Coffee and books

A few days ago, a new place on Abovian opened, it is called Central Cafe (or Cafe Central, don't remember) and is located on the Moscovian-side of Abovian. We walked by earlier today, realized that this place wasn't there before and we decided to have some coffee there. From the outside the place doesn't look very inviting, with a closed facade and the entrance tucked away in the corner. However, once inside it turns out to be very big and light. The place has something of a grand cafe or even a pub, with a potentially nice atmosphere. The music didn't really fit in with that grand cafe-slash-pub-like-thing, however. It has the feel of a potentially nice hangout for young people, I could imagine spending an afternoon there talking with friends, drinking coffee or tea. But that is obviously not what they are aiming for when you look at the menu and the prices (The place is definitely not cheap!). The menu is very big with lots of variations on the coffee and tea theme, long lists of "coffee-cocktails" (hot and cold, with and without alsohol), but you can also have lunch or dinner there and there is a fairly big cocktailmenu as well.
I had a traditional cappucino, which was good. According to my boyfriend it "tasted like capuccino". Well, in Yerevan that is not a bad thing, as I know only a handful of places where they make decent cappucino. My boyfriend had something called "Cola-Presso" (if I remember correctly), which was an interesting mix of cold coffee, coca-cola and vanilla juice. I don't like coke, but this wasn't too bad. Good stuff for staying awake!
It's not a bad place, but I felt that something is missing though I can't say what exactly. It has potential but it's not quite there yet. However, they have lots of coffee-varieties that I would like to try and the pies and cakes looked very yummy, so I will probably come back some time.

On an entirely different note, a few days ago I finished a novel I brought with me from Holland. The Dutch title is "Het Huis met de leeuweriken", the English title "The House of Larks" (original Italian title "La masseria delle allodole"). I am actually not entirely sure if the novel has been translated into English yet, because I could hardly find any info on the author or the book in English, nor any mentioning at Amazon.com. The author is an Italian-Armenian, Antonia Arslan. The novel tells the story of the author's relatives' experiences during the Genocide. The first part of the book is very good, relating the build-up to the genocide in a small Turkish town, the killing of the men in the town and how the women, children and elderly were sent on their death-march to Deir-ez-Zor. However the second part about how the surviving women of the family are being rescued by some friends is a big disappointment, a big anti-climax - it reads like some not so well written adventure-novel. The novel is worth a read, though, if only for the first part.
By the way, apparently, the author is in Yerevan these days for the Italian cultural festival that is going on now.