Hybrid bar. (Queen of Hearts Tearoom Bar, Lenwade)

Queen of Hearts,

Lenwade,

No longer a tea room

Next week myself and Andrew (who is notoriously hard to please) head off to Slovenia for some riding in the mountains and to check out the Ironman Austria cycle course in preparation for the race in 5 weeks time (did I mention I was doing Ironman Austria). On le continent they don't really have tearooms but cafe bars, although I will still be doing reviewing while out there. I had recently noticed a new establishment in Lenwade which claimed to be a bar tearoom which seemed to be an ideal hybrid to help transition us for our trip. As an added bonus Big George joined us as a second cycling guest for the day.

Being cycling tarts we all own summer and winter bikes and today was the first day we all had our summer bikes out. This led to a lot of unnecessary showing off and sprinting up the road as we tested out each others bikes and fitness. We therefore covered the 20 odd miles to Lenwade in record time so were tired and ready to see what the Queen of Hearts Cafe Bar Tearoom had to offer to help replenish our energy stores.

Outside Queen of Hearts Tearoom Bar

This used to be Maxims (see Egg Hunt) that myself and Big George reviewed 18 months ago and had been a little disappointed by. The Queen of Hearts had completely changed the interior so it now resemble more of a pub with a small bar than a cafe or tea room so the focus seemed to be more on the bar bit of the name There was also some outdoor seating in the car park overlooking the Fakenham road but we opted to stay inside.

I would have thought that the minimum requirement to be able to call yourself a tearoom is some cake so I was slightly surprised to find the only things available in this department were scones (fruit or cheese). I was informed there are normally cakes but they had sold out. Obviously this meant I could only give a low effective cake selection (ECS) mark.

Only cakes available were scones, which aren't really cakes anyway

The coffee and hot chocolate came from an instant machine behind the bar so was pretty average fair, however the menu did say all food was locally sourced so I had more hope for the fruit scones we ordered which were from a near by bakery but they had been warmed up which I never think a fruit scone benefits from (remember cheese scone hot, fruit scone not) and it was therefore not at its best.

On the plus side the staff at The Queen of Hearts were very friendly although I feel they haven't quite got the bar tearoom hybrid balance quite right yet.

The ride home followed the same pattern as on the way out so we were all red faced and tired when we got back, ready for our afternoon naps.

Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
5.0	4.5	2.0	3.0	5.0	3.90

Route

Click here to download 40 mile Norwich Lenwade loop GPX file for your gps