if you’re already in the area or god forbid entering the Skytree but then it is a welcome place to rest.

Sarutahiko Coffee

#

I also did a round of Ebisu and found two very nice coffee places in that part of town. Sarutahiko (checkin) is a small shop but it seems to have everything necessary and made a very nice coffee. Definitely worth a visit.

Hitinui Espresso Bar

#

A bit further on is Hitinui (checkin, tip) which is a tiny place and also doubles as a Tahitian dance school. I couldn’t check out the dance, but the cappuccino was excellent and the barista very friendly.

Identity Coffee Bar+Gallery

#

Identity Coffee Bar+ Gallery (checkin, tip) also in Omotesando is a rather nice store and has an excellent selection of both Intelligentsia and Handsome beans which they prepare perfectly.

That was the roundup from my Tokyo coffee experience. I visited a couple of the places several times and brought back some bags of coffee but I am extremely impressed with the coffee culture and I’ll definitely be back.

That week we went into our Open State board meeting where everything is picking up in pace considerably. After that I just made it to the drinks of the Upfront UG which was a lot of fun.

We started ideation and building of an app for the piazza+social media platform which I’m rather excited about. More on that over on the Hubbub blog soon.

I will be speaking at the Retune conference in my hometown on the subject of games with a purpose and our creative process. It looks like a super nice conference and I would love to meet you here.

Our office landlords invited us to join them in a celebration on our building’s roof terrace. It’s been a while since I was on one of those and they look like mandatory facilities for anybody living in Berlin. I’m putting it my list of required utilities for the next KANT office.

Just to prove the awesomeness of Berlin, we just had a Korean food shack opening here (besides the already rather large offering of Korean cuisine that Berlin has). I had my first Kimchi Fries there, which I think is indeed best described as a Korean kapsalon.

On Friday I just handled a last bit of business for the week and then went off to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MeckPom) for a bit of kayaking and canoeing which is about all there is to do in that part of Germany. It is a state that is trying to cope with severe shrinkage and because of its sparse population lends itself particularly well to forays into nature. I saw lots of animals and their young and definitely learned the difference between a kayak and a canoe. Also: bringing an aeropress can make situations much more bearable.

Unfindable Treats

#

The problem in Amsterdam first and foremost is that many dishes and types of food lack proper representation. There are even entire cuisines missing. It is a long list, but below follows an attempt to distill my years of disappointment:

Breakfast Try to find a place in Amsterdam to have a decent meal ¹ at 08:00 and you’ll come up empty. This is tied mainly with the departure of blue collar work from the city and the city getting a more languid touristy character. There’s the mad commute around 08:00, but nobody goes in for breakfast except a take-away coffee and croissant.

Brunch of any type Tied to the previous, there is hardly a brunch offering to speak of. This is a ridiculous poverty compared to San Francisco or even Copenhagen. Most Sunday’s are highly improved by this type of food, though it can also very quickly degenerate into a fad.

Full English breakfast and the British kitchen There are a couple of touristy places offering something like the Full English and there’s one lunch place that does a meagre version, but the city all in all lacks greasy spoons. The British have elevated eating disgusting things to an art and we should take notice. With the breakfast already unattainable, don’t even look for more specialty offerings such as the Scottish Egg or Welsh Rarebit. Relatedly I have not been able to find a reliable and affordable source of Eggs Benedict in the city in my years.

BBQ London has recently been treated to the best BBQ this side of the pond with the opening of Pitt Cue but Amsterdam doesn’t even sport an attempt at this discipline. The festival of the Rolling Kitchens had some attempts in this direction, but the quantities were not enough for the appetite of the audience and an availability of one week a year does not amount to much.

East-European or Russian cuisine In the Netherlands we pretend that Eastern Europe does not exist, except for Polish people who we use for scapegoating or when our pipes are clogged. The Slavic treats of Borsht, Perogi and the likes, are impossible to find and in the whole of Amsterdam there is not even one Russian or similar restaurant.

