Bad back. (Farmhouse Kitchen, Wortwell)

Farmers Kitchen (at the Dove),

Wortwell,

Opening times Tue-Sat from 08:30-16:30,

Sun 10:00-12:30

Recommended 

I hadn't seen Big George since just before he was due to come with me on my search for the best mountain top cafe in Italy. I had just finished showing him the profiles of the mountain rides I had planned for the trip when he went down with a mystery bad back injury and had to cry off (see Monte Grappa cycling adventure). 

Miraculously the bad back seemed to clear up the day I arrived safely in Italy and he was now back on his bike and ready to ride again. We therefore had much to catch up on as I was keen for him to know about the 'fun' he had missed out on by not cycling up steep mountain tracks. He claimed to have read the posts from my trip but despite his protests I felt obliged to go through a day by day account. In a futile attempt to distract me Big George manufactured a puncture but it didn't work.

Big George attempting to change the subject with a puncture

As Big George reluctantly listened to my stories his only interaction was to ask how much further it was to the cafe, which came two thirds into the ride. I ignored him and pressed on with my stories regardless.

After a couple of hours I had got to the end of my tales, just as we arrived at the Farmhouse Kitchen Cafe (at  the Dove) near Wortwell, which is also a farm shop.

Outside the Farmhouse kitchen cafe

It is a recently converted pub so we were able to push our bikes round the back to the old beer garden area, which is now a nice outdoor seating terrace area, where we could safely leave our bikes.

Outdoor seating terrace area

I went through a large indoor seating area to check out the cake selection. It was rather disappointing as there was only a carrot cake and brownies. I asked the friendly staff if there were any other cakes and as luck would have it I was informed there was now an interesting sounding rhubarb and custard cake available. Despite this exciting news I could only award a low effective cake selection (ECS) score.

We went back to our seats in the outdoor seating area where our order was taken by the excellent waitress service, we both opted for some of the rhubarb and custard cake plus hot chocolate for me and a filter coffee for Big George.

Hot drinks

My hot chocolate was pretty good although could have been slightly hotter. Big George thought his coffee very good indeed so gave a high Guest Hot Drink Quality (GHDQ) mark.

Everything was going well until the rhubarb and custard cake turned up. To my horror it was served on it's serviette. I have noticed how many new establishments seem to think this is a good idea but it isn't as it renders the napkin useless for crumb wiping purposes. However to make matters worse the cake came with an extra serviette, presumably as they realised the first one would be ruined, meaning the one on the plate now served no purpose whatsoever and was a criminal waste of serviettes. Remember #keepcakeoffserviettes,

Cake served on its napkin. ARGHHHHHH!!

Once I had calmed down from the cake and serviette situation (and puffed on my TUE inhaler) the cake was actually rather good, making a nice change from the normal big five sponges, and scored well for cake taste quality (CTQ). As an aside the cheese on toast I had for my lunch and eggy bread Big George had were excellent too.

The Farmers Kitchen cafe proved to be an excellent cycle stop as not only was there somewhere to put your bike safely but the food and drink were of a high quality too. They even brought us some free perfectly drinkable tap water in a nice bottle.

Perfectly drinkable tap water

Hopefully the cake selection will get expanded (and be severed separately from its serviette) but even if it isn't I still recommend a visit.

As it was the first ride Big George had had for a while it was no surprise to see him fading on the way home although apparently his back was starting to go again.

Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
7.0	8.0	4.0	8.0	8.0	7.00

Map of route

Click here to download 49 mile Norwich Bungay loop GPX file for your GPS