An essential part of my holiday experience is to find a nice little place in every town and city I visited, which serves good Italian-style coffee made with illy coffee beans. And Alicante is no exception. As soon as I arrived at the city centre, I immediately set out for the search for a nice place to have my daily round of afternoon coffee.
Cafeteria Il Duomo is just a short distance away across the street opposite Alicante's famous central fresh-produce market, on the city's busy throughfare Alfonso el Sabio. The cafe is run by a friendly owner from Paraguy who attended coffee-brewing training and barista course at Illy's headquarters in Trieste, Italy.
In addition to the fact that good illy coffee are served here, this place also offers very delicious and rich home-made cheese-based cream pies and pastry, a taste which goes very well with Illy espresso's rich aromatic texture.
The cafeteria opens very early at 7 in the morning and remains open throughout the afternoon. Some light savoury snacks such as pancakes, freshly prepared sandwiches are available on the spot, but the place is in general well-known mainly for its variety and quality of Italian-style espressos.
For some reasons, I have taken a fancy at cafes which have round tables and wooden chairs. Such furnitures have a rustic, authentic touch and always serve to remind me of those traditional family-run little coffee shops in small European towns.
Any good Illy cafe will know how to prepare a Triestino - a sort of miniature cappucino, but instead of covering the top of the coffee with steamed milk foams, sweet condensed milk is added directly to the coffee. It has a sweet, creamy texture accompanied by a shot of strong, caramel-like roasted espresso taste. Not everyone knows how to make a Triestino, as inexperienced hands may add too little or too much condensed milk into the tiny espresso cup and hence spoilt the entire coffee.
The sweet, creamy taste of a Triestino goes hand in hand with a piece of filling almond-cheese cream tart. Although I am a big fan of Viennese cakes and pastry, I have to say in terms of taste and quality, this combination of a rich cream cheese tart with a sweet espresso outdo most of the chocolate-based cakes and delicacies I have tasted in Vienna.
Copyrights@2011. All text and photos by YC Cheng. All Rights Reserved.
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