Ramen There is currently one location in Amsterdam that does Tonkotsu Ramen and does it excellently but it only serves them a handful hours every week. You do not need to be a nippophile to be hit by a sudden ramen craving, but you will be coming up empty.

Burrito There is also now only one place in Amsterdam that does an acceptable burrito and it is swamped on Sunday evenings. It isn’t Californian, but that is a minor detail.

Proper Coffee Coffee in Amsterdam has been improving and there are some players that have upped the city’s game reliably. That success has however prompted a lot of douche places that look nice, but where the coffee is undrinkable. Add to that, some places (outside of the center) ask €2,50 for a mediocre cappuccino. Kees Kraakman is about to open up North any day now which will give that area a much needed caffeine boost but overall it is not enough.

Pasteis de Nata Here in Berlin you are nearly smothered in this treat at an affordable price (the same in London). In Amsterdam, they are near unfindable and expensive when you do. The general pastry situation is laughably poor compared to either Lisbon or Paris.

Taco adds the following:

@alpercugun Add to lacks: really good tapas, more than one korean restaurant, authentic schezuan, good southern US style BBQ — Taco Ekkel

I treated the BBQ above. I can agree about the Korean offerings which are few and too expensive. I rarely ate tapas because most taperias are ballententen. And I have never had Schezuan, so I can’t comment on that.

Problems in the Fabric of Eating

#

The shortcomings above may be fixed in the future, but progress will be slow and incomplete because the Amsterdam culinary scene is broken on a deeper level. I can best explain that using two factors:

No 24 hour availability Peter reminded me of this one, which is pretty important. I have long bemoaned the lack of a 24h diner in Amsterdam. I would take any diner by now, but for a city pretending to be international, the lack of food options for a traveller touching down on Schiphol between 02:00 and 07:00 is rather dismaying. Amsterdam is not ‘the city that never sleeps’, so much is clear, but allowing the people that don’t sleep to cater for themselves, would be tolerant for a start.

This is a symptom of the Dutch mentality to create rules for everything, even the things that would otherwise sort themselves out. Dutch regelzucht nips a lot of otherwise nice things in the bud. This has effects on the opening times of restaurants, but also on the (im)possibility of food carts and other displays of eating and drinking outdoors, but probably also on the ways you can prepare food and who you can hire to do that. I’m not advocating total abandon of rules here, but I am quite sure the Dutch implementation errs too far on the side of caution.

Absurdly poor price/quality ratio The rampant inflation of housing in the city also has had an effect on culinary offerings. People paying upwards of €1200/month in rent, don’t quaff at a single sit-down dinner costing around €20 for the simplest of meals ².

Many of those people are new entrants to Amsterdam which is the biggest city they have experienced thusfar. These people are really nice and they mean well, but they are still hicks who are easily impressed by the trappings of the big city village that Amsterdam is. Their newfound abundance in cash and lack of taste spoils the market and makes good options for the discerning eater, harder to find.

Conclusion

#

The fact that Johannes would not mention these issues and he gives Turkish charcoal grill after charcoal grill 9 marks every week ³, testifies to his age and his local knowledge. Most of the people I know consume food with a global or at least an European perspective and given the best there is on offer there, Amsterdam cannot compete.

I know the scene is improving and ever in flux, so some of the things I have mentioned above may no longer be true, but I haven’t even been gone two months yet. Additions and discoveries are of course welcome here or via more private channels.

In Utrecht studio proceedings are supported by the Village which may quite well pour the best coffee in the Netherlands. This is how they do it:

There is a vibe floating around at the office about studio++. I have had lots of ideas, visions, hopes and ambitions for the future studio, but most importantly: it should be similarly (de)central, be about twice as big and we should have a full kitchen to our disposal. Too much to ask for in Amsterdam’s slumping professional real estate market? I think not. The search starts in earnest sometime after I move house this weekend.

