Found yourself in New York during a cold ass day? Dreaming of the sunkissed beaches of Malibu? Well keep dreaming buster, and while you dream why not pop into The Coffee Shop in Union Square NYC for a California Wrap? Because it’s shit…that’s why.

After a few business meetings around the Union Square area, The Coffee Shop drew us in with it’s Siren cries to break fast. We were greeted by your straight-outta-the-movies waitress complete with a disinterested look and a jug of filter coffee, loosely held by a hand withered of care. She soon escorted us to a table then dragged her feet away to refill a parton’s coffee cup as we made ourselves comfortable on the shredded faux leather seats.
I scanned through the menu and ordered what on paper sounded quite fun, the California Wrap; scrambled egg, bacon, avocado, and cheese all wrapped up and ready to go and served with homefries.

The waitress soon returned with our order and slid the plates across to table to us. What greeted me almost killed me in an instant. $14.00 for the meal alone and it looked like something that I could easily make, and I’m the sort of chef that would burn water. I thought not to judge a book by its cover, and dive in for a taste test, which of course soured my soul even more.

On one half of the wrap laid the egg, cheese, and bacon – nice and predictable as one can most happily imagine. The other half just had avocado and nothing else which had the texture and taste of slightly citrusy mucus. Having to pull apart and rearrange the items of foodstuff into chunks of barely-manageable flavour groups was taking far too much of my time and effort, plus the wrap that imprisoned the separate blocks ingredients was like eating a wet paper bag of boiled shammy leather.
I sliced open the tough skin and picked at the eggy insides, leaving the rest to rot as my attention turned to the home fries. After sampling one I had the briefest idea of teaming up with the cook who had made the home fries to sell them as premium brand rubber bullets. Throwing them in the air and watching them crash to the ground would’ve had the same devastating outcome like that of an expensive airstrike.

I heaved the chunks of spongy granite to one side and leant back, placed my knife and fork to signal that I was totally over it, and asked for the check. The final bill amounted to numbers that meant credit cards. I left the place with a giant’s handful of money lighter, and with the taste of old, shitty food, almost coming through the taste of utter defeat.