Not Much to Roar About at the Lion's Den

The Lion’s Den café can be seen behind the little pie piece median from the intersection of Fraser and Kingsway. It is a little hole in the wall with a big personality. I couldn’t help but be constantly surprised once I stepped through its doorway. At first sight, you cannot help but be accosted by the Jamaican Bob Marleyesque décor which is literally crowned with a taxidermy lion over head. The person behind the counter was, I believe, to be a wildly outspoken Japanese woman who told us that we had to serve ourselves our own coffee, because she could not take care of us all day because she was by herself and she was hung over. As we served ourselves coffee from the eclectic thrift store mugs, we couldn’t help but notice that the menu was a fusion of your diner breakfast, Jamaican dishes nicely rounded out by your option of Japanese delights. We opted for the standard eggs, hash and bacon (which we were promptly told that there may be too many of us in the café and that there may not be enough bacon for everybody!) to set at least a baseline for food. To our surprise when we looked past the dumbwaiter window, we couldn’t help but notice that the kitchen was a kitchen one might find in a rental suite with about the same quality utensils. While we waited, we noticed a steady flow of people until the second staff member arrived. The actual breakfast was a decent enough home style breakfast and the wait wasn’t nearly as long as expected. It actually appeared that the place, despite it quirks, had a steady routine of abuse customers, take their orders and give them enough service that they might come back. Would I come back? Would I be a regular? Not on your life. But it’s kind of like after being hit in dodgeball. You are briefly stunned when it happened, you realize it was fun while it lasted, but everyone’s gotta have a turn.

Out of 5 Jamaican Lion Roars Mon

Grub 2: The food we had was alright but I have to say that everything else looked pretty sketchy and peering into the kitchen didn’t instill any sense of reassurance.
Scene 3: It was kind of interesting who went in there. There were workers, a couple of people who appeared to be tourists, and a few other random folks who were in and out. Strangely t seemed like it was mostly men in there. I doubt you would see any Kits types in there.
Coffee 1: The coffee was terrible. I think they had an espresso machine in there. In fact I am pretty sure it was a Saeco Barrista from Starbucks that looked like an alley cat after a night out with the Feline Fight Club.
Note: If you every have a hankering to play two person head to head table top Pac Man from the early 80’s, this place uses one of those exact machines as their tables by the windows.

Coffee@home with the Saeco Barrista from Starbucks

Over the Christmas I was given two huge bags of coffee from an Ultimate Frisbee team that I mentor appropriately named the Icecaps. I have been using these beans for the past two months making my own espresso on a Saeco Barrista or Rio Profi - yes, the espresso machine found on the shelves of every local Starschmucks. I have been experimenting with the long and short espresso, the milk steamer, the facility of machine use and, naturally, the beans.

Overall the machine has been consistent in pressure and ease operation. The downsides to the machine are the cheap accessories: the wimpy little coffee scoop, the absence of a tamper, the wimpy drip tray and this faux drawer that they think you will store stuff in. If you can accept the cheap periferrals because you will are planning to buy more quality accessories from Starschmucks, then you'll be fine. I actually take the whole tray set out to make room for a proper cup when pressing the espresso to minimize the loss of any crema. It means that my coffee won't necessarily look pretty, but the taste is preserved.

The mlk frother is adequate but the steam pressure doesn't always keep its strength for very long. If you don't clear the steamer well in the beginning, you may fill your milk with an extra shot of water that will dilute the flavour in your drink. I actually picked up the 'cheating' trick from my wife who throws the milk in the microwave to help warm up the milk (she likes her coffee hot) to alow the frother to froth and not just to warm the milk up. The draw back is the little milk skin that forms with higher fat content milk and that ever precarious point of scalding the milk. When frothing, choose a container that allows for the milk to swirl around to avoid splashing, and start the frother deep for even heating. If you are trying to froth the milk slowly pull the conatiner lower until you hear that sound created when you are hocking a loogey while clenching your teeth - an unappetising description but an accurate one.

When dealing with the pressure when pressing the espresso, the machine is able to draw out decent flavour. You just can't over pack the grounds in the filter holder, nor can the grounds be ultra fine. Either one can throw off the water pressure leaving you with lifeless watery espresso with no crema and a mediochre taste, not to mention 10 minutes of your life you will not get back. When the pressure is turned on and the water is making its way through the grounds, a smooth darth caramel coloured stream should flow steadily in two thin lines. The trick is to pay attention to when the colour starts to fade which indicates when to shut off the water pressure. You can try to milk the crema but the flavour starts to deteriorate when the crema turns from caramel to a vanilla white. The white just means that you are pulling water through dead grounds. Unlike higher end models of Saeco Machines, this one leaves it up to the "barrista" to measure the length and the quality of the pull.

I guess my overall impression of this machine is a good one. People love to come over and have a coffee and talk about the minutia of the espresso machine.

Out of 5 Starschmuck accessories
Quality of Machine: 4 People I have spoken to who have this machine swear by it. It's a good one. You pay a bit more but if you make coffee from it consistently it wil pay itself back quickly. I've had mine for over a couple of years and it remains as good as when I got it. Watch the handle on the filter. If you try to tap out the grounds after pressing your espresso, the handle may come loose. You can't really do that big banging thing they do it cafe's. This is afterall the "home model".
User Friendliness: 3 It is easy to use but you have to do some experimentation to get good quality coffee out of it. Once you know how you like the espresso, the more likely you will be able to make better customed coffees for you and your loved ones. If people don't really pay attention, but they think they know what they are doing, you just get watered down espresso that doesn't really qualify as an espresso drink.
Overall design and look: 3 Like I said, the little drawer is cheesy, the accessories are lame, and the water resevoir is a little bit awkward to fill. The look is nice because you can get it in different colours, mine is black which is neutral enough to go with most decors.
Overall satisfaction: 4 Despite the quirks in the design the machine is decent. Good quality pressure is what you should care about, and getting to know the machine is half the battle. Although the machine is not prefect I love that little kitchen appliance just the same.