Finalizing maguro, doing onsite work with Kilian Valkhof on Statlas, talking with old school publishers, putting the final touches on mérida.

And in between all of this, trying to produce some original writing on the subject of games.

Also I cannot stress how instrumental the lovely guys at the Village in Utrecht are for keeping us caffeinated (and by extension sanely productive):

So I opened a collaborative document with my free spots to see if people would be interested in meeting. Early, just for coffee and just for an hour. This is going quite nicely so far, and I’m going to see if I can fill it up for the entire duration of Stumptown’s run here in Amsterdam.

I’ve still got a free spot for next week and will post my schedule for the week after shortly. Signup at the Wave:

Popup stores zijn vet en nu is de Albert Cuyp niet het armoedigste deel van de stad wat betreft caffeïne-toevoer, maar zoals in het artikel in de Times ook te lezen staat:

I’ve gotten to really know the city. But I’ve tried to find good coffee, and it’s been challenging. It’s way underdeveloped compared to the U.S., or even London or Scandinavia.

Dat is serieus waar. Mensen hebben hier geen smaak of budget voor goede koffie. In de meeste café’s krijg je een verbrande halve kop espresso, met enkele goede uitzonderingen. Het personeel (‘baristas’ hebben we hier niet) neemt het werk ook niet serieus en is niet ontvankelijk voor constructief commentaar.

Laatst bij de Koffiesalon kreeg ik van de jongen achter de bar triomfantelijk “nog een beetje extra melk”in mijn kopje gekwakt. De koffie die je uitserveert is goed, of hij is het niet. Rot op met je extra beetje melk.

Ik verheug me op mijn eerste bezoek aan Stumptown. Het moet wel goed zijn. Slechter kan in elk geval niet.

Update:

Ik ben er geweest en de koffie is er inderdaad fantastisch. Nu maar hopen dat ze blijven.

Zoals normaal bij de Albert Heijn hebben ze bijna niks.

Bakpoeder bestaat in Nederland geloof ik niet als concept. Ik daarvoor in de plaats maar zelfrijzend bakmeel genomen.

Maïsolie was er niet maar wel maïskiemolie, dat zal dan wel bijna hetzelfde zijn.

Tortilla’s die hier in de schappen liggen zijn van tarwebloem gemaakt in plaats van maïsbloem zoals in het recept. Dat zal wel liggen aan het feit dat we aan deze kant van de oceaan de meeste dingen met tarwe doen terwijl ze daar veelal maïs gebruiken.

Jalapeño-pepers zijn natuurlijk niet te vinden. Vervangen met lange rode pepers.

Kijken wat hiervan te maken valt.

Mochten ze al bestaan dan hoor ik het graag. Mocht iemand ze willen beginnen dan zou ik het erg op prijs stellen.

Burgermeester

#

De Burgermeester is mijn voorbeeld van zo’n niche in de Amsterdamse horeca die niet bediend werd. Hier is recent de Burgermesteer geopend en deze loopt nu prima.

Voordat de Burgermeester er was, moest je heel goed zoeken in Amsterdam om een grote culinaire burger te kunnen vinden ¹. De burger had hier blijkbaar teveel een fast food associatie en was verplicht smerig.

Succesvoorbeelden uit het buitenland genoeg en dan in het bijzonder de Burgermeister, Marienburger en Kreuzburger-achtige tenten in Berlijn.

Taqueria

#

Je ziet ze heel veel in Californië en Texas, de taquerí­as waar je voor weinig geld een goed gevulde burrito met vlees, bonen en rijst met daarbij hete sausen, guacamole en nachos kunt krijgen. Er gaat geen dag voorbij dat ik niet aan een burrito denk. Toen ik in San Francisco was at ik het ongeveer om de dag. Als ik er ooit heen zou verhuizen, zouden de taquerí­as een belangrijke reden daarvoo zijn.

