potatomato.blog: Gaam Tea Gallery (Koreatown)

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Apr 24

Gaam Tea Gallery (Koreatown)

Food 07: Mid-Wilshire

We've been doing some exploring in K-town. We found this fancy cafe at Chapman Plaza.

The high ceiling, French antique (as in an Asian's romantic notion of French cafe decor) interior is quite a wonder. Pretentious yes but cozy~ The music playing that night was good Bossa Nova and French pop (like my iPod), and a John Lennon tribute film was playing on the screen (David Bowie on my picture). Though when Joan went back there another night the music was so ridiculous bad that it's almost had to be ironic ('Chariot of Fire' and Kenny G. ^^;;). There're a decent selection of tea and coffee. But the dessert menu is disappointing...they only have 2 kinds of cake: Tiramisu and Cheesecake (both are alright). We had Honey Ginger tea and Plum Tea, both good sweet tea though I think ultiamtely it's more about the atmosphere and antique sofas. Nonetheless a good hang out place it is .

Freda | April 24, 2006 01:50 AM

Comments:

Yeah in fact I do!! ^^:; They were called "Hear Music"! It was originally a indie music label (these couple guys from a college? I don't remember well) that put out compliation of their favorite music. Starbucks bought them later. Originally they have their CD store but just few years ago it got remodeled to include a starbucks cafe front. It's just the whole corp brand identity thing, they want people to associate their space and coffee and brandname with good taste in music.

Freda | April 27, 2006 07:05 AM

What? You have Starbucks' cafe music compilation?? ^^;;

seat | April 25, 2006 08:13 PM

gosh at first I thought Chariot of fire was bad, then they played Kenny G doing Disney, could there be anything worse than that?! ^^;;

These Korean (and chinese) cafes, no matter how authentically they achieve the "faux euro" feel, their cafe ambience instantly turns to shit when they play such embarrassing horrible music! Music is a HUGE huge part of cafe ambience. They think they could play some "light" music like Chariot of fire/Kenny G and think it's good "euro-feel" cafe-ish ambience? HELL NO! Those are consider god-awful music that show how bad taste you are. And it's not like you need to be an expert to get good music, even Starbucks release lots of nice "cafe music complilation" CDs...just get ANY of those would be much much better...

^^;;;

Joan | April 25, 2006 07:04 AM

The pictures appear a lot brighter than its actual ambience, it should be way darker so the high ceiling is very good (not claustrophobic). I think I'd come back here if I had a large group of friends and wanna relax and talk or just sit down somewhere. They have lots of games/chess you can grab and play (haha I saw some LotR game). But yeah I think I'd save $ on cake and just drink.

Freda | April 25, 2006 05:59 AM

Isn't the ceiling too high to feel cozy though??? ^^;;

No matter how nice the place is, if the food is just okay, probably no desire to go again? ^^;;