Dose - the new digs, Long Lane EC1

I have written about Dose before, in fact it was one of my early blog posts and I have not managed to get back there nearly as much as I would have liked.  The fact they have upgraded to larger premises next door to their old site was a good excuse to visit again, so I Boris-biked there with my friend Andy to check out the new look Dose.  One of the things I really love about them is that they serve a "Gibraltar" which is like a pint sized latte - even though the picture to the right looks like a full size glass, this is actually a cute mini-version and was about 6cm high.  Not sure I get the difference between a Gibraltar, a Piccolo, a Cortado and a Stumpy, but I like them all and given the amount of coffee I drink it's nice to cut down on the milk.  We also partook of Dose's delicious food selection - a toasted haloumi, avocado and bacon ciabatta-thing was super tasty.  We also shared a "fully loaded Blondie" which was nice enough but to be honest it tasted a bit too healthy for my liking - I prefer the chewy, dense, definitely not-healthy Lantana blondie (SO good).  Anyway - nice to see that Dose is thriving and expanding - it is a really great cafe serving top notch coffee (using Square Mile beans) and decent nosh.  I love the Smithfields area (and will be blogging more about some of my favourite bits over the coming weeks) and having Dose there makes me love it even more.

Dose - Smithfields

It's always good to stumble across another good coffee place - I had read about this on a couple of other blogs but had no idea where it was. I spotted it while I was in a cab this morning so went back afterwards for a full investigation. That old formula was spot on again - friendly Aussie staff CHECK, quality coffee expertly poured CHECK, good looking cakes CHECK (with a nice touch - Anzac biscuits which for any Aussie or Kiwi out there will instantly bring back childhood memories), another pin on my Central London Coffee Survival Guide map - CHECK.