In Europa bestaat er al een imitatie in de vorm van Dolores vlakbij Alexanderplatz in Berlijn. Kenners vinden het misschien niet vergelijkbaar, maar het is heel fijn om in de Duitse winterkou dit stukje Californië tegen te komen.

In Amsterdam is er bij mij in de buurt de Taco Shop die ik nog moet uitproberen, maar meer keuze zou niet gek zijn.

Update: The Taco Shop uitgeprobeerd en deze was best ok en ook goede prijs/kwantiteitsverhouding. Geen burritos verpakt in aluminiumfolie zoals ik gewend ben, maar goed te eten. Volgende keer de Chimichanga bestellen.

24h Diner

#

Meestal moet ik er niet aan denken om na het uitgaan complete burgermaaltijden of stacks van pannekoeken met maple syrup weg te moeten werken, maar als het dan ergens kan, dan in het comfort van een mooie klassieke diner.

Soms heb je gewoon laat nog honger en trek in lekker eten. Daar is in Amsterdam nog steeds moeilijk aan te komen. Waar ga je heen na 0:00 voor niet-shoarma of patat? Ik denk dat één diner-achtig restaurant wat 24 uur per dag open is ergens in het centrum, op heel veel bezoekers kan rekenen.

In ’n Out Burger

#

Het ‘gezonde’ fast food van de In ’n Out Burger heeft als West-Amerikaans fenomeen een allure die moeilijk uit te leggen is. Feit is wel dat de burgers en de frieten er heel lekker zijn en dat het een sympathiek concept is tussen de grote ketens in de Verenigde Staten.

Greasy Spoon

#

Pas in Shepherdess Cafe in Hackney het klassieke Engelse eten geprobeerd en dat was een succes! Alleen zó jammer dat we dat hier niet hebben; niet een goede plek om Engels eten te eten, niet een serie greasy spoons en eigenlijk helemaal geen plaatsen waar je voor £7 (= €7) kunt zitten en lekker veel kunt eten.

Ik denk dat deze concepten mits goed uitgevoerd grote successen kunnen worden en in de meeste gevallen niche-vullers zullen zijn (zoals de Burgermeester nu is). Dus een slimme restaurateur kan hier zijn slag slaan en mijn buik vullen. Of moet ik toch naar San Francisco verhuizen?

Op hun faculteit hebben ze een bijzonder hippe koffietent neergezet ¹ die lijkt op een soort ruimtestation. Koffietreats, smoothies en andere versnaperingen zijn er verkrijgbaar tegen een schappelijke prijs.

Ik bestelde er een caffè machiato en ging zitten in één van de opgestelde vliegtuigstoelen. Alles lijkt perfect. Tot ik de eerste slok van de koffie nam. Deze was absoluut walgelijk ².

Ik vind dit exemplarisch voor bouwkunde omdat met veel bombarie waanzinnige dingen uit de grond gestampt worden waarin de meest basale dingen niet of nauwelijks werken. Ik zeg niet dat dit bij bouwkunde de hele tijd gebeurt, maar wel dat ik het goed bij die faculteit kan plaatsen.

Hiervoor in de plaats een eenvoudige open bar met een espressoaparaat, houten stoeltjes en tafeltjes —zeg maar het simpelst mogelijke concept— had ook volstaan. Als de koffie er goed was, dan was ik er blijer mee geweest.

Lessen?

Innoveer niet op franje als je de basics niet beheerst.

En het aloude: “Under promise and over deliver” gaat hier op als nooit te voren. De verwachtingen die je met dit decor wekt, zijn te hoog voor het geleverde.

I wasn’t very hungry so instead of my regular döner I got some green pistachio baklava. This stuff is so ridiculously delicious it explodes into pure sugar and pistachio in your mouth and it fills you up pretty fast. I don’t get why you would buy mass-produced candy from the supermarket. If you want to get fat, why not get fat eating good stuff?

Now if only I could find a place around here ² that sells künefe, things would get really crazy.

