Westerham Cyclery – caff and cycle repair shop combined!

[Originally published May 2015 on NoVisibleLycra]: For the first time this year we rode to Westerham in Kent, just Andy and I. It was a case of heads down and get there and we got there with the intention of taking breakfast at the Tudor Rose tearoom (Andy's treat – thanks, Andy).

When we reached the green after a pleasant ride, I noticed that Andy was looking for something and soon realised that he wanted to see the cycle shop and café combined that I had brought to his attention recently. Avid readers might recall that, a year or two ago as Andy and I sipped tea and munched cereal bars on Westerham's green we often fantasised about taking on the lease of an old Barclays Bank and transforming it into a cyclists' coffee shop, jam-packed with biscuits and cakes and offering a repair service too. But, of course, we were never serious about it and, as Andy said yesterday as we trudged morosely across the grass towards the roadside, our version of the Westerham Cyclery's caff and repair shop would have been half-hearted and certainly not as swish. I take the latter point about it not being as swish, perhaps, but would it have been half-hearted?

Amazing cake and cappuccino that's better than Costa.

I've already critiqued the place in a previous post, claiming it was too 'boutiquey' in its appearance, but that was based on standing outside and then having just a brief wander into the building before heading straight to the Tudor Rose – much more my cup of tea and, dare I say it, more in tune with what my version of a bike repair shop and caff would have looked like. But now, having experienced the Westerham Cyclery caff first hand, my opinion has changed. Let's face it, the guy in charge knows what he's doing and he's done a fantastic job. Yes, it is a bit 'boutiquey'. There are wooden floors and leather sofas and flatscreen televisions showing cycling on Eurosport, there are copies of Bradley Wiggins' autobiography, a few perfect-bound cycling magazines here and there, a range of energy snacks for Lycra monkeys concerned about 'precious grams' and putting in a good time and some signed Tour de France cycling shirts in frames on the wall. In other words, the place screams Lycra monkeys and so does the clientele – no ragged trousered mountain bike riders here... until now.

In fact, we did feel a little out of place what with me, unshaven and unkempt-looking in my tatty old Tesco ASBO specials and trainers, my right leg tucked into a grey sock. Andy, as it happened, looked relatively respectable as, unlike me, he'd taken the trouble to shave. It was as if two cast members from a Spaghetti western had bowled up to a posh restaurant with no intention of dressing for dinner. And we were early by about five minutes and were ready, had he not allowed us in, to make our way diagonally across the green to the Tudor Rose for a full English. But he opened early just for us, unlocking some wooden doors to the left of the caff proper to reveal parking racks for bikes and some comfortable outdoor seating at the back – this place covered all bases. There was a bike showroom upstairs, a bike accessories area to the right of the serving counter and, in addition to the energy bars, a selection of three tasty-looking cakes.

Andy ordered a cappuccino, I ordered tea and we both opted for coffee and walnut cake. It was all good. In fact, we both thought the cake was out of this world – very tasty. The cappuccino – which Andy said was better than Costa – had a chocolate bike stencilled into the froth (a nice touch) and, well, all-in-all, this was the perfect place for cyclists – especially Lycra monkeys. There was even a cycling club that operated out of the café and some of its members arrived as we enjoyed our cake, tea and coffee. Unlike us they were clean-shaven and clean generally: no Tesco ASBO specials just Lycra monkey gear, fresh complexions and perfectly combed hair. In comparison, we looked like a couple of vagabonds with bikes to match. We were, after all, from the other side of the tracks and let ourselves down by mentioning the C-word (Croydon). We should have said Caterham and Sanderstead, perhaps.

After paying £8 for two pieces of cake, a cup of tea and a cappuccino (extortionate, yes, but it's the going rate these days) we strode across the green towards the roadside and our ride home.

Firth of Froth, Edinburgh, Scotland

A short break from a rather intense conference meant I could wander around the area surrounding the venue, a converted church, in search of somewhere to chill and I found it: the Firth of Froth in Edinburgh's Broughton Street (number 43). I liked the name as it brought together the location – Scotland – and the nature of the business – tea and coffee – so in I went and took a seat.

