Rain, rain go away.(Morgenstond cafe, Griendtsveen)

Search for Best Café in Europe 2014

Day 3

It had been raining heavily for a day and a half and European cycle cafe reviewing was now firmly on hold. This was getting judging for the 'Cake Crusader European cafe of the year 2014' nowhere. I decided to man up and however hard it was raining would set out to find a cafe at 12:30 (Central European time).

Constant rain from out of the tent window.

After a short pitch inspection and much to my surprise the rest of the party agreed to come along on the ride. Barry and Helen and their tandem knew of a suitable stop 4 miles away and another 4 miles on from that. They thought both would be good contenders for the Cake Crusader European cycle cafe of the year 2014.

Judging party ready to set off in the rain

After a good drenching we arrived at the first stop and again, to my surprise, decided that as we were already soaked we might as well go to the second cafe which was believed to be better. Pedalling hard to try and avoid getting too wet It was not long before we got to the Morgenstond cafe by a river.

Outside Morgenstond cafe in the deserted outdoor seating area

As it was still raining heavily we decided to give the spacious outdoor seating area a miss and sit inside. Although, like all Dutch cafe bars it was rather dark inside, there was still a good ambiance and nice view from the window.

Disappointingly it was again only the weak and wishy washy Chocomel available in the hot chocolate department so I decided to risk a Trappist beer and anti biotic cocktail. I have since discovered it leaves a strange taste in your mouth but it slipped down very well at the time. As the beer was high quality la trappe on draft then, despite the Chocomel, the drinks also scored well.

The beer and disappointing Chocomel

We started to look through the Dutch only menu and were struggling with the wordy descriptions so the nice waitress said she would put them into google translate and print them off for us. Most of the group had the easily translated ham and cheese pancakes and toasties but I had a shipyard salad which actually contained smoked fish.

Ham and cheese pancakes and shipyard salad

The food was very good and the pancakes much better than those we had had at the Kingfisher mill a couple of days earlier. As today would be a single stop we decided to go for dessert and select from the google translated menu, strawberry flan was easy but I had butterfly dessert and Peter had vanilla ice cream with lawn mower sauce.

Super set of desserts

The desserts notched the food score half a point higher.

Despite the rain The Morgenstond cafe had turned out to be an excellent stop and was the new official best cafe in the whole of Europe, as it went to the top of the leader board.

Outside the monsoon was now only torrential rain so we set off back to the camp site. After 2 days solid rain it was sometimes hard to tell the difference between the road we were on and the river running next to it but with a bit of help from the wind we made good time back to the campsite to complete a 19 mile round trip.

Cycling back to camp in the down pour

With sunshine and showers forecast for the last day of the first leg of the search for Cake Crusader European cafe of the year 2014 hopefully I can get some more contenders looked at and we will see how high a standard the Netherlands will be setting for the rest of Europe.

European league table after 5 cafés.   

Cafe                                                            Drink Food    Ambiance  Score

Morgenstond cafe, Griendtsveen,                   8        8.5            7.5           8.00

Holland

Central cafe, Baarlo Holland                           8         8               7            7.67

De Ijsvogel (kingfisher mill to you),               8         6             8.5           7.50

Arcen, Holland

Passi cafe, Horst, Holland.                             7         7.5           6.5           7.00

Dakepello, Panningen                                     5         6.5            5            5.50