HR Cafe, Windsor Street, Stratford-upon-Avon

This is one of those places Stratford-upon-Avon does best. Small, but perfectly formed, chicly resplendent in glowing whites and natural woods and a front courtyard that, while tiny, is the sunniest spot in the town all day. The emphasis is on the local and organic, food cooked on the premises by friendly, ebullient staff. Access may be slightly limited but such staff as these will always go out of their way to help.

My breakfast was poached egg on granary toast. Served with a little tumbleweed of watercress (which I studiously ignored) the eggs were creamy white with deep golden yolks on lovely crumbly granary. Drew chose the vegan breakfast and designated it the best in the town. This is no simple exercise in substitution ('if in doubt, replace it with quorn') but an original combinations of mushrooms and avocado served on sourdough bread dished up in a generous portion.

The coffee is Monsoon, a brand I once designated on this very blog as tasting akin to having phone sex with Alan Rickman (rich, dark, leaves you feeling lightheaded afterward). Due to the gentleman's untimely demise this year*, I contemplated adjusting the comparison. Perhaps comparing it to a similar experience with Keanu Reeves? But since such a definition would run along the lines of 'flat, monotonous in tone and lacking in surprises', then I will let the comparison stand, if only in memoriam. Like the late, lamented Mr Rickman himself, this coffee is made of worthy, likeable stuff.**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*I have missed him dreadfully. Oh, you've noticed?

**Yes, yes, alright, I'll say it. 'Espresso Patronem!' Sheesh! Happy now?



 



Zebra Cafe, Natural History Museum, Tring, Hertfordshire

This is not really a café as such just a small room on the Lower Ground floor that does a selection of sandwiches and various snacky bits. Access is fine, there's a lift - although busy - and a ramp from the outside. My tuna and cucumber sandwiches were generously filled, scone with butter and jam was generic, but tasty enough and the tea was fine and free refills available.

But this place is strange. It's a museum of stuffed animals. That's all it is. Oh, yes, there are various signs and notices that use terms like 'science' and 'research' and 'zoology' and they even bung in the odd apologetic 'eccentric' and 'rich' in case you're wondering how on earth this vast collection of taxidermy actually exists. Someone with pots of cash and a mania for nature somehow leads to this dark wood and parquet-floored repository of glassy-eyed, inert lions and tigers and bears (oh my).

Still, it's interesting. If only because you have the opportunity to snort with derision at signs that announce that a species is 'extinct' and announce loudly that 'well, it's no wonder, is it?' If only for the culture clash of 'twenty-first century eco-hippy sensibility meets misguided Victorian paternalistic altruism'. And because, occasionally, the sheer cumulative oddness of the place bends reality enough to create its own universe of the fantastic. When there is just you, standing in the quiet, under the subdued lighting between these vast glass cabinets, staring at the masses of fur, feathers and fins, there is a creeping tingle in your bones that makes everything before you and behind you seem palpably, feelingly alive.

Boston Tea Party, Stratford-upon-Avon

This place occupies the old school at the top of Henley Street that was once the Buzz cafe and then a branch of Hudson's coffee shop and tea rooms. The layout is essentially the same - steps up to the entrance but a garden round the back for easier access. There is a humungous staircase to conquer if the place is full, though. Having said that, the staff are so chirpy and friendly, they will do their best to help you out.

 

The menu is the same all day as this is a cafe not a restaurant. So do not expect to go at 7-8pm at night and be offered a more traditional evening fare. Just the daytime array of breakfasts, variations-on-a-theme-of-sandwich and burgers. All of which comes highly recommended by me, especially the poached eggs on toast. Free range eggs, granary bread and real butter, accompanied by a hot, creamy latte.

There is also a slightly different clientele. Younger, for one. It offers up for your delectation an array of willowy young men, bearded, earnest-looking doe-eyed hipsters, DILFs and silver-haired elderly gentlemen of lean and lissom build*.

 

 

*I'm back on the steroids again. Can you tell?

Coughton Kitchen Restaurant, Coughton Court, Alcester

I cannot really give a fair review of this as my mind was preoccupied at the time, but I have used this restaurant before. It is not as small as you think it is. There's the seating area by which you enter which is in the form of a conservatory/marque. Then an indoor seating area opposite the kitchens and service space; but, venture further and there is a small, brightly lit room at the back offering plenty of seating since no one seems to know it is there. Particularly useful for access if the entrance is full.

