In the shadow of CHOC and Saint Joe’s with a string of high rise financial buildings to the south, Kaffa is the kind of coffee lover’s refuge where ER staff and personal bankers refuel on freshly percolated Sulawesi Estate while they tap on  laptop keyboards or chill with this week’s James Patterson release.  

 On a coffee break there last week, I witnessed a middle-aged woman with hair like Joe Jonas wearing a bad anime wig pressing for a  Hello Kitty latte.  

Cafe du Frond.

‘Um, we don’t really focus on art.” managed the uncomfortable barista, and with that he whipped up a painstakingly wrought 12 oz. latte brimming with a thick layer of silky espresso crema and  creamy froth.  

She had him carry it to the table for her,  apparantly fearing spillage, and the surface did undulate like a water bed in a Poconos honeymoon suite, but he never spilled a drop. She seemed to forget the Sanrio character in favor of a simple free style palm frond and inhaled the aroma as if it were a glass of 2005 Chateau d’Yquem Sauternes.  

Scrub crawl.

She’s on to something. The coffee at Kaffa does have much of the dizzying complexity of wine without the pesky side effect of napping on the banquette. My latte featured a heart, the only other design the baristas  at Kaffa do, but fancy foam isn’t everything.  Mellow, lush and fragrant with locally roasted espresso beans the creamy, earthy latte induces a smooth time -release buzz that never feels jolty or crashy.  

 The place is full of double shift-working hospital personnel and loan officers for whom Scooby Do Scrubs  and custom Swarovski ID lanyards are respective workplace fashion statements, but you almost feel as if you could get by wrapped in a burgundy Snuggie to complement the warm gold walls and cozy, stay-a-while vibe.   

I heart Kaffa!

The regulars are people who depend on caffeine in ways most of us don’t. Performing a ten hour surgery on a diseased liver lobe calls for crystal clear focus that may only be summoned by vats of French-pressed Ethiopian Yirgacheffe.

Unlike many dedicated coffee houses for whom food means a glass case full of pre-made sandwiches and hardtack-like scones, Kaffa has a full breakfast and lunch menu with items made to order.  

Personal Zest.

The best selling Chinese chicken salad is straightforward, utilitarian sustenance. It’s the kind of thing that would trump hospital cafeteria food any day, but its nothing you couldn’t find  at, say,  Mi Mi’s.   

The tuna melt looked ordinary, but the soft focaccia was pressed into crispy, warm, almost lacy submission and  seared with fresh tomato and blistered provolone. Bonded with just enough mayo, the tuna was bright with pungent, miniature curls of lemon zest and flecked with onion  and pickle dice  throughout.   Fair warning: keep close tabs on whoever leaves the ward to do your lunch run, this melt has legs.

424 S. Main St. , Ste. K Orange, 92868 714.978.1992. Lunch for two, $15.00,  food only.

In the banh mi diaspora of Little Saigon, opinions on where to find the best baguette are as authoritative and polarized as HuffPost and the Heritage Foundation’s combative takes on global warming. And it’s not just the bread. At a local salon, I’ve seen trash talking sessions about sandwich fillings get as hot as a Conair Infiniti dryer.

 A teeming social hub well-respected in the cult of the Vietnamese sandwich, Tip Top’s is crammed with loyal congregants gossiping and reading Nguoi Viet. Bread comes out of the massive ovens hourly creating a market so competitive that attempting to sell a cooled baguette in this neighborhood is as dismal a prospect as trying to trade mom’s Weight Watchers protein bar for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos at the grade school lunch tables. 

A Tip Top baguette has a scored and slightly bubbled outer crust that shatters on contact like a pane of sugar on crème brûlée leaving shards of flakiness in its wake. The core, still warm from the oven, soaks up the juicy, fat marbled savory pork  tangled with cool, sweet pickled daikon, shaggy carrot slivers, fresh cilantro sprigs and jalapeño spheres. The experience is at once crispy, spicy, warm and crunchy. And at $3.45, the price is as sweet as the cafe sua da.

A shrill bell channeling an elementary school’s fire alarm sounds before your order number is read. Forget the uninspired American-style sandwiches and leave the Patisserie to Pierre’s Boulangerie down the street, but hustle to the take-out counter: that baguette won’t be warm forever. Tip Top’s Sandwiches 14094 Brookhurst St. Garden Grove. 714.530.9239. Lunch for two, $8.00,  food only.