Democracy sooths the soul at Boucla in Subiaco

There are several things that can instantly sooth your soul, a lovers kiss, a friends embrace, a pets head resting gently on your lap. But what happens when these things are in short supply, what then? Last week I ducked into a little café in Subiaco called Boucla and found a solution.

Boucla © The Ponder Room

Bypassing the delights in the food counters, I found a small table at the rear of the café.

Boucla © The Ponder Room

Entombed in the darkness, with only a few soft candles for illumination, I sat pondering the marvellous healing powers of …

Boucla © The Ponder Room

A perfectly made hot chocolate.

Would the ratio of chocolate, milk and marshmallows be just right? Or would the barista have wrongly assumed the order was for a child’s palette, and upended the chocolate bowl once too often. Worse still would the chocolate bowl be replaced with a sauce bottle, one squeeze injecting a sickly sweet, shamelessly thin trickle of fake chocolate? I really need it to be good that day.,,

Boucla © The Ponder Room

And so it was …

Boucla © The Ponder Room

Because Boucla , with its Mediterranean, Greek heritage, knows the importance of democracy.

Rather than impose their own hot chocolate style on their customers, they supply the customer with the ingredients, dense dark chocolate buttons and plump marshmallows, so they can make their own. Perfect.

Taking the last sip, and putting the left over chocolate buttons into a serviette for later, I pondered whether this lack of dictatorship meant I could also make up my own bill?

Like the sign says, if you can imagine it, you can create it.