Firth of Froth, 43 Broughton Street, Edinburgh

There were wooden floors and five tables with some outdoor seating, counter servery and an eat-in and takeaway service on offer.

Blackboards advertised a wide range of bread-based products with various fillings (basic, classic and supreme) with a variety of what the caff called 'carriers' meaning rolls large and small, bagels, baguettes, panini, toasties and wraps.

There was a refrigerated soft drinks display and wooden shelves carrying sweets and snacks, not forgetting stuff like flapjacks and cakes. There was also a laminated menu on each of the tables offering breakfasts including porridge, bakery items and a cooked breakfast for £5.50. Porridge was £2.00 or £2.50, the latter being served with apple and cinnamon.

I ordered a ginger tea and a flapjack, which set me back just £4.10 (the tea was £2).

Unlike my visit to Prague not that long ago, where the ginger tea was made with fresh ginger, the Firth of Froth offered a teabag, probably Twinings, not sure, but there was nothing wrong with that in my book.

While it was lunchtime, it wasn't too busy and there was an air of calm about the place that was pleasant on what was a very pleasant and sunny day.

Ginger tea and a flapjack – £4.10

A sign on the window announced that the Firth of Froth was open on Sundays between noon and 4pm – worth remembering if you're in the area on the Sabbath and find yourself at a loose end.

There was plenty of of leaflets advertising various Edinburgh events and a small selection of magazines, like Shortlist too. A Bakewell tart, incidentally, would have set me back £1.85.

As for the staff, they were both friendly and efficient and, to top it all, there was free WiFi.

It's important to note that I visited Firth of Froth in March/April 2014, I can't remember the exact date.

Taking tea on Paveletsky Square, Moscow

I think it says 'coffee', not sure...

I am sitting in what must be Moscow's answer to Starbucks. There's plenty of these places around town. In fact, there's more of these than there are Starbucks, which is understandable, and I've only seen one outlet of the American coffee brand since I've been here and that was adjacent to the Paveletsky Square railway station. Here passengers can pick up the Aero Express to Domededovo airport. In fact, as I write this, I'm literally around the corner from the very same railway station so there's no more than 50 yards between Moscow's answer to Starbucks and Starbucks itself.

It's a bright place with wood-effect floors and cream-coloured tables. The clientele consists of mainly young people, some with laptops. There's roughly an equivalent number of men to women and it's clear that this place (and the chain's other outlets, which are scattered liberally around Moscow) is popular with Muscovites.

The menu is pretty extensive, offering a range of excellent cakes (all the well-known favourites including carrot cake, a range of delicious-looking cheesecakes and tiramisu desserts). I'll admit I was tempted by the tiramisu, but instead I opted for a more sober lemon cake and, of course, a pot of black tea served, I hasten to add, with milk (rare outside the UK). This is good news as avid readers of this blog will know how difficult it is to get a decent cup of tea outside of the UK. In fact, it's worth emphasising that the milk, served in a jug, was warm and the tea was served in a pot (enough for two and a half cups).

Lemon cake and a pot of tea...excellent stuff!

The lemon cake was pleasant enough – nice and moist with a thin layer of icing on top – and that, in my book, was perfect.

In addition to the cake there was a wide range of snacks and hot meals.

There's a flat screen television over the door (the sound turned down) and music playing in the background. In other words, there's a good hubbub going on and when blended with the general chit-chat of the customers, a decent vibe is created. Oh, I wish I'd brought my book along with me (Robert Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philantropists) but I didn't, which is just as well as this excellent caff might not have made it to the blog if I'd been otherwise occupied.

Last but not least, the service was good, which is very important. Although perhaps it would be fair to say it was good up until the point when I asked for the bill. The waiter ambled over after I'd attracted his attention (not the same person who initially took my order). I asked him for the bill. He consulted another man and that was it – nothing more was done, and I was forced to ask again. This time, the girl who originally took my order arrived – actually, I caught her attention as she passed by – and my bill followed swiftly. It was 400 rubles.

