Nothing I like better. (Hug a Mug, Lingwood)

Hug A Mug,

Lingwood,

Mon - Thurs 8:45-3:00,

Recommended

I had recently been contacted by Jean from Hug-a-mug cafe at the Village Hall in Lingwood suggesting I give them a visit. There is nothing I like better than a community run cafe as the cakes are always made by the local villagers and therefore often of a high standard. I was therefore keen to try it out and arranged to go with Mrs Crusader today.

However there is nothing Mrs Crusader likes better than a round of golf and our planned ride clashed with a golfing opportunity making her unavailable to be selected as my cycling guest. Fortunately Andrew, who is notoriously hard to please, had not had any better offers so signed up for the trip as there is nothing he likes better than a bike ride (except of course a rant).

The only problem now was that the ride would start from Hard to Please House in Aylsham and not from Crusader Towers in Norwich meaning the route was transformed from a pleasant 30 mile loop through southern Broadland to a 50 mile ride via some busy roads as we needed to cross many rivers and there are few options that avoid spending time on the A149 (which we did).

One of the many rivers to cross, this time at Potter Heigham

I had not seen Andrew for several weeks so there was much to catch up on. This was not easy due to a particularly noisy wind making Andrews rants harder to hear than normal although he manfully stuck at it.

The wind was also against us so it was a bit of a slog for 30 miles until we found Hug-a-Mug at Lingwood Village Hall just as Jean had promised. She told us it had been opened over a year so, as the self appointed number one cycle cafe reviewer in the Norfolk area, I felt I was failing by not knowing about it sooner.

Outside the Hug a Mug cafe. Our host Jean was a bit camera shy so hid round the corner

We went inside to check out the cake selection. It wasn't the biggest but all looked extremely good. We both opted for the chocolate cake which Andrew accompanied with a cup of tea.

Today's good looking cake selection

We agreed that the chocolate cake was excellent getting a high cake quality mark. Andrews tea was obviously awarded the standard cup of tea mark, while my hot chocolate was a solid offering. Although not part of my cafe rating system Andrew said his cheese toastie was one of the best he had had so all in all a very good stop and I recommend a visit.

Todays cake and drinks although my hot chocolate mug was wrongly labeled

We said goodbye to Jean and fully refreshed set off to complete our 50 mile loop. Due to the river crossing issues we again had a few busy roads to go on as we returned to HTPH, however one advantage of busy roads is you tend to go faster as you can't ride side by side or have a chat, therefore we completed our 50 mile route in quick time. 

A second bonus was went past a number of cafes I had previously visited so I took the opportunity to pop into number 14 at Wroxham for some scone action in my continuing search for Fruit Scone of The Year. I was glad I did as it rated highly and went into the current top 8 of potential finalists (see Cake Crusader website for more details).

Todays fruit scone to test from Number 14 at Wroxham. 

It had been a very enjoyable day, a nice fast ride, a good cafe and time to catch up on important rants. But it was all spoiled when Andrew told me his very plausible theory on the ending to the BBC drama Line of Duty, which, if he is right will spoil the final two episodes. Not wishing to ruin it for anyone else I won't let you in on his theory but will let you know if he's right. (Note. He wasn't).

Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.9	7	7	8.1	7	7.20

Route

click Here to download 51 mile Aylsham Lingwood loop gpx file to your GPS