Pantry, High Wycombe

One of my course mates from my barista course, C has finally opened his own cafe/deli in High Wycombe so we decided to head along one Saturday afternoon and pay him a visit before our departure from Blighty. Pantry has only been open for a couple of weeks but is already doing a brisk trade which is encouraging! After much research, C finally went with Faema E61 machine (just like my friend Won!) and uses coffee roasted by Hasbean. 

It really was great to see C realise his dream and I wish him all the best going forward. It looks like the locals appreciate having Pantry as their go-to place for a cup of coffee and cake as there was a constant flow of people whilst we were there enjoying out flat white and cappuccino :)

Pantry

7 Park Parade

Hazlemere

High Wycombe

Bucks

HP15 7AA 

Saturday eating: Banh Mi Bay/Prufrock/Kerbisher & Malt

With time running out rapidly before I was heading off on holliers, I headed into town again on a rain-soaked Saturday to continue my field research for my cafe article. I had been forwarded an email by my editor which said that I could meet with someone at Prufrock after 1pm on Saturday. Since it was lunchtime, JD and I headed to nearby Banh Mi Bay for some Vietnamese grub beforehand. The place was packed; personally, didn't think the food was up to much. Since it was so cold outside, I plumped for a bowl of home-made banh canh (hot noodle soup, with the noodles being made of tapioca flour). I had never had banh canh before but got the feeling that whatever had been served to me was no the real deal. Noodles should be long rather than small inch-size piece morsels?

JD's pork banh mi on "Vietnamese" bread, ie. baguette? Nothing to write home and not a patch on the ones you can find in Paris either....

Banh canh - does not not look like the dishes I found on Google images?

My day didn't exactly improve after lunch either; on arrival at Prufrock, I was told that the person I was to speak to (Jeremy) would not be free after 1pm as per my email. In fact, there had been a change of plan and he was going to be teaching after 1pm (well, gee thanks for letting me know). In the end, I ended up catching a few moments with the barista behind the bar (who I later found out was in fact Jeremy but only because I found a video of him of Youtube, rather than him introducing himself to me at the time......cos clearly that would make too much sense??!!) but it was awkward cos there was a constant stream of customers coming in for coffee and I didn't want to be a nuisance. All in all, a bit of a nightmare....

Prufrock do have good coffee but after my experience and the "too cool for school" treatment, I would be reluctant to head back. I had started off this research on such a high with Workshop Coffee and was swiftly brought back to reality again - oh wellos.....

The "controversial" (or "too cool for school") coffee menu; 4oz = cortado, 60z = flat white, 8oz = latte)

 

Prufrock's filter brew bar 

Saturday finished with a quick dinner at Kerbisher & Malt before heading to the flicks. The last time we visited this chipped in Brook Green was over a year ago and at the time, our meal was good but not fantastic. This time, all the food was much improved and I am looking forward to our next visit! :)

Workshop Coffee Co

One of my side jobs at the moment is being a food writer for an online magazine. My contributions to date have been resto reviews; that is, until my editor came to visit me at work and suggested that I write a piece on top cafes in the capital, all within Zone 1. I pitched the idea that we could do a list of 5 cafes but rather than a top 5, list them as being the best of a particular category (newcomer, food, cake, established, connoisseur). Of course, this meant doing a bit of field research and my first port of call was Workshop Coffee Co in Clerkenwell. 

Workshop Coffee Co used to be called St Ali (after a famous cafe in Melbourne and until recently, had ties with the cafe in London) and is renowned for serving great coffee and yummy food to match. I had the pleasure of meeting Tim (director of operations) to chat about the cafe and the food they serve over a flat white. The ethos of Workshop is very much trying to use the best ingredients where possible (coffee and food alike) and then treating these ingredients with respect (roasting the coffee properly, cooking food simply) and serving this to the customer in a relaxed environment. Our conversation not only covered what was going on at Workshop but what was happening with the London food scene at the mo - very enjoyable! Had it not been for a prior engagement, we could've been chatting for hours longer! Tim was particularly proud of the burger on the Workshop menu; sadly, the kitchen wasn't open when I was there so I wasn't able to try it.

The burger, however, stuck in my head; so much so, that JD and I returned later on to try it out. The burger is usually served on the 1st floor restaurant but that was fully booked so we sat down on the ground floor and they were more than happy to serve us burgers there. The deets: 250g patty (bigger than most) and using rare breed Dexter beef - very, very good and well worth the trip out East :)

Pork rilletes with cornichons

Corn fritters - a brunch favourite!

 THAT burger!

A filter coffee to finish the meal - I found out that I'm a fan of the "full bodied" stuff :)

Coffee and cake at Kaffeine

What I would give for some nice tasting coffee with no latte art as opposed to mediocre coffee with good latte art, sigh? One further gripe, no point in making banana bread/cake with unripe bananas - it tastes shit!! 

