Weekend reTREATS!

Last Saturday morning Dylan and I went downtown and treated ourselves to some great smooth Italian lattes at Cafe D'arte on the corner of 2nd ave & Pine street. This is one place where the coffee is somewhat comparable to the ones we had in Italy, and one of our favorite cafes in Seattle. This little understated place with outdated 90's decor reminds me even more of the cafes we've been around Rome....only thing missing is all the old Italian guys that hang around by the bar drinking their cappuccino and eating a cornetto. Cafe D'arte is a place with no fancy art displayed, no indie music playing, and no cozy couches what-so-ever for you to lounge and want to spend a whole day working on your laptop. What Cafe D'arte DOES have, is great Italian coffee and amazing baristas that make satisfying lattes with pretty Rosetta, and the most adorable face on the top of the latte! you can see in the top right corner of the photo.....looking at you and smiling oh so enduringly.
I didn't want to drink it since it was smiling at me! But then.......I didn't want to drink a cold latte either, so I took a photo of it and had to say goodbye to the kind face made with steam milk and coffee....goodbye....my sweet love.
Oh it does not end there with this coffee even though it was enough to make my day. So after we got our coffee we walked a couple blocks to one of the Tom Douglas-owned bakeries, Dahlia bakery, on 4th ave and Virginia street. We never come here nearly as much as we should. Everything in the bakery is very affordable, which is atypical of all the other Tom Douglas' restaurants. Don't get me wrong here, I love all the all the Tom Douglas restaurants I've tried, but they're just not usually a casual-walk-in-and-out-and-can-get-some-small-bites-under -$40-per-person kind of a place. So the bakery was perfect for a Saturday morning. and we got a select variety of pastries and all for under $15. The bakery makes everything from pastries, desserts, pies, cakes to bread, soup and sandwiches. Looking at their menu makes me wish that I can try a bite of everything since everything sounds so amazing.
Did I mention that I'm a sucker for pastries!? or for food in general??? well...I am! as you can see, we got a savory leek and gruyere pastry, a big juicy pear pastry, and TWO mini carrot cake cupcakes. I don't usually eat cupcakes for breakfast, but I couldn't afford NOT to! Just look at all these things....golden flaky buttery goodness, and the smooth thick cream cheese frosting topped with walnuts....HEAVEN!! I wish it was closer to us so I could try everything....but maybe it's better this way, because it'll feel so special the next time we go that I'll write a whole 10 page paper about it.
-Jean