It’s been a while since Polly and I get together due to changes to her work schedule. She finally got some time off on Friday and we resumed our ladies’ meet. But it will not be long as the summer school holiday is approaching soon. Once the kids are off school, so will be our ladies meet ends.

We decided to meet at Alegria Cafe & Giftware at 12211 First Avenue in Steveston Village. This cafe is opened daily from 8 am to 4 pm.

This is a neighbourhood cafe. Once you step inside the cafe, you can smell the aroma of food being cooked. Alegria Cafe serves panini, soup and baked goods. It is a self service cafe where you help yourself with the coffee and cutleries and there are also bins for used dishes. By 10:30 am, this place gets quite busy.

As the name suggests, this is not only a cafe but a giftware store. There are paintings, artworks and jewelry on sales. The artworks are hanged all over the walls as decorations too.

Even the chairs are painted with lovely motives.

Polly and I had their Algeria Organic Coffee which comes in dark or light. A small cup costs $1.60 and refill costs 80 cents.

Since, we wanted a light meal, we ordered a Combo to share. The soup and panini combo costs $12. For the soup, we had a Carrot Ginger soup. There were chunky vegetables in the soup like celery and carrot. It was lightly spicy with ginger flavour.

For the panini, we opted for the free range turkey with spinach, havarti cheese  and cranberry sauce. It is served with a crusty bun and sweet peas and baby carrot on the side. Service was rather slow as we waited for a while for our orders to be served. This cafe is great if you have time to enjoy the art pieces or read a book while sipping a cup of organic coffee.