16 Hemdean Road, Caversham, Reading, RG4 7SX.

Visited on: Sunday 20th September 2015

Siblings Home opened in February 2015 and despite often walking around this area, I didn’t know it existed until someone at Outcasts mentioned it to me. Once I heard about it, and once everyone else there who hadn’t been had heard about it too, we decided we needed to visit. And so the monthly ‘Knit brunch’ session (every third Sunday) was moved to Siblings Home, so that we could all experience it.

I thoroughly enjoyed being at Siblings Home. They sell homewares and it makes for a homely feel. There was loose leaf rooibos (hurrah!) and you could have it in a pot for one, or two or even three, with it being cheaper to share a pot. Some cafes are sneaky and offer you a big pot (that’s sometimes not even especially big) with no discount.

I had a pot of rooibos tea and held off the cakes until later on, as I had eaten breakfast relatively recently. When I did head for the cake, I went for the chocolate brownie. Apparently I’ve lost my ability to make a varied choice when it comes to cakes. I do apologise if this is making the blog posts less interesting.

It might help to know that the brownie was very good, with chunks of chocolate and raisins in it. The raisins added an extra dimension to the brownie and left me wondering why I’d never come across the combination before. Forget chocolate covered raisins, this was chocolate brownie covered raisins.

We all had such a good time eating and drinking our way through the menu (between us we managed to sample every cake they had and all reported excellent results) that two of us stayed longer than our knitting session and had lunch there too.

We moved to a different table for lunch, because it had turned sunny and we wanted one near a window. There are three rooms in Siblings Home and each has a different feel to it. When you go, make sure you have a look round all the space before you pick a table. When you go the time after that, pick a different table and enjoy the difference.

Lunch was a toasted Piadina (flatbread) with Spanish chorizo, Jarlsberg and mushrooms inside. It was very tasty, though not very big. As a light lunch after a chocolate brownie, it did very well.

• Teapot? Yes.
• Leaf tea? Yes.
• Milk jug? Yes, though technically it was a little glass bottle for the milk. Having glass bottles for the milk is definitely the current trend in cafes. There are a few I’ve been to recently that do this.
• Price? £2.30 for pot of tea for one, £3.50 for pot of tea for two, £5.20 for pot of tea for four. I haven’t made a note of how much the brownie was but I think it was £2 something.
• Cake? Yes, four different types of cake. Between us I think we had one of everything: chocolate brownie, cheesecake, caramel tart and pistachio topped chocolate brownie. I’ve been back recently and the cake was different, so I think they change the cake offered.
• Go again? I already have and I plan to go again soon.