SPRO Coffee Lab

General Notes

SPRO Coffee Lab is a delightful cafe / restaurant in the MIssion / Castro, a block away from Dolores Park. The drinks and food are very solid. Their offerings are both familiar and special; incorporating great ingredient combinations in interesting dishes. I've been several times now, and I'm excited to try new menu items every time. Great for a study date!

Positives

> The vibe of this restaurant / cafe is spot-on. Nice outdoor seating, great neighborhood, and right by Dolores Park as well. And fantastic bathroom -- you'll have to see it yourself.
> Their drinks are really good and so aesthetic. They have some really unique names too. None of the drinks are overly complicated but they're well-balanced and incorporate great combinations of ingredients.

Dishes Tasted

• ★☆☆☆ Strawberry Fields -- muddled strawberries and mint, cherry-blossom green tea, rhubarb bitters, honey, rocks. Not exactly my favorite drink; it sounds good in concept but it has a strange, slightly medicinal taste. Perhaps it's from the rhubarb bitters.
• ★★★☆ Spice Islands -- ritual dark chocolate, cinnamon, cayenne, nutmeg, vanilla, SPRO, milk. I like this drink a lot! Very well balanced, delicious drink.
• ★★☆☆ Kyoto Kiss -- white miso, muscovado sugar, milk, spro. A solid overall drink, but not especially noteworthy. It tastes pretty similar to your normal latte, the white miso doesn't seem to add that much.
• ★★☆☆ Lemon Bar -- a buttery crumble crust layered with delightfully chewy lemon custard, delicately sweet, tart and smooth. Needs a bit more acidity for balance, but overall the texture is really lovely.
• ★☆☆☆ Breakfast Sandwich -- prosciutto, egg salad, garlic herb schmear, togarashi, chives, mixed greens, toasted everything bagel. Personally, not the biggest fan of the egg salad. Bagel with egg salad (plus the huge amount of greens) makes this very tricky to eat.
• ★★★☆ Pixie Dust -- honey yuzu, sansho pepper, liquid nitro freeze dried yuzu, orange zest, spro, oatly oat milk. A lovely drink, well-balanced, and the yuzu in this drink is delightful
• ★★★☆ Island Hop -- ube, coconut, spro, condensed & fresh milk. This flavor combination is delightful. Note that this actually uses quite a bit of coconut milk, which gives it a lovely thick, creamy consistency, but also makes it relatively heavy.
• ★★★☆ Indian Summer -- rose petal, syrup, cardamom, spro, milk. I LOVE the flavor of this. It's a tiny bit grainy (maybe from the cardamom), but otherwise a delightful drink!
• ★★★☆ Fifty Shades -- premium earl grey black tea, rare silver tips white tea, bergamot, fresh milk. Light, delightful drink!
• ★★★☆ shakshuka -- this was a special menu item -- tomato gravy, poached egg, toast. I would have liked the tomato gravy to be a little chunkier and the egg to be slightly more runny, but overall the flavors were excellent, and the bread is incredible as always.
• ★★★☆ hojicha -- Kyoto roasted green tea, raw cane simple syrup. Simple, well-balanced, delicious.
• ★★★☆ orange blossom -- organic honey, orange, SPRO, milk. I was a bit skeptical at first, but this is a wonderful flavor combination!
• ★★★☆ SPRO burger -- sharp cheddar, sirloin, lettuce, tomato, pickles, smoked guava rum sauce, toasted brioche, onion. The construction of the burger is fantastic -- bun is nicely toasted, components are in nice balance. The burger itself isn't dry but isn't very juicy either, which makes for a slightly less savory burger experience.
• ★★★★ mash up -- 2hr sous-vide eggs, creamy truffle parmesan potato puree, togarashi, chives, buttered sourdough. This is so delicious; eggs are perfectly cooked, the potato puree is unreal, and the sourdough brings everything together nicely
• ★★☆☆ pumpkin spice latte -- the foam is fantastic (especially considering it's oat milk), but the drink itself is average and a bit bland
• ★★★☆ shiro -- belgian white chocolate, ito en ceremonial matcha, oat milk. Fluffy, well-balanced, just the right amount of sweetness to balance the matcha.
• ★★☆☆ strawberry guava pillow -- fresh strawberries, guava cream puff pastry, confectioner's sugar. Flavor of the strawberries is delightful. Pastry is decent but could use a bit more crisp. Guava is relatively subtle.
• ★☆☆☆ cinnamon spice cookie -- cinnamon, mace, molasses, cinnamon, sugar, sea salt, oatly oat milk. I didn't realize that this was vegan + gluten free when I ordered it; had I known that I probably wouldn't have ordered it. The flavor is nice but it has a very unpleasant grainy texture to it.
• ★★☆☆ strawberry guava mochi waffles -- fresh strawberries, guava cream, mochi, confectioner's sugar. The flavor is really nice but the texture is a bit disappointing. Not much contrast and a bit too close to a typical waffle texture for my taste.
• ★★★★ umami BOMB -- avocado, black truffle citrus ponzu, furikake, togarashi chili, ikura salmon roe, sourdough. This list of ingredients looks strange but it works SO WELL. The black truffle citrus ponzu especially -- so amazing and brings everything together.
• ★★★★ Ube Cookie -- toasted coconut, ube, organic rolled oats. The texture is delightful -- crisp on the outside, soft with great contrast from the oats and coconut. Ube flavor is pronounced but not overpowering and goes perfectly with the coconut.
• ★★★☆ Tokyo Rose -- ceremonial matcha green tea, rose petal simple syrup, milk. Delightful, well-balanced drink. I feel like royalty drinking this.