Tartine is the loudest café I think I’ve ever heard — the clattering of dishware, loud conversations drowning each other out, piano music with monotonic vocals over the sound system, and the dull roar of traffic on 18th and Guerrero.
It’s a warm, noisy spot that seems bigger than it really is, thanks to picture windows and mirrors. But it’s small and very crowded. I share a long wooden table with seven people. Three women sit to my left in a football-like huddle, chatting about interior design.
This is my first time. I’ve been avoiding the bakery because it looks expensive. But for a bakery, there isn’t much pastry on people’s plates — mostly sandwiches, with enough meat to call the place a deli.
My veggie quiche is lukewarm and tastes like healthy egg mush. The crust is the high point of the experience. My chai latte tastes like they forgot the chai. Because of the heat, I asked for it iced. It doesn’t work that way, they said: The chai is served hot out of a vat in the back. OK, I said.
The vat chai doesn’t taste much like chai, though — more like hot milk that has been hot for a very long time. I wish I’d gotten a pastry. Something with chocolate.
Only one person has a slice of cake — an older woman, smiling at her white MacBook behind thick, black-rimmed glasses. I wonder what she’s smiling at. She runs her fingers across the trackpad. Is she reading? There is no wifi; believe me, I checked.
I look for the reflection of an e-book in her glasses, but see nothing.
Near me, a child in a pink knit hat drops her plate on the table with a clatter. One of the interior designers stares at her disapprovingly.
The designer turns back to her friends. “Maybe he will change,” one of the friends says ominously, continuing a previous conversation, “and put up pink walls!” The designer laughs.
Crash! It sounds like a dish broke in the café.
The little girl pulls her pink hat off. “I have crazy hair, do you have crazy hair?” her mother coos as they stand to leave.
It’s 5:10 p.m., and young people start to come indoors. Three teenagers replace the interior designers — a blond, a brunette and a Santa hat. At least they are into pastry. “This is the mix between cookie and bread,” the blond declares as they divide a brownie among themselves.
She pauses. “My life is coming to an end,” she says. “I haven’t slept in the same bed for two days for the past 11 days.”
“I haven’t been to Bi-Rite in the past three days,” says the brunette.
They chat about school. “Your winterball dress was am-may-may!’” says the blond.
“I’m worried about getting laid off,” says one of the businessmen to my right, to his companion.
“Sugar, buttercream, maple….” says the blond, paging through a cookbook. “My mother used to work at a dessert store.”
“My mother used to work at a Dairy Queen!” says the brunette.
Another dish breaks in the café.
I was asked to bring bread -a crusty loaf from Tartine, recently to a small dinner party by some clearly enthusiastic bread-loving friends. The experience was stressful, this being my first time to actually succeed in getting all the parameters in the correct order.
Stage one – call their answer machine. Offer a request and call back number and wait -no bread is promised without authorization.
First set back, I don’t have a cell phone and I need to go out sometime soon. (Same reason I aborted the trip a month earlier).
Set back 2.
Pick-up is allocated after 5 pm, busy part of rush hour traffic on Guerrero St., weather miserable, parking impossible. Dinner is slated for 6 pm. way across town.
Amazing, an hour later I’m home when they call and confirm. The lady on the phone is friendly and instils in me a sense of confidence. So armed with a small, sagging umbrella and running from 2 blocks away -illegally parked, I timed it by 5.30 pm and stood penitently in line behind an older gentleman as confused as I was. Around us the cramped, filled tables throbbed. 10 minutes after his negotiations ended, unsuccessfully as it happens, I was handed my brown bag of bread containing two large crusty loaves, still warm. And heavy.
These each weigh a couple of pounds – at least, and will set you back $14. Outside, torrential rain. Inside the jacket it goes, hugging my belly. It’s the closest an average guy might ever come to vaguely sensing pregnancy. The aroma is awesome. 6.10 pm. Across town the host is appeased, the guests delighted.
Would I do it again?
Nice. Mesmerizing. More more more!