Lets find a Cafe (or tearoom)

Lets find a Cafe (or tearoom)

Locations of reviewed cafes

For more information on the Cafes I have visited and the latest cafe cycle news go to http://www.cake-crusader.co.uk/

Cake Crusader Book

There is now a Cake Crusader book available where you can follow my journey from humble local trips to world record attempts and near-death experiences. How did a simple method of keeping track of decent cycling café pit stops turn my life upside down? Track my adventures into Europe, up mountains and right across Great Britain as I become a 'rising star' on social media. Will I prove my critics wrong? Should cheese scones be served hot or cold? Do I really have nothing better to do with his time? A must read for lovers of cycling and cake or anyone wanting to make it big in the virtual world

Available on Amazon


Tuesday, 26 November 2013

A pleasant surprise. (The Cafe. Brooke)

The Cafe,
Brooke,
Changed hands now Rural Kitchen
In case I had been naughty this year I decided that I couldn't count on Santa to bring me the new warmer cycle clothing I required to continue my cafe cycle rating on cold winter days. Therefore last week I emptied my piggy bank and splashed out on warm socks, leggings, top and gloves. As today was a cold winters day it seemed the ideal day to try them out. 
Modelling my new winter cycle clothing collection on a cold winters day
The ride was to take in the Cafe in Brooke with today's guests Chris (wife) and Barry and Helen (tandem riders) who are the first tandem powered reviewers. After several recommendations I had visited the Cafe in the summer (with Andrew who is notoriously hard to please) but it had not scored as well as expected so I was curious to see what we thought today.

On the way to Brooke it became clear that further winter layers were required as my hands and feet were still frozen. Fortunately I believe Santa is a regular reader of my blog so I'm hoping his elves are already weaving me some inner gloves and moulding thermal shoe covers (wiggle catalogue numbers available on request).

Apart from a quick puncture stop we arrived at the Cafe in good time for our refreshments and ratings. As Barry and Helen are tandem riders I made it clear to them that they only get one vote in the guest drink ratings due to my one bike one vote rule.
Myself with Barry and Helen about to enter The Cafe
Last time I came we sat in the outside seating area but today we needed to warm up so went inside where it was warm and cosy. There was a nice selection of home-made cakes and biscuits (although sadly no big chocolate cake) and I struggled to choice between the delicious looking carrot cake and cheese scone. Fortunately Chris went for carrot cake so both could be rated.

I next ordered my usual hot chocolate but to my surprise was asked if I wanted a milk, dark or white chocolate based drink. This is a very exciting development for all hot chocolate fans and hopefully we will be seeing more cafes offering this choice in the future. I went dark. Chris went decaf skinny dark mocha, Helen (in some sort of tribute to the milky bar kid) went skinny white mocha and Barry went cappuccino. All our drinks were excellent and rated very highly with 9's all round. Barry did think his chocolate sprinkling was too sweet but based on the one bike one vote rule I ignored him.

The cakes were excellent too with the added bonus that my cheese scone came with home made relish (another cafe first). With these ratings averaged out with the last visit it moved the Box Tree Cafe well up the ratings. One thing consistent with my last visit were the very friendly staff.  So today's stop was a very pleasant surprise making this visit one of my favourite stops so far this year.

Note: The cafe also visited in Sportive 1 post on 19/01/2014.

Based on it's 3 visits, ratings for The Cafe are
Hot Choc Quality
Guest Hot Drink Quality
Effective Cake Selection
Cake Quality
Ambiance and Atmosphere
Café Rating
7.17
7.33
6.5
8.33
6.5
7.17

If anyone has any suggestions for a cafe they think I should visit then please add a comment below and I'll check it out.
This is a map of the route we took

Click to download 26 mile Norwich Brooke loop GPX file for you GPS

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