Tuesday, December 03, 2002


love letter to da vinci. . .

syrups, that is. yes, i ordered 2 bottles of syrup from their website. and the customer service is great, even tho' the ups shipping is not. which is not at all da vinci's fault. (plea to the da vinci people: consider offering your loyal customers fed ex ground as an either-or alternative, please!)

so i purchased the syrup expeditiously, after considering their long and nicely detailed comparison of flavors. in the end, i went with the dulce de leche and the famed white chocolate. they have excellent customer service email -- i immediately received an order confirmation, and then the next day a shipping notice with order number and ups tracking link. excellent. a day later i received a third mail saying my payment had been processed. all good.

the problem, of course, was ups. while the shipping was supposed to be 3 days, it was not. this was totally a ups problem. when is 3 day select not 3 days? when it's ups! i've dealt with ups problems before, which always involves a long wait and indifferent phone reps. so i called da vinci itself and spoke to the wonderful jenny, who should probably be sainted.

maybe it's just a co-incidence, but the ups guy, who had come to our building at his normal time and left his little yellow note without apparently actually bothering to ring to see if either the super, the doorman or mr. right was actually around, strangely re-appeared an unheard-of second time -- totally outside his routine -- with the syrups!

all hail da vinci gourmet! why am i buying their excellent product mail order? because barnes and noble no longer carries it -- they are now devoted solely to that yucky-tasting fontana syrup made by starbucks.

other local stores sell the torani and monin syrups, but frankly, i just don't find them as tasty. (although i have to say that both of these lines offer some interesting flavors, like monin's unique roasted chestnut!) i've never tried the dulce de leche syrup before, so i'll report here shortly. but people i otherwise trust inform me it makes a very yummy latte. . .

posted by fortune | 5:28 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments