dwelltime

May

Rum Braised Chicken

We revamped our lunch menu this week — see the new menu here.

Rum braised chicken is a new addition to the menu, but we’d be lying if we passed it off as a completely original recipe. It’s based off of a 40 year old recipe from a restaurant owned and run by Chef Hong’s father, in East Tennessee, called Fortune Dragon. They had one recipe they became quite famous for called “Joe’s BBQ Chicken”. The recipe originated in the 1960′s, and was adapted by Hong’s father from a restauranteur ‘Uncle Joe’, famous for operating the first Chinese restaurants in the region; at some point, he retired and leased the business to Hong’s father allowing him to adopt a modified version of his signature recipe. The restaurant closed some time ago but Hong decided to revive her version of it that was rum and citrus infused to give it a new life.

The original recipe involved the chicken being braised, deboned, then deep fried; we put a European-style spin on the recipe, not frying the whole chicken but braising chicken breast in rum, star anise and citrus. We serve it on sourdough in sandwich form with pickled onions, toasted almonds (like the original), roasted tomatos, and a bed of greens.

May

Kitchen Staff

By dwelltime|food, seasonal

If you’ve been around for lunch, you’ve probably seen Hong. Hong runs our kitchen program, overseeing the bakeshop and setting the direction for our lunch program. Hong is a professional chef by trade, and teaches at The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. She’s worked to develop our menus since day one. She’s put a major focus on ensuring that everything we produce is fresh and hand-made in house. We’ll be featuring some of our core kitchen staff every so often; while they may not be faces on the bar, they’re some of the most important people in the dwelltime team.

Right now we’re in the middle of rhubarb season; it lasts just a few weeks each year, so you’ll be seeing lots of rhubarb puffs and macaroons. She’s also working to develop a coffee-inspired line of baked goods; expect coffee macaroons and coffee-glazed sticky buns to be arriving soon!

Apr

Wifi Access

By dwelltime|lunch, wifi

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been experimenting with offering wifi. We currently offer unrestricted wireless access to customers as a courtesy, but have been conscious of its impact on transforming the shop into a coworking space; at times, this has run at odds with our aspirations of developing dwelltime as a social hub. In order to better serve our community during peak hours, we will no longer be offering wireless access during lunchtime (11:00 AM to 3:00 PM) beginning Friday, May 4.

Apr

May 3: Corky Speaks on Coffee Life in Japan

By dwelltime|coffee, events

We’re excited to announce we’ll be hosting a discussion on Japanese coffee culture by a good friend of barismo and dwelltime, Merry Corky White. Corky just released her new book, Coffee Life In Japan, documenting the rise of Japan’s cafe culture over the past 130 years. While seldom mentioned in the American coffee industry, Japan has been influential both in launching the coffee industry in major coffee-producing countries, and in pioneering the manual brewing methods that many progressive coffee roasters and bars are now utilizing.

Corky is a professor of anthropology at Boston University, and a well-known face in the Boston coffee community. The event is free and open to the public — May 3, 7:00 PM at dwelltime.

Apr

Weekend Hours

By dwelltime|hours

As we’ve been promising, our weekend opening times are changing. Starting next weekend (4/28-4/29), we’ll be open Saturday 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM, and Sunday 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM. We’ve been focusing on building our staff capacity over the past few weeks, and are ready to begin serving earlier.

This upcoming weekend (4/21-4/22), we’ll be operating under our present hours while we have people in Portland for the SCAA Event (our industry symposium and expo). As soon as we have time, we’ll have a number of posts with updates on our projects!

Apr

Cold Brew

By dwelltime|coffee, cold brew

We’re approaching our first warm weekend (temperatures near 70 degrees both days), so we’re getting ready to roll out cold brew.

We’ve been talking about our cold brew tap this week, and lots of you have been hoping this means you might be able to have a lunchtime beer at dwelltime soon. Alas, you won’t be finding your favorite local brewer here soon, but instead cold brew coffee — a method of producing iced coffee that’s become increasingly popular over the last decade.

While many others in town have taken up cold brewing, the methods we have worked on at barismo (our roastery operation) have been focused on producing a brew that best represents the coffee. We’ve had best results by keeping the entire brew cycle chilled for the entire 24 hour brew cycle (rather than leaving it at room temperature, as many cafes do), and choosing a filter medium (preferably cloth) that keeps the coffee particles out while preserving mouthfeel and juciness. The resulting brew is intensely caffeinated, and as it ages out becomes increasingly sweet. Read more at the barismo blog.

