The best thing I ate this week was at the St Elizabeth Hospice cafe in Stowmarket. The superb homemade mince pie had light, crisp pastry and was stuffed full of cranberries and mincemeat. Tall Orders cafe serves from 8.30am to 3.30pm daily (except Sunday). Their homemade soup is delicious, scones are legendary and all sales proceeds go towards the independent Suffolk charity.
When there's no motor racing at Goodwood there's always the lovely Aerodrome Cafe. Watching the planes go by ....
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All packed up and ready to leave for the airport and the flight cancellation crash lands into the inbox. So instead of staring miserably at the packed suitcases Mr SuffolkFoodie and I decided that a full English breakfast (£7.25 each) was the answer. Luckily the very well run cafe at Hillcrest Nursery is open on a Sunday and serves breakfast from 9am. Half English is also available.
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we may have been first in!
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a simple menu, very good scones from the counter too
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the breakfast was served with granary toast and butter
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Always good for a pit stop and the cakes are made in the Alder Carr farm kitchen. Coffee and orange proved to be a rather nice combination.
Popped into Folk at Fornham Business Court for breakfast on Monday and ordered a coffee and bacon sarnie from the all day breakfast menu (no egg though as they can't cook these after 10.30 am). This new cafe seems to have taken off as it was heaving with customers, all tables fully occupied and only a bar stool left for me to sit on. It's great to see a new, upcoming and young business doing well and serving high quality food and drink. Their website sensibly says 'we're on our way' and so opening times are limited at the moment to Monday to Friday 8am to 4pm. Just need to sort out that extra pan to cook the all day brekkie egg!
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great coffee
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tasty bacon sarnie
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pretty vintage tractor for the children to play on
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good all day menu
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I'll bang on the glass 'till I get one. Apart from my own of course, these are some of the best sausage rolls in West Suffolk. Just as I took this snap someone came along and bought them both so Scarlett and I ate an excellent Chicken Caesar salad and the daily special sandwich of Battered Smoked Haddock, Mushy Peas, Tartare Sauce with Cos lettuce. Ice Cafe I'll be back for a sausage roll...
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A cafe in Walsham le Willows that I've been meaning to try and it's on my doorstep, so off for a birthday breakfast with Mr SF on a gloriously warm June morning. We were the first to arrive and sat outside to enjoy our scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on sourdough toast. (Woosters bread, woo hoo!) Then a second round of an American pancake with fresh fruit and honey. Divided opinion on this, and I don't think cooked to order as although light and fluffy it lacked that straight out of the frying pan edge. Mind you the fruit was freshly sliced and the honey runny and enjoyable. Coffee was robust, very drinkable so we had two each. This cafe has a gorgeous garden and friendly staff, although they need to be more careful about recording what the customers eat as we were undercharged. Maybe not everyone has two courses at breakfast? I did point out the missing items from the bill by the way.
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I want a clematis like this
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courtyard garden
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the menu
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American pancake with fruit and honey
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scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on sourdough
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A strange name for a cafe, but a delightful setting overlooking the orchard at Harvey's Garden Plants in Thurston. Outside you can watch the chickens scratching and I like it best early in the morning for a decent coffee. Plenty of homemade cakes and baked goods are also on offer, plus some gluten free and 'free from' choices too. The salads could be a little more inspiring than quartered tomatoes and sliced, unpeeled cucumber though.
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More...
We love the Rural Coffee Caravan. For the past 14 years it has been touring villages across Suffolk offering tea, coffee and company to people living in rural isolation. The charity visits more than 70 villages, some where there is no where to meet anymore and where the more elderly villagers just find it hard to get out and about. As well as refreshments it offers an information service, a bit like a CAB on wheels. You can imagine how sad we all were to hear that the caravan has been stolen. Fundraising is well on the way to help with a replacement caravan. Here is the link if you are able to donate.
Actually it doesn't need to be ice cream weather to enjoy a visit to Hadley's Parlour in Lavenham. We went on rather a chilly day but enjoyed tasting a selection of the handmade icecreams that really do offer satisfying, smooth and creamy flavours using locally sourced Fen Farm milk and cream, Elmsett Game Farm eggs, Maldon sea salt and Pump Street chocolate, to name a few. You can get very good coffee and mini cakes as well, if you are greedy like me.
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The Cafe never fails to impress and close enough for me to nip in for an early lunch of Cromer Crab Benedict.
Some days just don't go very well for restaurants and Fornham Fine Foods was having a bad day when we went for lunch. We were surprised that fishcakes, one of the few hot things on the menu, was already off the menu by 12.30. We guessed that there was probably a 'chef problem' as everyone seemed to be waiting and the staff looked frazzled. But we ordered a steak sandwich and a smoked fish platter. It still hadn't arrived forty minutes later. Then when the fish arrived there was no steak sandwich because it hadn't been cooked yet - even though the menu said 'served pink'. The waitress eventually brought the steak, decided enough was enough and said there would be no charge for the meal. The food was very good in spite of the wait so we wanted to pay something, at least for the drinks, but she wouldn't let us. She didn't know we were food bloggers but she does know that messing your customers about while you decide who is going to be your chef isn't a very good idea.