Literation (Egg 'n' Easel, Harleston)

Egg 'n' Easel

Harleston, Norfolk

Open Mon-Fri 10-14, Sat 9.30- 3.30

Recommended

With little wind or prospect of any rain then yesterday again proved to be a good winter weather day for a cafe cycle ride so I was pleased to round up a guest, Andrew (who is notoriously hard to please), for a ride south down to Harleston.

It was an uneventful ride down so Andrew gave me his cycling guest top cycling tip for the day.

Cycling guest cycling top tip no 15. Lumberjacks beware. Doing an hour of log chopping every day for a week is not a good way of preparing for a cycle ride.

We arrived at Harleston and successfully negotiated the one way system to find the Egg 'n' Easel cafe at the start of the high street. I was curious about the name and wasn't clear why they had chosen to replace the word "and" with 'n' as 'n' has the same number of characters as "and" but is a lot fiddlier to type. May I suggest to the Egg 'n' Easel marketing and branding department they think about using an ampersand instead.

Outside there is a small continental style outdoor pavement seating area but despite it being free we choose to go inside to see if we could work out the origin of the name. It was clear where the Easel part of the cafe name came from as there was art on display on all the walls but no sign of the Egg.

Art on display, paintings on the wall plus
an Art instillation entitled 'notoriously hard to please cyclist'

The cafe had a warm and friendly feel and we both agreed on a high atmosphere and ambiance (AAA) score. I went to check out the cake selection only to discover that there were no actual cakes (or eggs) on display just a cake selection blackboard so you had to use your cake knowledge and imagination to make your choice. It did look like a good range of traditional cake standards so I awarded a reasonable effective cake selection (ECS) rating.

Cake selection blackboard.

I ordered a cheese scone plus the chocolate flake cake and Andrew the Bakewell tart. Andrew clearly picked up on my uncomfortableness on why the cafe had Egg in it's name so to make me feel better ordered poached egg and spinach on toast but it didn't help.

Drinks and cakes

When our drinks arrived (Hot chocolate and Cappuccino) they were very hot but unfortunately we both found them a bit weak in the coffee and chocolate department. My scone was nicely warmed and tasted good as did my chocolate flake cake. Andrew thought his Bakewell tart was excellent so a good cake taste quality (CTQ) score. Andrew also said if it had been relevant and I rated food as well as cakes then his egg, spinach and toast would get a 10 but as I don't it wasn't.

We both enjoyed our visit to the Egg 'n' Easel and could have easily stayed longer as we were quite settled however we needed to get back so reluctantly went out out into the cold for our return trip. I was still none the wiser where the Egg name came from and decided it was just an attempt at a bit of literation to combine food and art. On the way home we made up some alternatives which I'm happy for anyone planning to open an art based cafe to use. How about Cake and Canvas or Buns and Brushes or, my favourite, Pot of tea for two and Paint.

Ratings for Egg 'n' Easel Cafe

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.0	6.0	6.0	7.5	8.0	6.70

Map of route


Click here to down load 43 mile Norwich Harleston loop GPX file for your GPS