I only had a cup of tea here and it was perfectly acceptable although served in a slightly too utilitarian style. I had the aluminium-tea-pot-and-plain-white-crock-cup-and-saucer combo that, while serviceable, I always think of as not very National Trust. Still, at that time, my mood was such that I soon abandoned the place to roam the gardens in the lamping rain trying my best to get thoroughly soaked, switching off the oxygen to exacerbate the maudlin feelings, hoping to align myself with that most Romantic of fates, the onset of a fatal, consumptive cough. Think Wollstonecraft on Putney Bridge, Keats on top of a coach in a pelting rainstorm, Byron in the swamps at Missolonghi.

Which did not work. Back outside the restaurant, an elderly lady asked me if I was alright. Which ruined the mood somewhat. Especially when she offered me her toasted teacake.

The Cafe, Library of Birmingham

Intellectual endeavour should always be fed by copious amounts of coffee and cake, with the occasional sandwich thrown in for good measure. This is a library that knows its users and whacks a café right by the entry doors, clearly knowing from years of experience that any research student worth their salt will never, ever pass up the opportunity to eat instead of work.

This is the best people-watching spot ever. Tucked into the corner overlooking the cultural centre of Birmingham, watching people schlep to the theatre, the Symphony Hall and the eateries is one of the best ways of passing time I have ever encountered. Cities, to this market town dweller, are an endless source of fascination, and no little envy. Sit right by the window and watch life passing you by.*

The latte is hot, foamy and drinkable, and no one ushers you on, so you can sit and muse for hours, if you so please. Perhaps on the big questions. What is truth? What is the nature of Being? Is there such a thing as 'right' and 'wrong'? Is Love indeed a Many Splendoured Thing? Is the café all that will be left of the hacks and cuts to the services and resources this £188 million library?



*Got to be careful doing all this sitting and watching. These days I think I'm coming off creepy.

Garden Room, The Anchor, Tintern

Since Tintern Abbey is not in the care of the National Trust or English Heritage, there are some drawbacks - an entry fee, gift shops selling the most unbelievable old toot and the most disgusting public toilets I have seen in a long time. Plus, this rather odd extension to the Anchor pub. The original building has all the charm you might expect - a plethora of dark wood, uneven floors and real ales. The Garden Room is a (very) modern addition and has all the charm you might expect - a plethora of blond wood, hard tiles and stainless steel.

Still, the place probably has to cater for coachloads of the very young and the very elderly and had the merit of being affordable. I had an egg and cress sandwich, a reasonable pass at one at least, served in the packet with no accompanying crisps or salad. Though, in fairness, where salad is concerned, who cares? And there was no coy attempt to pad out the actual sandwich with bundles of damp cress in an effort to hike the 'green' credentials of the place.

Drew's quiche salad was a better offering, adorned with a bright green salad, luminous yellow sweetcorn and shiny pink and red-hued beetroot. A little psychedelic, in fact; but, then, the Abbey itself is not without its hypnotic, psychoactive qualities. The great merit of this place is the view it provides of those astounding ruins that no photo*, no painting can do true justice. Sit on the farthest bench, watch a flock of birds swooping over those Gothic arches 'neath a lowering, late summer sky and ponder the fleeting nature of existence, the winking out of small lights in a great darkness.





*Not even those on the websites which, inexplicably, no one has thought to call the Tinternet.

The Eagle and Child, Oxford

While we were waiting for our food here, an elderly gentlemen shuffled past, casting a disdainful glance in our direction, intoning 'This place hasn't been the same since the Lewis people found it'.

Which Lewis he meant, whether C. S. or Inspector, I am not sure. Either way, it certainly epitomises the chief attraction of this place. It is famous for being the hangout of The Inklings, who counted C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien amongst their number. It has certainly retained it's character. Being, essentially, a long narrow, dark corridor with the occasional offshoot nook or cranny, you can see it as the kind of place where you might squirrel yourself away in a corner with your mates and laugh uproariously when they tell you they have had another idea for a book about elves.

Access is not easy since the building has retained its olde worlde proportions, down to the appropriately gloomy, almost windowless interior. And, just a heads-up, it really is dark. Enter, as I did, from the full glare of late summer sunshine and you are plunged momentarily into near-impenetrable blackness. Allow a few moments for your eyes to adjust, then grope or stumble your way through, guided by the Christmas lights festooned all over the beams, to where there is a well-lit room at the rear.

