Too short. (The Pantry Wroxham Barns, Wroxham)

The Pantry Wroxham Barns,

Wroxham,

Opening times Mon-Sun 10:00-17:00 

As it was Valentines day, I thought what better way to celebrate than with a romantic cafe cycle ride, after all I love my bike. To make up the numbers I also invited Chris (Mrs Crusader) and Barry and Helen and a tandem.

Regular readers may remember that Barry and Helen got themselves a shiny new tandem in December but as yet it hadn't made it out of the garage and I was beginning to think it may only exist in their imaginations. The main excuse for its lack of appearance was that they didn't want to get it dirty in the current wintery conditions. With today being near perfect for cycling, I was optimistic that I would finally get to see it in action. So as we arrived at the meeting point would the new tandem be waiting there?

Once again it was a resounding NO! Apparently Barry still wasn't happy to take it out as he didn't feel he had attached his bell at the right angle yet and it needed further adjustments before he could safely hit the road, so I would just have to be patient.

Recently the weather has been freezing and there has been much whinging and whining from my cycling guests.

Cycling guest cycling top tip No. 60. When cycling in cold conditions you can avoid frozen extremities by making sure your cycling host has not made the route too long.

I consider myself to be an excellent cycling host so had taken on board cycling gust cycling top tip No. 60 by making todays ride a short one. This meant that it wasn't long before we got to today's destination The Pantry at Wroxham Barns.

However today was not particularly cold and there was a warm sun in the clear blue sky. To my disbelief my cycling guests all complained that we hadn't gone very far on such a lovely day and asked if we could go a bit further. As a man known for my dynamic and flexible approach I would have loved to follow up on this suggestion but February's cafe visit planning spreadsheet clearly said that this was to be today's cafe destination and I didn't want to spend the afternoon filling in the necessary forms to authorise a cafe venue change request review (CVCRR), so I had to insist we stuck to the plan.

The Pantry at Wroxham Barns

As it was half term I was dismayed to see how full the Wroxham Barns car park was and expected to have difficulty getting a space in the cafe. Fortunately we had timed things well for once and got inside just before the lunchtime rush. In fact five minutes after we sat down the empty cafe was suddenly full of half termees. As the cafe filled up with fun loving toddlers Barry kept requesting that the atmosphere and ambiance score be reduced, which I obviously ignored.

A very full pantry with its target age group

There was a reasonable cake selection but best of all there were sausage rolls available for me to test out in sausage roll of the year (SROTY).

A reasonable cake selection plus scones plus sausage rolls

We all had sausage rolls while I also had some marble cake and Chris a chocolate cup cake muffin thing. On the drinks front my cycling guests had mochas and cappuccino.

Cakes, drinks and sausage rolls

I wasn't overly impressed with my hot chocolate, although it was a solid enough example, so was astounded when all the coffee drinkers said their coffees were really good attracting a very high guest hot drink quality (GHDQ) score.

Our cakes were ok but a little dry for high marks. Barry, who considers himself a bit of a sausage roll authority, gave todays example the thumbs up as I added our ratings to the SROTY spreadsheet on my phone.

On reviewing my cafe ratings table I was interested to notice that The Pantry had scored in line with a number of other cafes I have been to at local attractions so was pleased to see both the consistency of my rating system and the improved standard of attraction catering when compared with experiences from my youth.

Junior farm timetable

Before we set off Barry pointed to the Junior farm timetable on the wall and asked if he could go and cuddle a rabbit. Sadly the queue of 5 year olds was a bit too long so I suggested he came back on a quieter day, which he reluctantly agreed to do as we returned to our bikes for the short ride home. Hopefully he can spend the time he saved by adjusting his bicycle bell on the mythical new tandem so that we can actually get to see it in action on our next ride.

Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
5.5	8.0	7.0	6.0	4.5	6.20

Route

Click here to down load 26 mile Norwich Tunstead loop GPX file for your GPS

Cycling overload. (River Kitchen, Wroxham)

The River Kitchen Cafe,

Wroxham,

Opening times Mon-Thur 9:00-16:00,

Fri-Sat 9:00-20:00, Sun 9:30-16:00

Recommended 

I might have overstretched myself in cycling based projects this summer. First, in 3 weeks time, I'm off to Italy to cycle up mountains with Big George, then in 6 weeks time I've entered a half ironman triathlon with son George and finally in October I'm cycling to St Andrews (Scotland) supporting Mrs Crusaders charity cycle ride. I foolishly promised each of them I would go cycling with them to aide in preparation for each event. This means a lot of cycling and diary juggling. Today I had managed to double book a Big George cafe ride with a son George 50 mile training ride. As a good parent I decided it would be excellent character building for son George to do a solo effort so I set him off with a route on my spare bike Sat Nav while I waited for Big George to arrive.

It was a longer wait than expected as Big George had forgotten to set the alarm and had over slept. However he did eventually get to Crusader Towers and we set off on our ride to Wroxham and the River Kitchen Cafe.

As always Big George had a puncture on the ride

Due to holidays and other cycling commitments I had not seen Big George since I complete my Ironman triathlon in June so I was sure that he could hardly wait for me to tell him all about it. Which I did, covering ever detail while he glazed over. Apart from the ubiquitous Big George puncture everything else went smoothly on the way to the River Kitchen cafe in Wroxham which we found be the river.

Outside River Kitchen, river is on other side.

The River Kitchen cafe has an outdoor patio seating area overlooking the river which was, not surprisingly, very busy on a fine day in high season. We managed to secure the last table before going inside (which was almost empty) to check out the cake selection and award the effective cake selection (ECS) mark.