There's a Starbucks just around the corner...

For more information on Moscow, click here.

Café Sinn & Sinnlichkeit, Augsburger Strasse, Berlin.

I decided to wander around the back of my hotel and found myself on Augsburger Strasse, a quiet street where I found this rather pleasant café with a friendly owner who was baking croissants when I arrived. The smell was fantastic so I ordered one and he brought it to my table outside along with a black tea – or rather a cup of hot water and a sachet containing a teabag, which is the way they tend to do things in Europe. No, it's not cricket, but when in Rome and all that. Well, alright, Berlin.

Café Sinn & Sinnlichkeit, Augsburger Strasse, Berlin – great croissants!

I took the teabag out of the sachet and placed it in the hot water and left it to brew. Then, a few minutes later I put the teabag on the small plate provided and enjoyed my tea. A hot croissant arrived on a quirkily designed white plate. It was hot so I left it a few minutes.

Tea and a croissant – perfect, and only 3 Euros.

A group of five men arrived and also decided to sit outside. There was seating inside, but it was warm so they, like me, chose to sit outside in the bright sunshine.

The blackboards carried menu information, but it was all in German, but this is a German café – and a very pleasant one, across the street from the Alsterhof Hotel.

I could see that the café offered a range of teas and coffees and there was a phrase, 'Das Leben ist zu kurz...fur schlecten Kaffee.' I assume this meant something like a wide selection of coffees were available.

The bill was a cool 3 Euros – very good value considering the quality of the croissant. Think how much that would have cost in any UK café – a bloody fortune! Let's think now: a cup of tea would have set me back £1.80 and the bakery item, I'd say about £2.10, that's £3.90. Probably double the price. And Berlin's so much nicer than London.

Corner Bakery, Wells Street, Chicago, Illinois, USA

I took the CTA into downtown and it rattled its way from Cumberland all the way until I jumped off at Clark and Lake, an area of the city that seemed closed. There were hardly any people on the street, there were no restaurants, just snack bars, and they were all shut. I moseyed around for a while before realising that I would get bored if I stayed there any longer, but being hungry I dived into the Corner Bakery for lunch.

The Corner Bakery, conveniently on a street corner

"You click. We Cater." said a sign, referring to the store's online service, but it was too late for that. I ordered from the counter – chicken carbonara and a cup of tea, served in a paper mug. I wasn't expecting great things, but in many ways I got great things. The food was good and was accompanied by garlic bread. The tea was just tea, but overall, I was quite pleased with my $10.80 meal, although a glass of wine would have been nice, but the Corner Bakery wasn't licensed.

There was nothing special about the Corner Bakery – and there were other branches elsewhere in the city – but it was a pleasant joint with wooden tables and mosaic Linoleum floors. One wall of the restaurant offered framed photographs of bakers, presumably from the Corner Bakery's past. The ceiling showed exposed air conditioning and outside there were cream and black awnings.

In addition to being able to order food online, Corner Bakery offered both eat-in and take-out food. For on-line orders there was a specific pick-up point.

One of many meal options was the Garden Gate Scrambler (eggs scrambled to order, diced chicken apple sausage, fresh spinach, red bell peppers, mushroom and Cheddar). In many ways I wished I ordered this dish, but I didn't.

Chicken carbonara and garlic bread

Also on offer was a range of panini breads, breakfasts, salads, soups, chilli, a kid's menu, oatmeal and yoghurts.

The Corner Bakery was good and while I could have done with more, it was sufficient and I took a cab back towards O'Hare rather than sit on the CTA. Click here for more details.

Bob Evans, East Washington Street, Indianapolis, USA

My 'Be Fit' breakfast at Bob Evans on East Washington

Being as I'm staying on the outskirts of town and not a million miles from what is generally regarded as a bad neighbourhood, I've spent most of my week here in Indianapolis in the downtown area of the city. This morning, however, I felt it wrong not to visit the Bob Evans restaurant across the parking lot from the hotel in which I'm staying.

