Rise ... and Go

Rise Café & Bakery has been around in the hinterland long enough that I've actually heard of it. Heard good things about it, too, so when I was passing by on the way to visit a friend in one of those sprawling new hospitals out there in Ultra-Loop Land hoping to find a decent taquería, spotting the well-known name on the sign, I decided to give it a try instead. I should have kept looking for tacos.

It's not a big place, about the size of an ordinary Starbucks, but without the outside seating. Located in a strip center on 1604 between 281 and Stone Oak, it suffers from a lack of charisma on the outside, but manages to make up for that once you're in the door. Café tables a-plenty, but not so crowded that you feel the people around you are eavesdropping, or watching your computer screen and judging you.  The counter's in the back, and there's a comfortable-looking group of sofas on one side, in case you want a more comfortable conversation pit than the tables offer. 

The menu is reasonably varied for this type of restaurant; coffee and coffee-based drinks; other hot drinks (and presumably cold, too, though I didn't notice them on the menu board); a nice selection of enticing pastries, a few baked dishes, sandwiches, and a couple of more elaborate things that didn't really interest me for breakfast. I ordered plain ol' coffee, a cranberry-orange scone, and a jalapeño and sausage kolache.

The kolache was an impulse buy, mainly attributable to the fact that, the last three times I've stopped at my favourite Czech bakery in West, up beyond Waco, they've been out of those delicious, soft, creamy-good treats, and I thought maybe the local variety would serve as a substitute. It didn't. These kolaches are made with four or five cocktail sausages, the kind you make faces over at low-budget catered events, wrapped in what tasted like biscuit dough and baked with a single slice of jalapeño on top. These sad creations are heated ever so briefly before being served, enough that they're not cold but not so long as to make them warm. I guess it was just above room temperature. The flavour is what you'd expect, given the unimaginative ingredients.

The scone was much better: a large-ish square, chock full of cranberries and with a definite background taste of orange. The dough was well-made, properly crumbly, and perfectly baked. I know just enough about baking to know that I can't do it myself; someone at Rise can, and I wish they'd take an interest in the kolaches.

The coffee ... well, judging from the success of Starbucks and Seattle's Best, I guess it's to the liking of a lot of people. Or maybe people just think that's what coffee is supposed to taste like, and so they don't dare complain. I find it offensively bitter, acidic, and inordinately strong, meaning that I had to dose it liberally with half-and-half and sweetener to make it palatable. Chaque á son gôut, I suppose, but it sure ain't to my gôut.