You'd expect a coffeehouse with a name like Perkengrüven to be an exciting or, at the very least, an interesting place. Or perhaps you'd expect it to have the curves, styling, and chutzpah of a Volkswagen beetle, classic or new. Or maybe it should be an olio of a meeting place for perky freshmen, ümlaut-sporting hëadbängers, and groovin' young hippies; or perhaps simply a hangout for Swiss yodelers, all decked out in lederhosen and Tyrolean hats, sipping their mochas while admiring the cafe's extensive collection of cuckoo clocks.

In reality Perkengrüven is none of these things. It's a very plain little coffeehouse with plain little wooden tables occupied by a fairly ordinary-looking assemblage of university students. Aside from two paintings near the cash register there was no art in the place on the Sunday afternoon Max and I stopped in. In fact, the walls were grotesquely blank; hopefully the cafe was between art showings. It was, however, full of University of Washington students, all studying, writing reports, and sipping slowly on huge lattes. We were fortunate enough to get the window table, the coziest spot in the stark room. We sat and watched the sun come out over The Ave shortly after an intensely heavy hailstorm had taken everyone by surprise, filling the street in seconds with a river of hailstones and driving all the Sunday strollers and idlers to cover.

My double short cappuccino was served in a nice round white cup, a bit on the large size but not overdone. The shots were fairly strong and were finished with a beautiful cloud of foam. Since Perkengrüven uses Caffé Vita beans, it really was quite a decent cappuccino. I can't say anything bad about it at all.

But the audible and visual boredom was getting to me. There's not really much to look at here, except for the interesting mesh and glass light fixture suspended over our table. Actually there are interesting handmade light fixtures over each table, and the floor is of the beaten-up variety, similar to that of the McGraw Street Bakery on Queen Anne. But the place is still very, very plain -- suitable, perhaps, for an undistracted session of studying economics or the history of Italian Renaissance furniture or Korean art or molecular biology or basket weaving. Or perhaps one could write an essay on existentialism in modern life, or ace a homework assignment for The Meaninglessness of All Existence 101.

That's the feeling I get from Perkengrüven: nothing. Mind you, it's a pleasant sort of nothingness. But once you leave the place nothing visual stays with you. It does make one wonder if the place even really exists.