Our tap system won’t be fully functional by this weekend, but we’re still making plans to serve up cold brew. It will come in 12 oz. servings for here and to go. Keep an eye out for a special release of barrel-aged cold brew in the coming weeks.

Apr

Opening Weekend Wrapup

By dwelltime|food, media, opening

Opening weekend was an incredible — and incredibly busy — experience for us. By the numbers, on Saturday alone we went through 20 gallons of milk in three hours, 45 pounds of espresso, and through the weekend we surprise guest baristas from our friends at Simon’s Coffee Shop and Voltage Coffee.

Yesterday we closed at 3 PM for equipment installation — drilling through the copper bar required we close our doors for the afternoon. We installed both the Luminaire Bravo drain trays and the cold brew tap (more details below). Going forward, we’ll resume our normal hours. We have a couple updates and answers to some frequently asked questions:

More seating is coming! We’ve had a lot of demand for more seating, and it’s something we’ve been hoping to add. Currently we’re permitted by the City of Cambridge for 20 seats. In order to add more tables and bar stools, we have to undergo a permitting process that may take up to three months. We began this process as soon as we opened last week.

Lunch will be rolling out by the end of the month. The bakeshop has launched, and the kitchen staff are working to both scale up production and release the lunch menu. We’ll be doing some profiles of our kitchen staff in the coming weeks.

Cold brew will be served on tap! We’ve installed the tap on the bar; we’ll be serving two different cold brews in addition to a tea on tap. We’ve received all the equipment except for the kegs; we’re being told they’ll arrive this week.We chose to install the taps not just because they look cool, but they help us reduce waste and preserve coffee quality (kegs will be pressurized with nitrogen, reducing oxygen interaction with the brew).

Finally, a quick media wrapup:

Drinked and Dined: A First Look at dwelltime

Eater: dwelltime opens tomorrow

Cambridge Day: dwelltime opens Saturday

Belmont Patch: Belmont Resident’s Store Where Coffeephiles Dwell

Thrillist: Upscale coffee bar hits the ‘bridge

Mar

dwelltime on WGBH on Monday, 3/5

By dwelltime|media

Tune your radio to WGBH this Monday morning to hear Phillip Martin interview dwelltime’s Israel Fridman. Phillip is a mid-Cambridge neighbor and GBH senior reporter. He spoke with Israel about how dwelltime came together, the folks behind the idea, our hopes for the new space.

The interview will air on 89.7FM on March 5 at 7:20am (live streaming at www.wgbh.org). We will post the link online with photos and added commentary as soon as it becomes available.

Feb

Dwelltime Update and Radio Event

By dwelltime|coffee, media, opening

barismo’s Jaime van Schyndel appeared on NPR’s On Point on 2/10/12 as part of a segment on light roasts and changing tastes in coffee. Listen to the podcast at http://onpoint.wbur.org/New Play For Your Coffee Taste Buds.

Construction at dwelltime is moving along. Much progress has been made in finishing the cafe and kitchen areas. Soon we will be able to begin setting up for a soft opening. Over the past two months, we have been painting walls while construction is underway in order to accelerate this process. We’re excited to open our doors and begin serving in the near future!

Jan

Post-TNT Wrap Up

By dwelltime|coffee

Last Thursday, Dwelltime hosted Boston’s first Thursday Night Throwdown. The event brought close to 100 coffee professionals from around the Hub, with 24 baristas competing head-to-head in a latte art contest. Congratulations to Chuck Hale, from Render Coffee, on his first place finish. Also, thanks to DT’er Pete Cannon for organizing the event, Jack’s Abbey for supplying us with two fantastic micro-brews, Shot Doctors for the machine installation, and Barismo for supplying the coffee.

If you are interested in getting involved in the organization of upcoming TNT’s, or want to know where the next one is happening, please visit their website.

Here is some additional media coverage on Dwelltime and the TNT:

Heart n’ Stomach

Weekly Dig dwelltime article with TNT shout-out

Photos from Tim Borrego (barismo)

1 2 →

coffeebar and bakeshop