When I first stumbled upon this cafe, way back in 98-I thought I had found the cafe of my dreams. It was bright, open, and airy with fabulous elephant art and trinkets. Elephants and coffee are passions of mine so it was Nirvana. The cappucinos were ideal-strong espresso, lots of froth. It was never TOO crowded.\n\nThen came HARRY POTTER. I must say I'm not a fan but was initially impressed that J.K Rowling supposedly wrote the tome there. In fact, I would often tell the little white lie that I had actually often seen her writing the thing during my visits to the ELEPHANT cafe. \n\nHowever the last few times I have visited-The Elli (as I referred to it), things have been different. First of all-the crowds and queues could have been tolerable perhaps without the computers at the front (a bad sign). Many other people had laptops. I just think laptops in cafes are wrong. If you are going to write in cafes, it should brief spurts of inspiration written furiously in longhand. But I digress. The back room is still beautiful, but crowded. The cappucinoes are okay but not what they were. The front is crammed with crowds and elephant chachka (teeshirts, hats, keychains). Ahh...why aren't things as we remember them.
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