"Rio Coffee" is one of those OG cafes that started serving "proper" coffee in my city. Up until then whenever we used to hangout with friends, it was that instant coffee shit and we were pretty happy with it.
Then I went to China and I was spoiled for life! At my first year break when I was returning for holidays, the only thing I was kinda worried about was where am I going to find coffee for the next 2 months! And guess what that was the year "Rio Coffee: opened its first outlet in Chittagong! So essentially for quite some time Rio Coffee was my favorite cafe.
Years passed, cafes opened up like mushrooms all over the country....some really good cafes indeed. And my taste buds evolved as well. Favorites changed, and I no longer frequent Rio Cafe as much anymore. In fact I actually don't even remember when was the last time I had coffee at Rio!
Last weekend when my wife and I were out for evening stroll before travelling back to my hometown for a week long break. We were in Dhanmondi, and that place had so many restaurants and cafes that one has to get confused....confused like never before! I'm not kidding! The following is just a segment of all the available restaurants in the vicinity of where we were.
But as fate would have it, by the time we decided to sit down and have a cup of coffee we were right in front of a coffee shop. No, it was not Rio coffee LOL! Life s usually not THAT melodramatic! It was actually more like after seeing that cafe we decided to have coffee!
But again, as fate would have it, I needed to withdraw some cash from the ATM before we went in for coffee....and this time around life was a bit melodramatic! The ATM booth was beside none other than "Rio Coffee!"
It was kinda like going back to the roots!
Their coffee was still quite good. We ordered two cups of latte (of course) and a serving of Brownie to go with it! The latte was pretty smooth, although it was a bit too bitter for my wife's taste. I sipped peacefully into my cup as I watched her violate her own cup of coffee with a whole packet of white sugar!
The brownie itself wasn't too bad either. Had a very home-made taste to it.
I'll admit, Rio Cafe is no longer a household name in the country. It has long been overtaken by other superior shops, and myself will not be seeking it out, But if it does come in front of me again I'd sit in and have a cuppa any day of the week!