Garden delight (South Green Cafe bar, Mattishall)

South Green Cafe,

Mattishall,

Opening times Mon- Fri 09:00-16:00,

Sat-Sun 09:00-15:00

With summer coming to an end I decided it was about time I combined cycling with the world of gardening. For clarity, by this combination I mean I would cycle out to an open garden for a look round, not that I would trying to do the weeding whilst riding my bike. Earlier this year I had successfully combined cycling and art (see looking for art), and had been given the National Gardens Scheme booklet at one of the galleries. The booklet informed me that the High House gardens near Shipdham was to be open to visitors yesterday.

Therefore myself, with guest Chris (Mrs Crusader), set off for Shipdham where, on route, we would include a cycle cafe review stop at the South Green Cafe bar at Mattishall.

To add excitement to the trip I had installed my new bike sat nav and planned to test it out. I had foolishly let Chris have my old one so she could follow the route as well. Things started badly as the new sat nav didn't work the same as the old one. Obviously, whilst still riding, I started to fiddle with it in order to try and make it find the route we were meant to be on. With my attention distracted I didn't notice that Norfolk county council had installed a street light right in the middle of the cycle path. I only became aware of it when I hit it with my shoulder and ended up sprawled across the pavement. I will be writing to the council to ask them if they could move the lamp post back a bit in case I need to fiddle with my sat nav in the future.

Fortunately I knew the route we were taking to Mattishall as it was becoming clear that my new Sat Nav didn't and we arrived at South Green Cafe bar in Mattishall safely.

Arriving at the South Green Cafe bar in Mattishall

On arrival I was pleased to see an outside seating area overlooking the river so we could sit outside and keep an eye on the bikes. First though, we went inside to check out the cakes. They were displayed on a welsh dresser display area. There were not many cakes to choose from but the ones there were looked nice so I awarded an appropriate effective cake selection (ECS) rating.

Cakes on the welsh dresser display area

I ordered Victoria sponge with my hot chocolate and Chris ordered chocolate cake with her skinny mocha. We then we returned to our table in the outside seating area. Unfortunately the noisy extractor fan didn't help the ambiance of what should have been a peaceful setting and got a little annoying by the end of our visit.

Cakes and drinks ready for tasting

The drinks were both fine although not exceptional with the hot chocolate part of both drinks being a bit sweet. The cakes were also nice without being great so overall South Green came out as a solid but not spectacular stop. As an aside the baguettes we had for lunch were very good.

We set off again for our garden venue. By now Chris was getting the hang of her hand me down bike sat nav which, unlike my new one, was taking us on the correct route. I was getting uncomfortable with the new found cycling independence this was giving her so when she went over a bump and it fell off (the sat nav not the wife) it gave me the excuse to confiscate the GPS and nip in the bed any more ideas of her organising rebel trips.

We arrived at the Hill House garden and were warmly welcomed as they said they wished more people came on bikes as they had limited car parking space. However they became less welcoming when we wanted  to cycle along the edge of the herbaceous border, so to avoid an incident we parked our bikes and walked round instead.

One of the very nice flower beds at the Hill House garden

The garden was very nice but as I don't know much about plants we raced around everything rather quickly, although we decided we should have more purple in our garden.

By now my new sat nav was completely lost and decided to totally freeze up. Despite this we managed to get home safely. I think the new sat nav might be good if I new how it worked properly and I may even be tempted to have a peak at the instruction manual before my next ride.

I think the cafe garden cycling combination works well and I look forward to planning some more combined trips next year.

Ratings for South Green Cafe bar

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.0	6.0	5.0	6.5	6.5	6.00

Click here to download 44 mile Norwich Shipdham loop gpx file for your gps

Going up the league. (Tabnabs tearoom - Mattishall)

Tabnabs,

Mattishall,

Open Mon-Sat 9:00-16:00,

Highly Recommended

****Although I first wrote the post in 2013 and Mrs Tabnabs has moved on not much has changed and it is still a great veneue (April 2022)****

I was looking through the current ratings table (see end of blog) and was surprised to see that Tabnabs tearoom in Mattishall was only halfway up the standings, as I remembered it having excellent cake. Last time my cycling guest reviewer was Andrew (who is notoriously hard to please) and there were a number of crying babies at one of the tables which hadn't helped the atmosphere and ambiance (AAA) score.

Today seemed an excellent day for a revisit with Mrs Crusader as today's cycling guest.

The ride itself was uneventful and we arrived in Mattishall after about an hour. Tabnabs is in a courtyard near the church. Sadly there isn't any outside seating that all us cyclist crave. (Note: I have since been contacted by Mrs Tabnabs who pointed out that there are outside seats available in the summer or, for the hardy amongst you, you can request a chair and go and sit outside in the winter if you really want to).

Tabnabs tearoom from the courtyard.

Inside has a modern feel with a shiny wooden floor and a number of tables for two. As always I spent sometime at the cake area to award the effective cake selection (ECS) rating. Tabnabs has a large selection of tasty looking cakes so scored very well. One of the cakes on offer was chocolate and beetroot which I hoped Mrs Crusader would go for. Sadly she told me that she couldn't bring herself to have a root vegetable based cake, so imagine my surprise when she choose carrot cake instead. I decided to go down the more traditional fruit cake route and went for a bread pudding.

As always I ordered a hot chocolate before Mrs Crusader decided to act out part of Monty Pythons famous cheese shop sketch but with a coffee theme. They were waiting for a delivery of decaf coffee, milkman had forgotten to leave any skimmed milk, cat had stolen all the cream etc before they confirmed they did have the ingredients necessary for a semi skinny caffeine coffee mocha before asking the Greek balalaika player to leave. (Younger readers ask your parents)

The hot chocolate (which was only average on last visit) was superb being very thick and chocolatey and Mrs Crusader reckoned it was the best (if only) semi skinny caffeine coffee mocha she had had. The cake was also as good as I had remembered and again scored very well.

Fortunately the crying babies were not in today but the indoor seating area was full of chattering lady village folk. I realised that apart from myself (and Andrew on our last visit) I had never seen any other chaps in Tabnabs. From my personal experience it does seem to attract the gossiping ladies and mothers meeting crowd. So in terms of ambiance and atmosphere (AAA) rating it will score highly if you are a chattering mother but not so well if you are a cyclist trying to refuel both physically and mentally. Myself and Mrs Crusader, therefore, couldn't agree on the AAA rating. In these circumstances I always use the 'its my ratings spreadsheet' ruling and gave it my AAA score.

Apart from the lack of outside seating area (see previous note) and amount of non cycle based chatter it had the best drink and cakes ratings I have had at a visit. If this had been the first rating of Tabnabs (scores are averaged over last 3 see 'there must be rules post') it would have gone straight to the top of the tearooms ratings table and I would highly recommend a visit, I know I well be back again.

Note Tabnabs tearoom was also visited in sportive 2 in March 2014, on practice calorie neutral cycle in September 2014 and sportive 10 in January 2015 making it my most visited stop.

Cafe rating based on last 3 visits of many (Last visited April 2022)

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
8.20	8.33	8.66	8.7	7.0	8.18

Map of route

Download GPX file of route to load onto a GPS 28 mile Norwich - Mattishall loop