Silver in Seattle

Dear Readers,

When Whimsy goes on holiday, the sugar and sweet tweesthetic (twee aesthetic) is replaced by something more punky. Something, frankly, more akin to BEDLAM and so it is that I bring you news of a most excellent breakfast spot in the heart of Seattle's Belltown.

We stumbled on this coffee shop and for jet-lagged travellers it's opening hours of 6am to 9pm make it a very warm and welcoming place.

Not only were the two guys manning the shop kind and friendly, they were incredibly hard working and actually genuinely make the best toast ever! For this cafe sells simply: coffee, toast and desert making it my kind of establishment.

It also does a fine line in unusual interior decor and you could happily sit for hours staring at the ephemera suspended from and perched on the ceilings, walls and shelves.

I had a cafe au lait and the cinnamon swirl toast. Oh my goodness - the toast is one inch thick and thickly buttered with a velvety deep cinnamon swirled throughout the melt in your mouth brioche.

The crust was dusted in golden cinnamon sugar and they served it with a little pot of nutella on the side. My mouth is watering just thinking about it! I want to go back for more!

If I lived in Seattle I think BEDLAM would become one of my number one haunts. It's location on second avenue is super-cool. Second Avenue is one of those streets that no-one tells you about, but where you can find all of the greatest bars and local bistros and, of course as we now all know, a super-fine breakfast establishment. (There is also a kind of scary punk record shop nearby, but that's another story.)

Not only is there free wi-fi, there is also a host of paperbacks for you to borrow on the stairs and an upstairs snug with comfy chairs and lots of space to hang out.

In a city famous for its coffee, maybe it's best not to stress over where you can get the most amazing super-fine aeropressed cuppa, but rather stumble on a genuine neighbourhood favourite and let your jetlag pass as you gaze at punky art and write your postcards.

Caffeinated love from,
Whimsy x

The Elephant House

Dear Readers, 

I am writing this post LIVE through the medium of Web 2.0 and modern technology aboard the East Coast train service on my way back from Edinburgh - that finest of Scottish cities - where I have been enjoying the festival with SIBF and had the pleasure of bumping into my FSAF who can be seen in THIS play til the end of August. 

I adore Edinburgh and was thrilled to discover there are more amazing cafes there than ever before, but seeing as we were only in town for TWENTY-NINE hours - yes - TWENTY-NINE - I thought I would write to you about my ultimate fail safe Edinburgh cafe - The Elephant House. 

I first set foot in this cafe in the summer of 1998 when I was performing in the festival. It was a sort of hallowed ground for me - a secret, warm, dry spot away from the exhaustion of the twisting cobbled roads and underways. (It was very wet throughout the whole of that August, and I only had one pair of shoes with me that I was wearing for both performance and normal life. My feet suffered, Dear Reader, oh how they suffered!) Turns out 'twas also a special place for JK Rowling who wrote most of Harry Potter there. 

As the name might suggest, The Elephant House is filled with elephants. I don't know why, I've never asked, nor do I particularly wish to know. Normally, I might find that type of interior decor irritating, but here it is perfect.

This is a completely unpretentious cafe. It doesn't use an 'aeropress' for your coffee, it doesn't sell amazing organic cakes, but it also doesn't matter. This is the place to come after a hard day on the fringe. Order a cafetiere for two and a piece of hot chocolate fudge cake with vanilla ice cream.

This is old-skool chocolate fudge cake. Squishy, chewy, thick and gooey. The vanilla ice cream tastes like something you used to have round your best friend's house for a treat on a Saturday afternoon and when it's combined with a rainy, cold Edinburgh evening it is heavenly.

What's more, The Elephant House epitomises that most wonderfully dazzling - almost impossible - dizzying sense of Geography that comes form spending any amount of time in Edinburgh, even TWENTY-NINE hours: look out of one window and you'll see a castle on a hill, look out of another and you'll see Arthur's Seat. The whole city is straight out of a fantasy landscape.

So whilst you may well find a more modern / hipster vibe in some of Edinburgh's other coffee shops (I really wanted to go into the coffee shop inside Avalanche records on the Grassmarket, but what with our TWENTY-NINE hours only we didn't have time) if you're looking for something oddly comforting and nostalgic (at least through my eyes anyway) then The Elephant House it is. 

And if you're looking for something completely different, why not go to the caff down the road and have a deep fried mars bar instead? 

Silver Whimsy x