North London, Primrose Hill, Lanka

Lanka, 71 Regent's Park Road, NW1 8UY (Nearest tube Chalk Farm)

So apologise that I haven't written a review for weeks but I've been all caked out! Imagine! Not a phrase I ever thought I'd say but it's true. I've simply eaten too much cake and was suffering from cake fatigue!
So with this visit, my first in weeks I had hoped to cure my jaded view of the cake world.

To start, the cafe was very stylish and chic with a good selection of cakes. The cake selection offers both a mixture of the traditional e.g coffe eclair and a bit more exotic - green tea as an added cake ingredient.

I wasn't sure about the addition of green tea and the pastry chef when questioned said it tasted of grass. When I commented that cows like grass and I wasn't sure I'd like the same things cows do, he kindly allowed me to taste the raw green tea. It tasted of spirulina/grass. Nuf said! I still decided on a left field choice (after all I can buy a coffee eclair at Sainsburys!) and went for the green tea and white chocolate cake(£3.60). 
                               
For this price and size of portion I was expecting alot. On a positive note the cake didn't taste of grass. In fact it didn't taste of very much at all and so was very disappointing. I'd give it 2/5. 

My friend went for the white chocolate and azuki bean gateaux (£4.10). Again it was tasteless. When we swopped cake they both tasted exactly the same. The azuki beans added nothing and were just a tasteless crumble on the bottom. She gave it 2/5.

Both cakes seemed a bit Emperor's new clothesy. Exotic ingredients which didn't actually add anything to an already bland cake.

The cafe itself is very narrow so there are two tables outside and then just high stools and a counter inside. This means that the place doesn't feel like you would want to while away much time here taking time over your tea and cake which to be honest is for me all part of the tea and cake magic!

However on a positve note the coffee (small £2.80/large £3.00 - takeaway cheaper) was fantastic. My friend who is a coffeehead and only rates 3 places in London as serving coffee up to her standards gave the coffee 5/5.

So overall good for coffee but don't bother with the cake. I hope the next place I try will re-ignite my love of CAKE!!

North London Crouch End Haberdashery Cafe

22 Middle Lane, Crouch End, London N8 8PL http://www.the-haberdashery.com/Home.html. No nearest tube. This cafe is in the wilds of North London with no tube but the nearest train station is Crouch Hill.

Okay so good start the outside is very twee but in a good way and welcoming. My friend had forgotten that we were meeting so I spent the first 3/4 of an hour on my own in this cafe and it was the sort of place you could happily spend hours just drinking tea and watching the world go past. The atmosphere is friendly and clearly a lot of the clientele are regulars.

I ordered tea and decided to wait til my friend arrived to order food. The tea was excellent both in quality and value -  £2.40 and 4 cups out of a pot.

So that was the good part. However once my friend arrived and we decided to order food things went down hill. There was a limited range of cake(to be fair it was 11.30 in the morning so perhaps the cafe hadn't got its full range out yet) and the three on offer didn't really jump out and shout EAT ME! The chocolate brownie at £4 was way over priced on the hand it was massive but too big for one.

The baked goods looked appealing but again there was not much choice and the muffins looked as if they had been there sometime.

In the end I went for a sausage sandwich. The sausages were excellent quality as was the roll but the portion was sooo mean. If you're going to have to cook 2 sausages don't then give your customer 1 1/2 it just looks mean especially when the customer is paying £4. Incidentally the next day I went to Sainsburys bought 6 Taste the Difference sausages for £2.79 and a roll from Lidl for 30p and made the best sausage sandwich ever!



My friend went for bagette and jam which she said was good but they'd toasted the bagette which she hadn't asked for. The coffee was excellent but she would have preferred it in a cup not a mug.

Overall I loved the atmosphere of this cafe so 5/5 for this. The beverages were excellent 4/5. I would definitely come back for a cup of tea but sadly the food was over priced and just ok.