Conclusion - head to Kaffeine for mediocre coffee and unbanana-like banana cake. (getting tired of going to coffee places which promise a lot and fail to deliver)

Paul Rhodes Bakery

I stumbled across Paul Rhodes Bakery whilst leafing through a small book called Tea & Cake London recently. The blurb in the book mentioned that Paul Rhodes as an accomplished chef who had work for people such as Pierre Koffman and Nico Ladenis before moving on to become a pastry chef and turning his attention to breadmaking. With all the experience and success that he had achieved, I was preparing to wowed by the stuff in his bakery. Since I was heading up to Westfield, I decided to pop down the road as well and visit Paul Rhodes new(ish?) bakery in Notting Hill for an early morning coffee break. First impressions were that the bakery did look inviting with lots of goods on display and the interior felt bright, airy and clean. However,  dig a little deeper and all was not what it seemed. The bakery operates as a counter service and there was somebody all ready to ask what I wanted but after I had placed my order, he promptly forgot what I had told him? Then, when I got to the till to pay for my goods, he told me how much I owed and proceeded to look the other way. I might be sounding a bit anal here but surely, this is customer service 101 and if you cannot perform these basic tasks, why bother showing up to work at all? It wasn't as though the place was humming with people either so I'd hate to think what service is like during busier times (just as a comparison, at The Espresso Room, Ben will always greet every customer as soon as they walk in the door and ask them what they would like whilst he is making another drink. Sometimes, if its a regular, he even remembers their preferred drink?!! Ordering and paying is prompt, professional and takes less than a minute. Not difficult....)

I plumped for a plain butter croissant and a pot of tea before heading to the back of the cafe to the elevated seating area. Even though I wasn't paying an arm and a leg for it, all I can say is that its pretty shocking to be served a stale croissant given Paul Rhodes' "reputation".

Unfortunately, there weren't any other cakes I particularly fancied so I made a sharp exit afterwards. Its doubtful that I will return.

Promised a lot but failed to deliver. One of the things I learnt on my barista course was that  it was difficult to find people to work for you who "care". To me, this last photo is a great illustration of people who just don't care - condensation left on the cake display and the audacity to charge up to £4 for a pecan tart which has a broken pastry shell?! Customers deserve better than this!

The Espresso Room

After a crash course in all things coffee and armed with a shiny City & Guilds qualification (yay!), I decided to strike while the iron was hot and start checking out some of the great cafes that the big smoke has to offer. The most obvious place to start was Ben's place, The Espresso Room which is exactly where I headed. The cafe is in a lovely part of town, not the type of place you would stumble upon by accident but a real gem. 

It really is quite literally a room, with most of it taken it up by the coffee machine and counter. There are seats for maybe 4-5 people at the very most and more seating outside. I arrived mid-morning and Ben was manning the fort so got the chance to have a bit of a chinwag which was nice. Being a non-coffee drinker, I was a little indecisive when it came to ordering so was advised to order a flat white which didn't disappoint. I also tried a sip without sugar which tasted pretty good but I was soon back to my old ways of adding sugar to my coffee like your average European :)

I mentioned to my friend Won that I finally made it to The Espresso Room and he advised that I really should've tried their espresso, d'oh! Oh wellos, am just going to have to head back for a return visit - a big thank you to Ben for being a great trainer and for stoking my interest in coffee :) 

Loving the look of the doorstep pastrami pickle sambos that were being put out for lunch :)

Tapped and Packed 114

I had first heard about this cafe (well, this branch) on the Timeout website around a month ago (turns out that we've walked passed the original branch on the way to Charlotte Street a good few times but never went in) and since I had an impromptu Monday off, decided to check it out. I plumped for a latte plus a slice of lemon poppyseed cake. The coffee was pretty good and much stronger than most lattes that are served out there. The cake was pretty awful, despite the fact that I could see that there was lots of zest in the cake, it tasted of nothing. It also didn't help that I knew I had a pretty yummy lemon drizzle (albeit 2 days old) back home to compare it too......I rarely blow my own trumpet but I only managed to eat half of cake in the cafe and was more than relieved to head home and scoff a slice of my own :)

Love the decor of the cafe tho!

 

Look Mum No Hands

JD has been talking about checking out this cool cafe/bike workshop near Old Street for a while now....we finally got our act together to venture over for the Tour of Flanders one Sunday afternoon as well grabbing a bite to eat. Coffee was OK, cakes were nothing to write home about and lunch offerings were mixed - my beef and chorizo croquette was forgettable but JD's Thai curry pie was pretty yummy. Despite all this, they were doing a roaring trade and there was also a great atmosphere whilst watching one of the "classics" on the big screen :)

Monmouth coffee @ Maltby Street

On the recommendation of D and D, I dragged JD out to Maltby Street to check out what is being dubbed as "the new Borough Market". After a bit of a tortuous trip out East (the tube only got us to Mansion House), we finally rocked with 1 more hour to go left of the market. The cluster of vendors was a lot smaller than I had imagined and they occupy space under the arches of a train line rather than actual stalls out in the open air. We missed out on the famed doughnuts being sold at St John Bakery but grabbed a quick coffee at Monmouth - a yummy creamy latte, was also digging the decor a lot :)  

Saturday treat - Nordic Bakery

I was introduced to this little jewel of a cafe by my friend Won and its now turned into one of my fav places to go if I'm in town and looking for a coffee and some cake (along with a gaggle of other folk as the place is ALWAYS busy!!). JD fancied a coffee so we sat down and also ordered a slice of Boston cake and oven cooked pancake. The Boston was basically a flattened cinammon bun with toasted almonds on top (not bad) - my oven backed pancake was yummy but I think it had more to do with the scrummy blob of blueberry and raspberry jam which it was served with :)