Substantiated Rumors
Cold coffee and crème pâtissiere brioche
Place: Birma, Jerusalem
When: Monday, late morning
Environment: The coffee shop itself is a small corner shop. There are a few shelves with coffee-related paraphernalia for sale, as well as coffee beans and cold brew for purchase. There’s a bathroom upstairs, and that’s it. Orders are placed at a counter inside, and they are delivered (quickly) for pickup through a window to the side. Seating is outdoors around tables pushed against the sides of a pedestrian alley. The tables are small slatted patio tables, and they’re all on an incline (some steeper than others). The sounds of traffic on Emek Refaim Street provide the backdrop, despite some jazzy music being piped out of speakers above. The tables were all occupied most of the time I was there, but the turnover was pretty quick.
My Order: Cold coffee (NIS 18); crème pâtissiere brioche (NIS 16).
The low-down: The coffee was good. The brew itself was not sour (I don’t like sour coffee), it had some blessed bitterness, and it shone through the milk and ice. The brioche was light and fluffy, with crunchy sugar bits on top; the cream inside was custardy and mild. I thought I would just have a bite and save the rest for later, but that proved impossible. This place has had a lot of buzz for a while; I went hoping to hate it, because I tend to think buzz caters to the lowest common denominator. Alas, Birma has earned its fame honestly.
Who else was there: Two men in their 60s sat at a table, half in the sun. One wore a light green polo shirt, khaki pants, and sandals. He had on glasses, but no sun protection. The other man wore a black t-shirt and shorts, an outback-style hat, a small gold ring in his ear, glasses, colorful gym shoes, a pistol in a brown leather holster, and white socks pulled halfway up his legs. He sported a short, white beard.
The two were not friends; they were meeting to discuss a mutual problem. They were neighbors, and there was a woman in the building who was causing problems: She talks to herself loudly, she hoards garbage and is always dragging something she found into her apartment, she is unwashed, and she mutters threats at anyone she passes. The two were under the assumption the woman was mentally unwell, and something needed to be done. They were debating whether to try to track down any family she might have and alert them to the situation, or whether to go to the welfare services and get them involved. After sitting together for quite a while, they came up with a plan. And each had his part. They said goodbye, and went on with their separate days.
