Coffee Commissary
Morning Bun
Salted Caramel Rice Krispy Treat
Chocolate Chip Cookie
OUR Biscuit with Butter and Rhubarb Jam
Temple – Sonora Venecia Costa Rica Pour Over
Making way to Burbank after breakfast, the hour still early but plenty of dining still to be done, it was just before 9:00am that I entered Coffee Commissary and although they were apparently ‘all out’ of the French Toast Sticks I’d coveted a small order was still rather easy to craft, the decidedly hipster employees, soundtrack, and setting surprisingly quite convivial with all sorts of folks holding meetings or tapping away on laptops with free WiFi as Dirty Projectors played on speakers overhead.
Apparently one of four locations, this one featuring a bakery to compliment the small kitchen and high-quality barista brews, it was with a pour-over rich with notes of honey and bitter fruits that my experience began and waiting for one kitchen item to be prepped the flavors of the brew proved a nice match to not only a reference standard morning bun rife with cinnamon, but also to a chocolate chip cookie that was fresh from the oven with large pockets of chocolate and a nearly soufflé soft center surrounded by a rim that was golden and crisp – a textbook cookie and perhaps the best of its kind that I’ve tasted outside of fine-dining environs in the last twelve (or more) months.
Still a bit miffed about the French Toast, but having heard remarkable things about a biscuits proudly proclaimed on the menu with an all capital “OUR,” it was with great interest that I watched the young lady in the kitchen remove the small round from a baking sheet and proceed to sear it on a hot griddle with more butter and although I cannot say the biscuit was at all “traditional” the extra time, attention, and cost of $4 proved entirely worthwhile as each half featured crunchy flakes on all sides with a soft buttermilk center quite perfect on its own, but all the better when spread with just a bit more butter and house-made jam potent with roasted rhubarb – my personal preference for biscuits with honey cast aside, for once, without regret.
Presumably saving the best – or at least most talked about – item for last, it was finally in the Salted Caramel Rice Krispy Treat that I partook and although not the “wowing” experience that was the biscuit or cookie I can certainly see the item’s appeal to loyal fans, all the ‘expected’ aspects of the lunch-box staple present with a shellac of sticky caramel and sea salt serving to upgrade the item to ‘adult’ status, or at least to the sort of ‘throwback’ nostalgia that Coffee Commissary’s hirsuit and inked up audience seem to know and love.
http://www.coffeecommissary.com/burbank
