Café Corazon – Kansas City, MO

It takes an awful lot to really make a coffee shop amazing enough to want to review it, but we actually found something head-and-shoulders over many other places. It helps that my wife will research and research and research and research places before she picks the one she thinks will be awesome – and damned if she isn’t always right. Haha. She found Café Corazon (with two locations in KC) and the more she talked about it, the more we knew we needed to go there.

Let me also tell you that this was the first time we rode those dumb Bird/Lyft scooters you see laying all over downtown areas. It was a short learning curve, but we scoot-scooted right over to Café Corazon from our hotel and felt pretty darn confident for having done it – gold stars for us.

There are multiple reasons this Café Corazon is awesome. It combines Latin and indigenous influences in the ambience, food, and coffee. They have latte flights AND mocha flights. They have an amazing breakfast menu like no other place – empanadas, tamales, and burritos – all super authentic. You can add booze to many of their coffee drinks. They’re also a sort of customizable yerba mate (pronounced yer-ba mah-tay) bar, as well. The staff is so incredibly polite, helpful, and respectful. You can see they have a LOT going for them.

I got a latte flight – which is horchata, dulce de leche, and churro atole. My wife got a mocha flight – which is spicy mayan, sevilla, and Azteca. We also got a beef empanada, a breakfast empanada, and a rajas (blue corn) tamale.

The latte flight was great – especially if you like cinnamon. The things are absolutely beautiful on their flight paddle, and they taste even better. The horchata one you could actually tell it was a cinnamon rice drink, even without the cinnamon dusting on the top. The dulce de leche was my favorite, since I’m a caramel fiend. The churro atole one was also good, again, if you like cinnamon, and a hint of maple. Such a good set of choices to sample.

The mocha flight was even better, though – because it has ALL THE WHIPPED CREAM and the sweet drizzles! The spicy mayan had just a little bit of kick, but wasn’t spicy and was still totally appropriate for a breakfast drink. The sevilla had a chocolate drizzle with some orange zest and whipped cream – my favorite one. And the Azteca had a lot going on, with chocolate, cinnamon, cacao nibs, peanuts, and whipped cream.

The tamale was top-notch with the blue corn, jalapenos, and cheese. Great flavor with the masa and they don’t skimp on the fillings. Really a memorable tamale. The beef empanada was really great, with a really tasty and crispy crust, and the chimichurri added so much fun flavor. It didn’t NEED the extra pop of flavor, but it definitely elevated it. The breakfast empanada wasn’t a boring old Caucasian breakfast pastry – it had eggs, bacon, and cheese, but also came with a salsa that had such good flavor – and again, the crust was so good.

This place cranked through the people, as well. Many stayed and sat down (inside or outside on the sidewalk tables), but many popped in and took it to go. We would tell anyone to go to this place and you’ll never regret it.

Also, we decided to walk back to our hotel and take it more leisurely than if we had scooter-ed home. Hahaha.

https://www.cafecorazonkc.com/

Hope Breakfast Bar - St. Paul, MN

We’ve driven by Hope Breakfast Bar many many times and every morning, especially weekends, there’s a line out the front. We’ve heard our friends rave about this place and it’s been on our list for a long time. We finally made it happen and it was definitely worth the wait. It’s kind of a breakfast and brunch place with really nice atmosphere and really top notch food.  

You CAN get reservations, instead of waiting in line, but we took our chances. They said it was a 30-45 minute wait, and it was right about 35 minutes. Easy. Even while standing outside in the drizzle with our coats on watching people. We got a chance to check out the menu while we waited, also, which meant we were ready to rock when we finally got seated at the bar. If I’m not mistaken, if you have reservations, you get a table and they turn spots at the bar around pretty quickly for walk-ins. Just trying to make sure you know what to expect. (Meaning don’t walk in and expect to get a table for 8)

They’ve got some regular coffee drinks and juices, but also some cocktails, wine, and beer. Really adventurous ones, not just bloody marys and mimosas, either. D got a caramel coconut coffee (not pictured) and I got a 7^th Avenue Cereal Bowl, which is a cocktail made with Rumchata, milk from Cap’n Crunch, and crunchberries on top. Really impressive and delicious, as well. Even had a couple customers ask what I was drinking so they could order one.

We had some trouble deciding what to order since everything sounds great. We saw a couple of people order pancakes of various flavors and they all looked good and fluffy and fun. We decided to get Baby Cakes, which are a set of small pancakes with various syrups (blueberry, maple, and banana cinnamon cream cheese. These were everything we expected and more and we couldn’t decide which syrup was our favorite. In fact, we ask for lids for the syrups, so we could take them home and eat them on other things.

We decided to get our own entrees that we wanted and then share them. I finally decided on the chicken fried steak, covered in mushroom sausage gravy, with a biscuit, scrambled eggs, and hashbrowns. D got the Hawaiian Bowl, which is Hawaiian bbq beef, peppers, cilantro rice, poached egg, avocado, and some fried noodles. 

D’s Hawaiian Bowl was more in line with my taste than hers. She liked it a lot, but I’m a rice bowl fiend and can’t get enough of stuff like this. I had almost ordered this dish, but when I heard she was going to, I went with my second choice, knowing I could steal some bites of hers. Aside from the pineapple pieces in the bowl, there wasn’t a ton of Hawaiian flavor in it. It was sort of an Asian/teriyaki rice bowl without many noodles. It had great flavors and everything was fresh and colorful, but it wasn’t the Hawaiian breakfast she was hoping for. Thankfully, I get to eat all of her leftovers, so I win twice.

 

My chicken fried steak was really pretty impressive. I’m sort of a gravy snob – not even sort of – and this mushroom sausage gravy stood up pretty damn well. The chicken fried steak wasn’t greasy at all and had really great flavor. The hashbrowns were plenty crispy (without me having to ask for it – which I forgot to do), the eggs were scrambled just right, and the biscuit was flaky and not dry. Even D was all in on my chicken fried steak and that’s never really been her jam. That should speak volumes, my friends.

 

The service was really impressive, with servers/bartenders checking on us without being overbearing. They were very friendly and chatty about the various foods people ordered and how fast the cooking staff was. Made the whole atmosphere even more friendly and welcoming. This place is busy for a reason and now we know why. We both said we’ll be going back as we drove back home with our leftovers. 

Top 5 things about Hope Breakfast Bar

1. Chicken Fried Steak

2. Baby Cakes

3. 7^th Street Cereal Bowl

4. Atmosphere

5. Really vast menu for brunch

 

Bottom 5 things

1. There’s going to be a wait – deal with it

2. On-street parking only – deal with it

3. Right after you order, you’ll see the kitchen send out food that you wished you had ordered – deal with it

4. Literally everything here is instagramable – look at all the pictures that I took, so everyone will be taking photos of their food – deal with it

5. As you can see, anything I could even think of that people might complain about are irrelevant and people should just deal with whatever their issues happen to be - hahahaha

 

www.hopebreakfast.com

Quick Review: HoneyBun Iced Latte

I love HoneyBuns, so of course I had to try this. 

I do not encourage you to attempt this. NOT good. In my humble opinion.