Very busy outdoor seating area

It was a very good cake selection and very effective as I couldn't choose what to have. I therefore selected the cherry cake and asked if I could have two bits of the salted caramel brownie to take home for later. I have to get two pieces as history tells us that Mrs Crusader would be upset if I didn't bring her any take away cake. However my generosity was soon to cause a major takeaway cake transportation issue (MTCTI).

Excellent and very effective cake selection which attracted a high ECS mark

Big George, rather disappointingly, went for a fruit scone when there were many more exciting cake offerings available. He also went for a standard filter coffee.

We returned to our seats and enjoyed the views of the river while I got out the google map I had prepared of the routes I was proposing for our Italy trip. Big George had said he had also done some research and had some suggestions. I was keen to hear what he had found in order that I could quickly ignore his input and just get on with what I had planned. I clearly hadn't lost the team building skills that had made me such a 'successful' middle manager in my pre cake crusader days. 

While Big George wittered on and I feigned interest, our drinks and cakes arrived. My hot chocolate was fairly standard but Big George thought his coffee was a good one and awarded a good guest hot drink quality (GHDQ) mark. My cherry cake was top draw being moist, fruity and tasty so I awarded a high cake taste quality score.

Cakes and drinks

The River Kitchen was a very nice stop with a good view of Wroxham river action plus an excellent selection of cakes to enjoy so I recommend a visit.

Big George eventually finished telling me his Italy research covering all the places we should go, best roads to ride on and climbs we should do. "Excellent" I said "I will adapt the routes I have planned to incorporate your findings" (I won't) and folded up the map with team building complete and knowing he will be none the wiser once we get there.

Before we left I collected the salted caramel brownies which had been packed in separate large containers thus causing me a MTCTI as I only had cycle jersey pockets as a way of transporting. 

Rather large container (and there were two of them) causing me a MTCTI

After squeezing them into one box and with much container squashing I managed to force them into a cycle pocket. However I wont include a picture as they were in a bit of a state when I got them home, although it hadn't impacted the taste.

There won't be time for many more rides with Big George before Italy beckons but as there are not many mountains in Norfolk to practice on it probably doesn't matter. 

Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.0	7.5	8.0	8.0	6.5	7.20

Route

Click here to download 41 mile Norwich Wroxham loop GPX file for your gps

Egg Sandwich ? (Number 14, Wroxham)

Number 14,

Wroxham,

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

Sun 10:00-16:00,

Recommended 

After all the recent excitement searching for the cheese scone of the year 2015 (see Cheese Scone Year winner announced) it was good to get back to some of my other cycle cafe projects.

Top of the list at the moment is to make progress on my cafe sticker album. This involves going to cafes named after their road number until I have got 1-100 in my collection. So far I have done 5,7,24,28 and 51 meaning I still have much work, and cycling, to do in order to visit the missing ninety-five.

To get things moving again then yesterday I was joined by cycling guest Big George for a ride out to Number 14 at Wroxham. 

On the ride out Big George was only interested in knowing if I had done my research on Number 14 to see if they had a fried egg sandwich on their menu. As Big George has probably accompanied me as a guest on over 50 cafe cycle rides I would had thought by now he may have noticed that I was only interested in cake and that as an egg sandwich is not cake I neither knew or cared if it was on the Number 14 menu.

The rest of the way was a pleasant ride through the woods north of Norwich until we arrived in Wroxham and found Number 14 on the main high street.

Outside Number 14 in Wroxham

There is a small outdoor seating area to one side and a few tables inside, where we managed to grab the last one available as even on a cold December day Number 14 seemed popular. I was particularly impressed by the chandelier that was an unexpected feature in cafe this size.

Unexpected chandelier

I checked out the cakes in order to award the effective cake selection (ECS) score. There were 2 nice big sponges and some interesting slices plus scones so I awarded a reasonable ECS. I went for a slice of the large Victoria sponge.

My finger plus cakes and scones with slices available in chiller cabinet below

Meanwhile Big George was checking out the breakfast menu and ordered a bacon sandwich. I asked him why he had not gone for a fried egg sandwich after all the whinging. I pointed out that fried eggs were available as were sandwiches and I was sure the two could have been combined to fulfil his needs but apparently he didn't like to make a fuss. Well he had made enough fuss on the way out here so I felt so I felt he could have at least tried. 

Our drinks and my cake soon arrived. Big George thought his coffee was very good and gave a high guest hot drink quality (HHDQ) mark. My hot chocolate really needed to be a bit stronger as it was rather milky although still a reasonable drink.

Cakes and drinks plus not an egg Sandwich

The cake was very nice and grew on me the more I had. However it was served partially on the serviette rending it useless remember #keepcakeoffserviettes.

State of serviette after removing cake from it

We both really liked Number 14 and recommend it as a good venue if you are stopping off in Broadland.

We set off for the remaining 13 miles to get home but after the previous two days of riding in search of scones I was really feeling it which led to today's cycling guest cycling top tip.

Cycling guest cycling top tip no. 38. If your cycling partner is tired make sure go just fast enough so they can't keep up and take advantage of your slip stream. Tough love but it will encourage them to train harder in future.

When I eventually got home I was completely spent but I will be implementing cycling guest cycling top tip no. 35 when I have recovered and am next out on a ride with Big George. To cheer myself up I got out my cafe sticker album and was able to fill in Number 14 leaving only another ninety four cafes to go to complete the set.

Scores

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.00	7.50	6.0	7.00	6.5	6.60

Route

Click here to download 41 mile Norwich Wroxham loop GPX file for your gps