Coffee Talk: November 2005 Archives

The Dunkin' Donuts on Veterans in Metairie has re-opened. OK, in the grand scheme of things in metro New Orleans, that's not a big deal, but I'm not one for eating beignets for breakfast. I find beignets to be way too heavy to start the morning. The DD breakfast sandwiches are also infinitely better than your basic McMuffin or Crossandwich. There are only three DDs in metro New Orleans--one on Jefferson Hwy, near Causeway, one on St. Charles Ave., in the CBD, and the one on Vets.

I grew up with Tastee and McKenzie (which, by the way, makes it appropriate that Tastee sells a few ex-McKenzie items), Tastee glazed donuts and McKenzie chocolate cake donuts. With chocolate milk, of course. When we moved back to Metairie, we discovered that going to DD was not all that much further than going to Tastee.

One thing I'll say for our Dunkin Donuts locations-we may only have a tiny fraction of what they have in greater Boston, ours make much better donuts. They just as soon call the ones in Boston "Dunkin Bagels." There's this one DD that's almost directly across from Park Street Station (the T stop that's at Boston Common) that has the nastiest donuts in the nation. But they make a great sausage-egg-cheese-everything bagel. Go figger.

Then there's the coffee. I like DD when I'm away from New Orleans because they have flavored coffee. A large French Vanilla is a poor substitute for Morning Call's most excellent coffee-with-chicory, but heck, when you're in Framingham, Mass, you do what you gotta do. While the DD here does great donuts, the coffee up north is better. They actually use the French Vanilla roast up there, because they go through so much of it. In Metairie, the DD hits regular coffee with a flavor shot. It's OK, but bloody tempting to make two stops--one at DD for food, one at CDM or MC for coffee... :-)

My teen only has about three more weeks at Brother Martin-in-exile in Baton Rouge, at which time my haunting of BR coffee shops will drop off radically.

For the benefit of New Orleanians who are stranded in this wasteland that is the state capitol, there are a few bright spots. There are a number of CC's Coffee Houses in Baton Rouge. No surprise there, since Community Coffee started up here. With the influx of folks from New Orleans in BR, the CC's locations tend to be a bit more crowded, as exiles make use of the chain's free wireless internet service.

If a CC's is too crowded and I want to get on the 'net, the next best option is the ubiquitous chain with the green sign. Starbucks is affiliated with T-Mobile, so many of their shoppes are "hot spots." I'm not a big fan of Starbucks coffee, though. If I have to go there to get online, my drink of choice is a Chai Latte.

Of the various CC's I've been to here in BR, I've found the one on Bluebonnet and Perkins to be crowded the most often. The one on Perkins near Government is nice and has less traffic, and the one out on Siegen Ln. is even more laid-back. The coffee and pastries at all locations is consistent; this franchise has done well in terms of training baristas. There's also a CC's in the Mall of Louisiana, on the first floor, across from La Madeleine.

For the homesick New Orleanian trapped in BR, it's possible to capture a little piece of home at the Cafe' du Monde at the Mall of Louisiana. The coffee's excellent, and the beignets are good, but the atmosphere makes you miss Lakeside Mall more than it makes you miss the French Market.

A place with more ambience and good coffee-and-donuts is Coffee Call, on College Dr., just before it intersects with Perkins Rd. A couple of my friends from Shreveport have been telling me about Coffee Call for years now, about how they make good beignets. Being from New Orleans, I've always nodded politely and ignored their urging to try it. After all, how can anyplace outside of metro New Orleans be any fun? Well, things have changed just a bit around here, so I gave Coffee Call a try.

I don't know why I never made the connection before, but it hit me as soon as I walked in the door: "Coffee Call" is a play on "Morning Call." The interior of the shoppe is a loose copy of Morning Call in Metairie. Just like MC, Coffee Call has counter seating with wooden stools, and a big wooden archway illuminated by bare lightbulbs. The big difference is that the Baton Rouge shoppe is painted and trimmed out in blue rather than the browns and yellows of Morning Call. It's one of those situations where imitation is the sincerest form flattery, because it works. It's not merely a plagiarized copy.

Of course, the proof is in the pudding, or the beignets, in this case. They're pretty good, as is the coffee. Just like CDM in a shopping mall will never rival that order you had with your sweetie under the awning on Decatur Street on the special, memorable night, these donuts won't replace Morning Call. Still, it's a sweet taste of home-away-from-home.

I'm currently at the PJ's Coffee at Clearview Mall in Metairie. The dark roast today is their first new coffee in something like four years. It's called "Preservation Roast," as a tribute to saving the city post-Katrina. It's not a bad coffee, full-bodied and not over-roasted.

Justin and I had dinner at Oki Nago, a Japanese buffet restaurant in Metairie. I wanted coffee, so we passed by Morning Call. It was packed, so I grabbed a large coffee and an order to go:

Morning Call is nowhere near as well-known as Cafe du Monde, mainly because they left the French Market in 1974 for the (in their view) greener pastures of Metairie. MC was further down in the French Market, at Decatur and Ursulines Streets. They moved the interior of the place lock, stock, and barrel to 17th Street in Metairie, right behind Lakeside Mall, and have thrived there ever since. When Clearview Mall in Metairie was re-modeled to include a food court and a 12-screen AMC theater, MC opened a second location in the food court. That location has yet to re-open post-Katrina, but the main location was packed tonight.