Special Detox ride (Cafe Warings, Norwich)

Cafe Warings

Norwich

Open Mon-Fri 7:30- 6:30, Sat 9-5:30

Recommended
(Note cafe has moved up the road to Westlegate)

Having just returned from a weeks snowboarding I was regretting the amount of choc au pain, pizza and beer that I had consumed and was desperate to get back out on the bike to lose some weight by eating cake. As Chris (Mrs Crusader) had also had a similar holiday experience she was keen to join me as today's special detox ride cycling guest. As an added detox step she had also decided that she should drink more water which led to today's cycling guest top cycling tip.

Cycling guest top cycling top no 16. To avoid the need for a comfort break within a few miles of starting your cafe cycle ride then don't drink a pint of water just before you set off.

Today's route was a 26 mile loop south of Norwich returning through the city and stopping at Cafe Warings.

The ride went smoothly until just after we had crossed the ford, via the foot bridge, near Shotsham. Here Chris pointed to her back wheel in a 'fix my puncture' sort of way. I dutifully set to work while she got out here I-phone for some 'urgent' texting. I then spent some time arguing with an annoying inner tube before persuading it round to my way of thinking thus enabling us to be able to continue on our special detox way.

Shotsham ford near puncture repair corner.

We arrived at Cafe Warings which is on the ground floor of Warings at Home, a furniture and home furnishings (FAHF) store.

Outside Cafe Warings in Norwich

I'm a big fan of cafes and cake and Chris loves her FAHF so this seemed an ideal venue for us. I must admit I have never seen the attraction of FAHF as every nest of tables, fragrant candle and scatter cushion just diverts our funds away from important things like extra slick tyres, aerodynamic water bottle holders and light weight saddles. Even so I couldn't begrudge her a quick look, mainly because I was safe in the knowledge that we had left our credit cards at home. As a result of today's added FAHF Chris was keen to give a high Atmosphere and Ambiance (AAA) rating. 

Cafe Warings is on the ground floor with FAFH on the other floors,
A nice bright and open space.

I was more interested in the cake selection which wasn't the biggest but had some good offerings. I choose coffee and walnut and Chris went for lemon curd sponge. As part of my cheese scone serving temperature research I also had a mandatory cheese scone.

Part of cake selection, sweet tarts and scones also available.

For drinks I had a hot chocolate and Chris a skinny mocha. Both our drinks were very good being hot and strong so scored well.

Excellent drinks

It was not a good day for my cheese scone serving temperature campaign (remember cheese scone hot, fruit scone not) as my scone came cold meaning I have now had 4 Hot and 4 Cold cheese scones so far this year. It was also bad news when it came to my 'keep cake off serviettes' crusade as sadly both cake slices arrived served on their napkins thus rendering them useless for future crumb removal purposes. 

'Keep cake off Serviettes'

Despite this our cake was good and I thought the coffee and walnut cake was one of the best I had had. It is difficult not to let your coffee and walnut cake become too dry but this was certainly not the case at Warings and I have put it on the contenders list for this years cake of the year. However the very generous size of the piece did nothing for my special detox ride.

Cakes and cheese scone. Featuring huge chunk of excellent coffee and walnut cake

Warnings was a very nice stop, had a good standard of both cakes and drinks and added FAHF for those of you that like that sort of thing.

On the way out I had door opening difficulty with a problem that I have encountered on many occasions. The door handle was shaped in a way that would clearly encourage you to want to pull the door open which I obviously attempted to do. This proved unsuccessful as I was in fact meant to push in order to make an exit. Granted there was a sign saying push but I have never been big on reading instructions before starting on a task so it didn't really help. This is an on going problem and I can see a door opening campaign, with blog, on the horizon. Door manufacturers you have been warned!

Door handle clearly shaped for pulling but fixed on the push side.

On our return home we agreed our special detox ride had been far more successful on the ride part rather than the detox side but a cycle ride without cake isn't really a cycle ride so we will just have to find a different detox approach.

Scores for Cafe Warings

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
7.0	7.5	6.0	7.5	7.5	7.10

Route

click here to down load 25 Mile South Norwich loop GPX file for your GPS