Op de terugweg uit Berlijn aten Tijs en ik in een Rasthof ergens voor Hannover en namen na het eten ³ een dubbele espresso ⁴ aan de Lavazzabar ⁵. Op de balie stond deze kalender en toen ik hem opmerkte kregen Tijs en ik allebei er eentje van de koffiedame.

Wat ik vaker ga doen is de camera in de woonkamer opstellen in studiostand: statief, afstandsbediening, egale achtergrond en dan wat foto’s van ze trekken. Of zoals in dit geval ze het zelf laten doen, terwijl ik sta te koken.

Fijn om nu te weten hoe je tortillas met ei en aardappel maakt. In Spanje overal te krijgen, een eenvoudige maar erg lekkere snack.

De tortillakoeken zijn niet heel goed gelukt ¹ maar ze waren nog steeds stukken lekkerder —en minder rubberachtig— dan de dingen die je in de supermarkt koopt. Het maken van je eigen brood geeft ook een goed gevoel.

Verkruim de boter door de bloem:

Laat de deegballetjes even rusten:

Snij een tortilla in blokjes:

Bak de aardappelen in de maïsolie:

Rol de koeken uit en bak ze:

En stop ze in een geïmproviseerde tortillahouder:

Bak de twee smaken tortilla. Met aardappel:

Met tomaat-ui-peper:

En eet het op:

Toevoegingen welkom. Woensdag mijn bevindingen en foto’s.

Robert Rodriguez’s “Sin City” Ontbijttaco’s

Warning: “If you learn how to make this, you will crave it every night, and every day, like I do.” - Robert Rodriguez

Bronnen. Robert Rodriguez’s video:

Ingrediënten:

Voor de Bloem-tortillas 500ml bloem 1/2 tel zout 1/2 tel bakpoeder 50ml boter of reuzel (of half om half) 180ml warm water (heet bij reuzel)

Voor de vulling met aardappel en ei 1 grote aardappel maïsolie zeezout en versgemalen peper 2 maistortillas 1 grote tomaat 1 grote witte ui 1 jalapeño peper 1 klontje boter 6 eieren melk

Meng bloem, zout en bakpoeder en doe het vet erdoorheen. Roer het vet door de bloem (met de hand of met een vork) tot een grof kruimelige structuur ontstaat. Voeg het water toe zodat het klontert. Je kunt wat poeder apart houden om bij te stellen. Kneed het deeg enkele minuten met de hand tot het glad en elastisch aanvoelt. Maak hier (8-10) balletjes van ter grootte van golfballen.

Bevochtig een theedoek met warm water en leg deze over de balletjes heen. Laat deze 20 minuten liggen terwijl je de vulling maakt.

Schil de aardappel en snij deze in blokjes. Doe de maisolie in een pan, doe de aardappelen erbij en strooi de zout en peper erover. Laat dit op een middelhoog vuur bakken tot knapperig maar niet te gefrituurd.

Snij de maistortillas in stukjes. Snij ook de tomaat, de ui en de jalapeño in blokjes.

Als de aardappelen gaar zijn laat ze dan uitlekken op wat keukenpapier en voeg weer zout en peper toe. Ze zouden nu al lekker moeten zijn.

Gooi de tortillastukjes in het vet waar de aardappelen uit kwamen.

Zet een teflonpan op een middelhoog vuur en druk de deegballetjes plat en geef ze allemaal een paar rollen met de deegroller.

Als de tortillastukjes gaar zijn, haal ze eruit en laat ze uitlekken. Voeg zout en peper toe en proef.

Haal de olie uit de pan en gaar de tomaat, ui en jalapeño.

Geef elke plak nog één rol en gooi ze op de teflonpan. Keer ze na 8 seconden direct om. Als ze nu al een beetje gekleurd zijn, is de pan heet genoeg. Laat nog 60-90 seconden verder bakken. De tortilla’s bollen op. Keer ze weer en druk met een druk met een spatel de randen dicht. Ze bollen nu nog verder op. Doe de tortilla’s wanneer klaar in een bak met een handdoek (of een tortillahouder) om ze warm te houden.

