comocaffe... New York Deli

Taken on our afternoon game drive at Amakhala

When I started this blog in Feb, 2011 I was very good about getting each coffee shop posted within a day or two of our visit.  In July/August my posts were getting pushed out later which I blamed on the fact that my daughter, Liz, was visiting.  Once September rolled around I found that I had no late post excuses except that "real life" gets in the way.  So, here I am, close to a week after our Wed., Feb 1 Crawl with some "real life" reasons why I didn't post earlier:
             1) Thurs-Fri - overnight at Amakhala Game Reserve- great game sightings and awesome coffee
             2) Sat - power failure...TIA
             3) Sun - watching the Super Bowl XLII (NY Giants/NE Patriots) rerun and the Super Bowl
                          XLVI Pre-game show
             4) Mon - Since we had to record the Super Bowl XLVI (NY Giants/NE Pats ... again!) I didn't get
                            on the computer all day for fear of finding out who won the game before I had a chance
                            to watch it on Monday night.  (Thanks, Jeff, for not texting me with the results!)

It was  a nail biter of a game with the NY Giants winning 21-17!  WooHoo!!!!...... and NY celebrates!

Another great NY story can be found right here in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa, that being the January 22, 2012 opening of comocaffe... New York Deli located at 86 Heugh Rd. in Walmer.  There could not have been a better venue for Coffee Crawl #50!  Owner Minas Mandis spent a few years in New York City (NYC) and, upon returning to SA, decided to bring a bit of The Big Apple to PE.  Well Minas, you nailed it.....the furnishings, decor, Little Italy theme, amazing menu, deli and bagels... the pentultimate NY deli!  comocaffe is named after Lago di Como (Lake Como) situated in the Northern Lakes District in Italy near the Swiss border.  Along with a wall painting of the famous NYC skyline, adorning the walls of the shop are fun maps of Italy and large framed photos of NYC brought here directly from NY.  Minas' attention to detail makes this shop so authentic.  Even the ellipsis in the logo consists of a basil leaf, a mozzarella ball and a tomato in the colors of the Italian flag... brilliant!!!

Meet the Owners
Minas and Ari

Meet the Waitress and Barista
Lee-anne and Sisa

comocaffe is sandwiched between Gates to Africa Leather Furniture and The Cotton Mill Interiors, both owned and operated by Minas' brother, Ari.  The shop's hours are Tues-Fri, 7:30am - 6:30pm and Sat-Sun, 8:30 - 4:00.  The menu includes breakfast (served weekdays until 11:30), and a wide variety of sandwiches, burgers, salads, antipasti, dips and desserts.  Liz, when you come to visit in June you may find the "Hell's Kitchen" burger worth investigating.  Everything on the menu looked so tempting that for the third week in a row a number of the Crawlers broke the No-Food-On-The-Crawl rule.  I had the Apple Pear Crumble with Caramel Sauce...delizioso!  We all kept our waitress, Lee-anne hopping and she she was all service with a smile.  I am definitely planning a return visit to comocaffe to check out the Weekend Brunch Special (Sat-Sun, 9:00-2:30) which includes a complimentary Bloody Mary or Mimosa.  What a way to get the weekend started!




This Week's Crawlers
Tolla, Sylvia, Keith, Stella, Beryl, June,
Leanne, Gail, Fran, Belinda, Maureen, Nomusa



Sisa demonstrating his barista skills



With all this talk of food I haven't even mentioned the coffee.  Our barista on Wednesday was none other than PE Barista Champ, Sisa, who we met a number of months ago.  He was as amazing as ever as he demonstrated his skills tableside again for us.  My LavAzza cappuccino was incredible as was the iced caramel macchiato I ordered because it was hot..hot..hot on Wednesday.  Sisa is competing in the SA National Barista Competition in March in Cape Town.  Good luck, Sisa!!!

As was mentioned earlier, our visit to comocaffe was PE Coffee Crawl #50!  Joining me to celebrate the occasion were Gail Darne, Nomusa Nkomo, Stella and Beryl Dawson, Sylvia Mynhardt, Fran and Keith de Beer, June Nash, Leanne Waller, Belinda Waller, Tolla and Maureen Koetze.  Nomusa came bearing gifts for the Crawlers in the form of granadillas (passion fruit) from her garden/orchard...yummy.  Thank you, Nomusa!

Talk at the table ended up mostly being about how much we all liked comocaffe.... oh, and chocolate.  Speaking of "liking,"...., Minas asks all (Crawlers and Readers alike) to please "like" his shop on Facebook <facebook.com/comocaffe>     All I can say to that, Minas, is that it is too bad there's not a "love it" on facebook!

~Thank you to Minas, Sisa and Lee-anne for making Crawl #50 a memorable one!
~Thank you to all the Crawlers for making the first 50 Crawls so much fun.  Here's to 50 more!
~Thank you to Kerry and Steve at Amakhala Game Reserve... tremendous game drives!
~Congrats to Super Bowl XLVI Champs, the NY Giants!

Until next week,

Ellen