Bob Evans is good ole American food and the chain, which, apparently, is all over the USA, would like it's customers to think that the food is cooked by somebody called Martha and that she's also skilled in the art of making a good apple pie. Well, they're not far wrong. This really is a homely sort of place and it's quite large and airy. It's not licensed, which is good, and I thought I'd go there and have my breakfast. All week I've been surviving on Rice Krispies and tea back at the hotel, so I figured I could push the boat out a little bit.

There's a big counter up front offering cookies and cakes and Hershey bars and I was directed to a window seat from where I could look out on East Washington Street and the Richard Skirling car dealership on the other side of it.

Traffic roared past in both directions and it started to rain. Storms are promised after a week of summery weather full of bright sunshine and temperatures well into their 80s (fahrenheit). It's been great so what better way to end the week than with a 'hearty' breakfast. Except that I didn't want to go ruin my reasonably good diet over the past six days. Despite being in America I've managed to avoid heavy food on all but one day when I enjoyed a pizza on Massachussets Avenue – or 'Mass Ave' as its known over here. That aside I've been eating salmon and halibut and trout and keeping my weight in order. At least I hope I have.

So, here I am in Bob Evans on East Washington expecting some nutters from the hood to burst in with guns and rob the customers. It didn't happen, fortunately, although I was reading that Indianapolis is way up there in terms of the number of homicides it's had this year. While in 2013 Chicago was voted the murder capital, that honour is likely to be bestowed upon Indianapolis in 2014 and it's in my neighbourhood – certainly no more than a mile from the Bob Evans restaurant – that most of the crime seems to be taking place.

There were a lot of unhealthy breakfasts but I chose the 'Be Fit' Breakfast, which set me back a cool $5.99. Hot tea was $1.99 but not served with milk, proving once again that you can only get a decent cup of tea in the United Kingdom, and a large orange juice cost me $2.69. All in all the bill was $11.63 and I added $5 as a tip for my waitress who, by all rights, should have been called Martha but was, in fact, called Joni. I liked Joni because she was homely and, in many ways, just the sort of person that old Bob Evans himself would have employed as a waitress in his home cookin' restaurant chain.

The Be Fit Breakfast didn't pay that much attention to being fit. Alright there was the orange juice and there was a slab of tomato on the plate, but in addition to an omelette there were two pancakes and some maple syrup. Still, it was as healthy as it was going to get and I loved it.

Hanushka Coffee House, George Street, Hastings, East Sussex

The Hanushka Coffee House, George Street, Hastings – amazing!

The first thing that attracted me to the Hanushka Coffee House was that model yacht you can see in the window on the right, although I must say I was already enjoying the mildly bohemian delights of George Street, Hastings.

My tea and you can see the biscuit wrapper too. Lovely!

This place is a cut above your average seaside tearoom or coffee house. It has a bit of class and a load of books adorning the walls inside. This is an arty sort of place with a serving counter at the far end and the pleasant sound of jazzy music. I loved it because it was full of Hastings' literary types. For all I know, the author Christopher Priest, who wrote The Prestige and Inverted World to name just two of his novels, pops in for a cuppa when writer's block kicks in, it's that sort of place and there's a more well-to-do clientele than you might expect, considering that Hastings is, well, it's a bit run down here and there, although, in reality, it's a proper seaside town.

Inspired by what I was experiencing, I made a few notes about the place on my iphone. "And then in Hastings we found a wonderful coffee shop full of books and round wooden tables. Jazz played softly in the background and I found a copy of Steven Berkoff's A Prisoner in Rio.

"The menu on the blackboard at the rear offered coffee, tea, soft drinks and alcohol. We ordered tea and apple juice and I spied cakes of all sorts for sale, not forgetting savoury items such as panini breads with various fillings.

"My tea was accompanied by a small biscuit to stave off my hunger ahead of the drive home. This really was the place to chill out and there's no way that its ambience could ever be replicated by, say, a Costa, Starbucks or Caffé Nero.

"We sat on one of two red sofas and I didn't want to leave."