Starbucks shakes up its breakfast menu...for better or worse?

The coffee chain giant Starbucks Coffee has recently revised and reshuffled its menu. Sadly one fact of life is inflation and it's had a hand in the revisions, so almost every coffee beverage on the menu sells PhP10 dearer like-for-like.

Also unfortunate is how some old favorites are taking a bow. 

I learned from Mabie that a number of ladies out there sing praises about the Fruit and Nut Toast. When I tried it, I found it quite good. One order of PhP50 gets you two generous slices, plus a pat of butter and a vial of fruit preserve. 

I normally dislike the more plebeian analogue, raisin bread, but fruit and nut toast is more to my liking. It has walnuts and what looks like cranberries buried in the dough, and the bread itself is pretty good without having that eating-a-dry-sock taste that whole wheat bread tends to have. It's another example of why multi-grain bread just tastes that much better.

Prior to the menu refresh, I also tried the Sausage Roll, selling for PhP75. Imagine a sausage wrapped in a turnover of flaky croissant dough and you'd be close to the mark. It's also quite good, although for the price it's nothing mind-blowing. I'm not sure if this survived the cut.

We found an intriguing item on Starbucks' new menu, however. We tried the Roasted Chicken Pesto and Shiitake Mushroom sandwich, served on what looks like grilled ciabatta bread, for PhP140. It's just as big and as pricey as Starbucks' other large sandwiches.

Now, I'm not the hugest fan of pesto, and it's notoriously easy to get it overdone and have the taste of basil making roadkill out of everything else. 

The moist cheese serves as a great vehicle for the pesto, not unlike the spinach and artichoke dip with gorgonzola cheese that other Italian restaurants serve as appetizer. I'd consider this trifecta of ingredients - pesto, chicken and shiitake - quite well-judged. 

As I mentioned, care must be taken to avoid the pesto overruling any other ingredients' tastes, and the biggest potential victim here is the chicken (because the peculiar taste of shiitake will always make itself known - and I eat a lot of it). 

Mabie and I enjoyed this new sandwich as our breakfast. What's interesting is that Starbucks seems to have kept its large sandwiches at the same price. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that I can continue to enjoy this new favorite once in a while without blowing unnecessarily large holes in my wallet.

A crunchy, peppery, gooey brekkie

When there's no brekkie at home, I treat myself to breakfast at the Starbucks Coffee branch at my workplace once in a while.

The premium coffee shop chain may have made a name for itself by selling blended-coffee beverages (that some people think are too sweet), but it also happens to possess a great-tasting breakfast menu, especially for sandwich fans. I had the Italian Sausage and Mozzarella with Mushroom Aioli sandwich, one of their larger sandwiches.

The Italian sausage means finely ground peppercorns embedded in the meat, so the filling is mildly peppery, helped along by the smoothness and gooeyness of the cheese. I had the sandwich warmed, so the bread is nicely toasty and crumbly, adding a nice counterpoint to the texture. Curiously, there's not much evidence of the mushrooms.

On balance, this is a nicely lavish treat to look forward to at the end of a busy week's work. :)

Starbucks VIA: A review - and some musings on the upscale coffee shop industry

Mabie and I decided to treat ourselves to Starbucks Coffee yesterday and we got something extra to go along with our two grande Cafe Mochas and slice of Mango Yogurt Cheesecake. The friendly baristas threw in a sample of the coffee giant's latest product, VIA Ready Brew. Essentially it's the closest Starbucks has ever had to instant coffee.

Does VIA have an uphill battle against frappuccinos?

Three steps to genuine brewed coffee

I decided to try it this morning. According to the sachet, you just empty the contents into a cup or mug, add 177 mL of boiling water, and drink. The barista gave me the Colombian variety, although there are at least three others to choose from for retail sale.

It's patently amazing how such a small, thin sachet, with barely a handful of "microground" coffee beans, can release such a strong, full-bodied mug of coffee. Drink VIA Colombian as black coffee, and it's as if you ordered a Cafe Americano (essentially, an espresso shot with added hot water) from the baristas themselves. It's that strong. 

Adding a teaspoon and a half of sugar cuts the bitterness more than it would in a Cafe Americano, though, purely because there's less water for the sugar to saturate. Still, given how much smaller the sachet is compared to most instant coffee out there, VIA is strong stuff, and great for real coffee enthusiasts.

There lies the rub, however...

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From my narrow point of observation, Starbucks and its competitors have split personalities. They have made coffee-blended cold drinks their bread and butter. They may offer exotic coffee variants from around the world, but I don't exactly see people my age enthused about the nuances and flavor notes of, say, Guatemala Casi Cielo beans vs. Ethiopia Sidamo beans. People my age, they're more likely to just order a Java Chip Frappuccino or a Caramel Macchiato - and maybe add more whipped cream or caramel syrup. Beans and brews comparisons, I'd usually hear about from my mom or my aunt Hedwig, because we're fond of tasting different kinds of wine, beer, or other similar-looking drinks and picking out how they differ from each other (e.g. "Carlo Rossi's red wine is very sweet, while a Napa Valley Racehorse Red is very very dry").

Mango Yogurt Cheesecake at Starbucks

VIA seems to fly in the face of the "blended drink" model that upscale coffee shops, Starbucks itself included, have made their millions from. I think it's more in the "exotic coffee" side of things, meant for enthusiasts who may be interested in saving a buck or thirty while still getting a variety of strong coffee to choose from. (A 12-pack of VIA is ultimately cheaper than buying a Cafe Americano every day.) The casual frappuccino-drinking Starbucks patron, on the other hand, may find it too bitter or "hardcore" and steer clear of it altogether. 

Which is a shame. I hope I'm wrong. I'm hoping there are more coffee enthusiasts my age than I think there are, who are open to tasting new roasts, brews, basically everything beyond the ubiquitous blended-coffee drink. Openness to new things is always good - especially in VIA's case, where you can have your premium coffee fix and save some money in the process :)