Gooi boter in een pan. Klop drie eieren los met wat melk. Giet dit in de pan en gooi de aardappels erop. Laat even inbakken voor je het rustig begint te keren. Stop met koken voor het té gaar is.

In nog een pan precies hetzelfde, boter en drie eieren losgeklopt met melk. Gooi hier de tortillachips en het ui-tomaat-jalapeño mengsel bij. Vervolg op dezelfde manier.

Alles is nu klaar. Vul tortillas met de eimengsels en smakelijk eten.

Onthoud: Niet kunnen koken is net als niet kunnen neuken. Je moet de rest van je leven eten, dus kun je het maar beter goed doen.

Half experimenteel, half pakje. Een pak lasagnetta gekocht in de supermarkt maar ik vond de variatiesuggesties wat tam. Dus er een groene paprika, prei, zwarte olijven en halve radijsen ¹ doorheen gegooid. De melk was opgegaan in de cappuccino vanmiddag ², dus die vervangen met een flink toet Philadelphia.

Tijdens het wachten op de oven nog wat radijssterretjes gesneden als garnering.

Inspiratie

#

Hoe kwam ik hier dan opeens op? De heren Dekker tonen regelmatig lekkere dingen op hun kookblog ter inspiratie maar vanochtend zag ik iets anders. Robert Rodriguez onthulde zijn recept voor ontbijt-taco’s —een snack voor de late uurtjes doorhalen met werk.

Het ziet er lekker en vullend uit en het filmpje is lekker vlot gesneden met stukjes Sin City erdoorheen. Besluitend zegt Rodriguez nog: “Not knowing how to cook, is like not knowing how to fuck.” en gelijk heeft hij. Beiden horen goed, lekker en met liefde te gebeuren.

Ik ga dit recept morgen testen om te kijken of ik het in productie kan nemen.

Het andere recept is voor Puerco Pibil.

Daarnaast is de koffie hier zo ontzettend slecht dat ik neig de ‘barista’ over de toonbank te trekken en hem er met zijn neus in te drukken.

Ach.

Dus ik kreeg een kleine demonstratie te horen. Zie hieronder even snel geschoten en ge-upload via de WiFi van de buren:

De rest van de avond zitten praten over Turkse muziek, (volks)dansen, stand-up komieken allemaal op basis van fragmenten gevonden op YouTube. Televisie, wat is dat?

In de tien minuten wachten op de volgende even aan de overkant van de straat een hele goede espresso gedronken (met complementaire chocolade-koffiebonen!).

En de prijs: €1,60

We zaten gisteren op het terras op de Beestenmarkt vlakbij de Brabantse Turfmarkt. Toen het in de stad te koud werd voor een terrasje liepen we even langs om deze nieuwe tent temminste even gezien te hebben.

Ze waren toen al een half uurtje dicht en de twee mannen op deze foto waren bezig het terras op te ruimen. Het blijkt dus dat familie van hen Portugees is (schoonzus ofzoiets) en dat ze niet meer in Portugal wonen, maar wat van Portugal hierheen hebben gebracht.

Op het menu staat naast goede koffie en Pasteis de Nata ook Caldo Verde. We moeten hier zeker nog een keer terug om dat uit te proberen.

Ze hadden nog wel wat Pasteis de Nata over waarvan we er een paar hebben gekocht. Lekkere koffie kan ik thuis ook maken, maar pasteis zijn iets moeilijker.

Toen bij mij thuis de Pasteitjes in de oven even een klap gegeven (30sec. op 200 graden) en toen met espresso en kaneel opgegeten. Dit waren zeker wel wat van de beter pasteitjes die we hebben gegeten.

Om Hiram aan te vullen. Dit is waar echte koffie uit komt: