Cupcakes are all the rage at the moment but what would you do if your favourite flavour had all been sold? A shop in Cardiff recently experienced an incident of ‘cake-rage’.
Any cupcake that can generate that much passion needs to be tasted. ‘Sugarswirlz’ is going on the list.
This is a cupcake from Sweet Tooth Cupcakery in Chorlton, Manchester and so has nothing to do with the 'cake-rage' story, other than the fact it is a photo of a cupcake. But hey, that's enough of a connection for me.
209 Upper Chorlton Road, Manchester, M16 0BH 0161 881 9944 (View on map)
All manner of good breakfast things at Jam Street Cafe.
Jam Street Cafe is a small cafe bar that has recently started opening for breakfast. It has big wooden tables, an outside seating area and a cellar seating area. Even when we went at 8am it had a good atmosphere and was playing great music. I would love to go again in an evening and see what it was like with more people around.
Tea was in a mug with the milk added, nice and strong for a morning wake-up. I had a breakfast bap – sausage, egg and bacon – and it was the best breakfast bap I’ve ever had. All the elements were cooked to perfection and the sausages were the good herby meaty ones rather than the pappy fatty ones that you sometimes get. H had an egg bap with mushrooms and a cappuccino. We both had some juice as well, just to make ourselves feel a bit healthier – H had cranberry and I had orange. An excellent breakfast.
Teapot? Not sure, tea arrived ready made.
Leaf tea? Not sure, but probably not.
Milk jug? Came with milk in already.
Price? £3.50 for the breakfast bap, £2 something for egg and mushroom bap, £1.20 for the tea. Not sure about the price of the juice.
Cake? No.
Go again? Yes.
Cupcakes, tea and cappuccino at Sweeth Tooth Cupcakery.
I’ve already reviewed the Sweet Tooth Cupcakery, but we went again as it’s just that good. This time I had an Edith Piaf (chocolate sponge, cream cheese frosting and a glittery strawberry) with a pot of Earl Grey tea and H had a Kylie (vanilla sponge and pink glittery frosting with a gold thing on top) and a cappuccino.
Worth visiting if you’re in the area. And they now do chocolate brownies and other cake as well as just the cupcakes.
I love the way this cupcake looks against this plate. And a glitter-tipped strawberry too.
36 Tib Street, Manchester, M4 1LA (View on map)
The inside of North Tea Power, look at all the different types of tea on the wall.
LB suggested this place as somewhere to meet up as she’d heard about it and thought it would go well on the blog. She was right. North Tea Power is tucked away in the Northern Quarter but has a very good selection of loose leaf tea and – and this is the bit that makes it so great – have adapted their coffee machine to take tea. This sounds mad, but I am telling you now that black tea latte is the future.
We started with loose tea though, as the coffee-styled tea was a bit too much for us at 11am on a Sunday morning. I had Earl Grey Blue and LB had White Hairy Monkey, which is a white tea. LB had not tried white tea before but declared it was good. Both were fragrant and tasted of the tea rather than the pot – perhaps this is because they were served in glass cafetieres?A croissant was the food of choice for LB, but I went for a slice of the ‘Lumberjack’ cake. This was a date and apple cake topped with coconut that I would certainly have again. Filling and moreish.
Croissant, white tea, Earl Grey Blue and the mighty Lumberjack cake at North Tea Power.
After the tea and food we went back to the counter and ordered a black tea latte each. We could have had a tea mocha, a tea cappucino or a tea americano. I just wasn’t brave enough to try the tea mocha. It seemed very wrong at the time, but now I wonder if it would have had the combined comfort of a chocolate biscuit and a cup of tea.
My first mouthful of tea latte was strange and confusing. My brain said ‘coffee’ and my mouth said ‘tea’ and it took a few sips to reconcile my senses to the shock of a smooth frothy drink that didn’t have the bitter kick of coffee, but instead had the reassuring soothing quality of a cup of tea when it’s most needed. LB announced that she had found her new perfect drink.
LB's 'new perfect drink' - tea latte at North Tea Power.
I will be going here again the next time I’m in Manchester and this time I will try the tea mocha. If you want to have a strong cup of tea but need the frothy milk that goes with a good coffee, North Tea Power is the place to go. A brilliant retreat on a rainy Sunday morning.
Teapot? Yes, but one of those glass cafetieres rather than a traditional teapot.
Leaf tea? Yes, with the choice of having it made into a drink or buying a bag full to take home.
Milk jug? Big retro style milk bottle.
Price? £2 for the Earl Grey Blue, £2.20 for the White Hairy Monkey, £2.60 for the Lumberjack cake, £1.20 (I think) for croissant and jam. £2.20 for the tea latte.
Cake? Yes, and biscuits, sandwiches, tray bakes etc.
Go again? Yes.
50 Dearmans Place, Chapel Wharf, Manchester, M3 5LH (View on map)
Before heading to The Lowry Hotel we had looked round the craft and design gallery of the Manchester Art Gallery. This had dozens of beautiful teapots as well as other beautiful yet useful things. I appreciated the design care The Lowry Hotel had put into their afternoon tea surroundings and food all the more after seeing the gallery.
Stylish as it was, the lack of carpet and liking for chrome meant the room was very noisy and this meant we couldn’t hear each other properly at times, but never mind. The Ritz‘s love of plush upholstery and thick carpet is justified. And they had sugar cubes – The Lowry only had sugar packets.
The menu was already on the table when we sat down and our first thought was ‘this is not enough tea’. The menu gave of a choice of about seven types of tea and only three of those were black tea. The choices were Earl Grey, Breakfast blend and an Afternoon blend (described as 50% Assam, 50% Darjeeling). H prefers a lighter tea and would usually have a Darjeeling. She ordered the Afternoon blend and found it too strong.
We sometimes have trouble with an equal amount of sandwiches as H and N are vegetarians, E will eat fish but not meat and I eat everything. The Lowry coped without any trouble and presented us with ham, salmon, cream cheese and cucumber, Lancashire cheese and tomato and egg – all to the correct people. I think H and N also had a hummus sandwich.
Scones were small and lovely with enough jam and cream to go round. The cake course had a raspberry and white chocolate cake, a passion fruit tart and a pistachio and chocolate mousse. They were all delicious, my only grumble was that the spoon we were given to eat the mousse with was too big to get all of the mousse out of the glass it was served in. A variety of methods were employed to try and get this last bit of extremely good mousse out and the favoured technique was turning the spoon upside down and using the handle. It’s not good table manners, but when there’s chocolate at stake…
All in all a reasonably good afternoon tea and the restaurant was decorated in my favourite colours so I was happy.
Teapot? Yes, but the three of us drinking the afternoon blend had to share a teapot that looked like a coffee pot. And we had to ask for hot water.
Leaf tea? Yes.
Milk jug? Yes, but only one between four so we had to ask for a refill.
Price? £19.95 each, but with service charge automatically added so it brought it to just under £22 each.
Cake? Yes.
Go again? Yes.
There’s some lovely new stuff on the blog!
Firstly, each review should now have a little link next to the address saying (View on map) and when you click on this magical link it will open a new window showing where the new tea temple is on the tea-tastic map page. I know it’s important to you all to find tea, so I hope this helps.
The second shiny new thing is a whole new page (I know, I know, I spoil you all rotten) called ‘Wish list’. Lots of people recommend places to me and I can’t get to them all fast enough to put a review on the blog in a timely fashion. This will have all the places that I want to investigate, along with a note about where I found them. There’s only two at the moment but I’ve got a backlog so there will be more soon.
Anything else you’d like to see? Let me know.
21 Duke Street, Henley-on-Thames, South Oxfordshire, RG9 1UR (View on map)
'Breakfast' drinking chocolate and a rose hip truffle at Gorvett and Stone.
Don’t all shout at once, but this isn’t a review of tea. I know, I know, this is a tea blog, but it wasn’t my fault, honest. I saw the listing of different types of tea in the window and so went into Gorvett and Stone to drink some tea. I should point out here that they make chocolate and the whole place smelt so invitingly of chocolate that I found myself asking what kind of drinking chocolate they would recommend. The lovely gentleman behind the counter explained the different types and I plumped for the ‘Breakfast’ blend. Oh, it was good. So good I’m throwing caution to the wind and sticking it on here – rules were made to be broken. And if that shocks you then cover your eyes now – before I can tell you that I take my Earl Grey with milk.
It was frothy and smooth with just a hint of the kick that comes with 70% cocoa, but none of the bitterness that you sometimes find in cheap dark chocolate. If you order a hot drink to drink in you also get to pick one of their lovely chocolates to have with it. I picked the rose hip truffle. It was a tiny mouthful of pleasure. And such a pretty tea cup. I will go back one day when I have more time and order the tea and then order the drinking chocolate afterwards (I was going to say I would just order the tea, but in my new confessional spirit I admit I will not be strong enough to resist the chocolate, best to have both).
Teapot? No, but then it wasn’t tea.
Leaf tea? Er, no.
Milk jug? Not applicable.
Price? £2.65 for the drinking chocolate. The tea was around £2 for a cup for one and £5/6 for a pot for two.
Cake? No, but lots of chocolate!
Go again? Yes.
It may be a bit late, but I’m heading to Birmingham today and wondered if anyone had any suggestions for where to drink good tea? I’ve had mixed results with finding tea in Birmingham previously. Druckers was good but Cafe Bebo was really not, though they have the dubious honour of being one of the first posts on the blog.
Let me know with a comment on this post or by sticking something on the form here.
Here’s to hoping for good tea today! And good tea for all of you too.
Happy New Year everyone.
May there be good tea and good things for all of you.
Anyone find their favourite tea shop over the festive season? If so, let me know.
Mayflower Park, Marsh Lane, Boston, Lincolnshire, PE21 7QS 01205 356678 (View on map)
Lamb tagine, tea and burger at The Spirit of Endeavour.
It’s a very grand name for a chain pub near a car showroom but those in the know apparently shorten it to ‘The Spirit’, which fits in with a licensed premises nicely. We went for lunch on New Year’s Eve and the tea was surprisingly good for a pub. R and AM both had a large burger that was made with the small thin patties and they had both been hoping for a big burger patty rather than many little ones. I had a lamb tagine that tasted like it was made in the microwave, but both the tea and the chocolate pudding I had were good.
Teapot? Yes.
Leaf tea? No.
Milk jug? Yes.
Price? Good question. As we were paying for other drinks and other food and bought in rounds it all got very confusing, but I think it was around £2 to £2.50.
Cake? Only the normal desert type cake.
Go again? I probably would, but wouldn’t go again for the tea, just for somewhere easy to go for lunch.
Tea for you and me 