We had never been to Bertha’s Cafe before, but knew we had to try it.

I had the Chicken Pesto (Sliced chicken, tomatoes, lettuce, roasted red peppers and pesto mayo) and it was very good!

Here is another review.

Bertha’s Cafe
2916 North 40th Street
Phoenix, AZ 85008

And the Pane Bianco next to Lux Coffee is also great. I’ve been there a number of times and enjoyed their sandwiches. A bit expensive, however they’re full of fresh ingredients and stuffed with goodness.

Café St. Michael
205 W. Gurley
Prescott, Arizona

It’s pretty difficult to mess up a frou-frou drink such as a Frappie or a Caramel Macchiato, and the sugary beverages tend to mask the taste of the true coffee goodness, so when I test a new shop, I usually stick with a classic, such as an Americano. My quest has produced a few raves, and yes, a few rants too, and through it all, I’ve quickly developed a taste for the perfect Americano.

The Hotel St. Michael, on the corner of Gurley and Montezuma, is also home to Café St. Michael. They serve great coffee there in the café, but if you want coffee to go, as I did on the day I visited, you go next door to their to-go coffee bar. The Americano I ordered was expertly prepared by the lone barista from the Lone Star state, who definitely knew his stuff. (I also award him double shots for the extra-mile service he provided for a customer with a cold who requested a non-menu item, hot lemonade.)

I will most definitely be returning to this coffee haven every time I am in Prescott.
Best coffee I’ve had, this side of Paris!
Review Result: Rave

Carmen is an “almost native” to the Grand Canyon State. She has been a coffee fan since childhood (tasting sips of her parents’ coffee), and is now a full-blown addict.

The next cake was chocolate and served warm with chocolate sauce and a homemade espresso ice cream. Apparently they make it at the restaurant. I was impressed as the flavor of an espresso shot came through and didn’t taste much different than, well, espresso.

If you have ever tried coffee or mocha ice cream this was very much better. There was less burnt coffee taste and more espresso crema you might say and it tasted fresh — perhaps made within a few hours. Quite good and worth trying if you need a good dinner in Prescott.

1. Pei Wei Asian Diner - I’m positive this entry will surprise a few people. However it shouldn’t. Pei Wei opened for the express purpose of providing ala cart takeout food at a lower cost than their sister restaurant P.F. Changs. The best meal to order is the Pad Thai and you can usually get out of the door for $7 + change without a drink. It’s a lot of food and it’s good.
2. Einstein’s Bagels - Thinking about lunch and a stop at Starbucks for lunch? Prepare to spend $10. Or you can go to Einsteins and get a Spinach and Bacon Panini with coffee for about $6 out the door. Einstein’s provides unlimited coffee refills which means you can get all the coffee you want for that low price. If the Spinach and Bacon Panini doesn’t wet your appetite you can usually combine other entries for just two dollars more.
3. Rubios Fresh Mexican Grill - Walk in and buy the Tres Tacos deal (you can get steak, chicken, or of course my personal favorite the fish tacos). This meal is about $6 and for the money quite tasty. Or if you want a quick snack get the individual tacos for about $1.99.
4. NYPD Pizza - It’s a great place to get good pizza by the slice and you can usually walk away satisified without having bought a whole pizza.
5. TexAZ Grill - Some of the best chicken fried steak in town and a nice old style saloon atmosphere. This restaurant is a Phoenix legend having served good food for years. One night a week they serve catfish which is excellent. But most people go for the chicken fried steak.

Runners up: Subway daily special, Sacks, Kona Grill (Scottsdale), FatBurger, In N Out Burger, and Flo’s Asian Kitchen (Scottsdale).

Share your own in the comments.

Actually, all of the funny parts never happened but it made for a good story. Whether you choose to believe anything I say from this point forward is entirely up to you.

Above: photo of the Spanish Latte which is very, very good.

What’s good about the Spanish Latte:

• FABULOUS FOAM!!!
• Light sweet flavor without tasting like sugar. In other words, if you can’t stand all of the sugar in drinks today, try this.
• It isn’t fancy. Either you get a single shot or a double. No other options.
• Good to the last drop. Wasn’t that a slogan somewhere?

Highly recommended!

When I heard the name, I knew I had to go. I walked through the back door into the old house and found myself in a large, purple, abandoned room. In a back room, a lone man sat with a computer. An employee, running between the two halves of the employees-only area, spotted me and asked me if I wanted anything. Feeling somewhat sorry for the place in an old house with employees used to people lounging without ordering, I dropped a 10 and ordered the everything veggie sandwich and the large caramel latte (drinks come in two sizes). Both took a while but were excellent. Sometimes, the low-brow coffee shops recklessly serve bad coffee and don’t give attention to preparation, but Counter Culture is apparently aware that beverage is going to be my source of happiness for the next hour or so. I got on the wireless network without a hitch thanks to the open access point. The SSID was CONTERCULTURE. The other customer in the backroom had apparently been there all morning and had stuff all over the place, including a laptop, obviously running Microsoft Windows. It would ding; he’d let out a massive sigh, mouse for ten minutes, type a bit, then it would ding, and he’d sigh. I settled in to work. Within two hours, the place was full, and every every outlet on each wall of the three rooms were occupied, running about 10 laptops and a few cell phones. Fritos, root beers, black coffees, and cigarettes were everywhere (except cigarettes, which were confined to the back room). People talked about the band they’re in, or the bands they like, or what the cops did to them, and what the cops did to them while they were attending a concert of a band they liked. They talked about their girlfriends, their friends cheating girlfriends, friends cheating boyfriends. And, for the most part, they all talked to each other. Apparently people don’t wake up and get out of the house until about 3pm on a Sunday, and then they have one big, daily party with all of their friends.

Pros: This is the most happen’ coffee shop I’ve been to, or I picked a good day. The only TV in the place was an art exhibit — an antique displaying static with ghostly painted images on the screen. The caramel latte was tasty and was made with great care. This place has the largest concentrations of laptops of any coffee shop I’ve seen. There are loads of power outlets. Internet access was truly free. Architecture is essential to a good coffee joint, and this place had hard wood floors, bowled in ceilings, and a small window with ivy growing in from the outside, and the bathroom has a door to nowhere — it was truly a neat space.

Cons: I kind of expected more. They were vegan friendly and vegetarian friendly, but I’d want to know that the coffee was Fair Trade certified — there should be at least one place in town where none of the coffee is grown under slave labor conditions. They assume “to go”, but they have a large and prominent assortment of Goodwill-looking mugs for “for here” orders. Guacamole would have been a nice alternative to hummus for the moist glue of the veggie sandwich, but I don’t think they had any. The place still isn’t a geek habitat, as far as I can tell, even though laptops are a choice form of entertainment.

2330 East McDowell Rd.
Phoenix, AZ 85006
www.countercultureaz.com

Review by Scott Walters [scott@illogics.org]

Don’t miss our new site devoted entirely to coffee which is www.arizona-coffee.com. We’ll still be posting coffee shop reviews to ArizonaReviews.com in the future, however Arizona-Coffee allows a more casual place to talk about coffee.