This is not a large franchise pub and so the menu is not just variation-on-a-theme-of-grilled. Being a Real Ale establishment the beer is far more important that the food; but that does not mean the quality is compromised. I opted for a fishfinger sandwich meal which was battered cod goujons served on sliced granary bread and accompanied by chips, cooked with the skin on. The fish was fine, the batter pale and gravel-crunchy, the cod flavoursome and not drowned in tartar sauce. The chips were served in a large stoneware bowl, piping hot and golden brown, not too crispy but with a good earthy flavour. A proper pub lunch, basic and filling, something to absorb the beer.

Anyway, while I was there, I had a great idea for a novel. I do not want to say too much but it's just something that takes place in a fantasy world, of trolls and whatnot. Perhaps even through a magical doorway. A wardrobe, or something.*




*Whaddaya mean, it's been done?



Access: *****

Touching Souls Tea Rooms, Tewkesbury Abbey

The town is quite a surprise.Whoever is responsible for the town centre has certainly created a centre of historical interest. I have never seen such Medieval conditions in my life.

Around the Abbey itself is lovely. Manicured gardens, scrubbed black-and-white buildings. The Tea Rooms are in a separate, purpose-built unit, with a decked balcony and community rooms and halls. Its modernity means that access is fine, although it might get a little cramped in the café when it is  busy. The place is staffed entirely by volunteers which means there are several conditions regarding its running. In the first instance, it is only open for a limited time - around 10 until 1.45pm and until 4pm on Sundays. And the menu is necessarily restricted to very light lunches such as soups, sandwiches and cakes. On the other hand, it means that absolutely everything is distinctively home made and makes for pleasant revelation that, in this case, home-made does not mean fashioned in an artisan, cottage industry style business, but, really, truly made in someone's own kitchen.

The sib and I shared a platter of salmon sandwiches which were generously served with fresh, cool salmon and crumby white bread. We went for the home-made chocolate fudge cake which was as gloopy and sweet as you would expect. The whole atmosphere is very welcoming, very friendly and the food is great. I mean, if you are on your way to punch some Lancastrian lights out, it's a good place as any to stop off for refreshments.




Access: *****

Tiffany's Edwardian Tea Room, Grand Pier, Weston-super-Mare

This is, for Weston at least, an attempt at gentility and refinement. It is definitely a cut above the usual seaside fare of fried, sugary doughnuts, fish and chips, ice creams and chicken tikka masala flavoured rock*. It is situated right at the end of the newly-refurbished Grand Pier. Access is absolutely fine, though you may have to weave in and out of the attractions of the arcade.

Being at the end of the Pier means that you have magnificent views of -- well, an awful lot of sand and mud most of the time. This is Weston after all. Having said that, it is still easy on the eyes and a balm to the nerves. The décor, though modelled on the Edwardian style and described as such in all the paperwork, is closer to Grandma's front room circa 1950; but it is just as clean and scrubbed with pristine white linen. The menu hints at gentility by hiding the fish and chips amongst a plethora of sandwiches and cream teas - but a whopping £18.95 for the latter is extortionate, even by Cotswold standards.

We only had drinks as we had already partaken of the more traditional seaside fare. The service was good, the Earl Grey was Twinings and there were at least three cups in the pot. But this is Weston after all. Ask for an Americano, be charged £2.25, not including the £1 entrance fee for the Pier itself. And get a small black coffee. Served in a teacup.

*I kid you not. Black pudding flavour, too. This is Weston, remember.

Fourteas, Stratford-upon-Avon

There are steps up to the doorway but, frankly, I found that in keeping with the entire ambience of the place. This is, after all, a time before door ramps and rails, more a time of bombs, rations, and blackouts.

Fortunately, this is not the side of wartime Britain on show here. This is very much the pack-up-your-troubles on your way to Tipperary to see your boogie woogie bugle boy from Company B aspect, where you are asked to keep calm and keep Mum. It is all designed to get you in the mood: windows are taped, staff are dressed in uniforms designed by Claire Dempsey, modelled on the headscarf-and-pinny-look familiar from even my own family photos. Tea is served in pale green Beryl Ware utility cups with the banding on the saucer and Deco curlicues on the handles.

And the only thing to do here is to truly accentuate the positive. This is not in the least bit gimmicky, or cheesy and, more importantly, not the least bit tourist-led. There is no sense that local people are sidelined in favour of visitors and the most telling evidence of this is the price of everything. A quick perusal of the menu, which is in the form of a ration book, shows a mere £13 for two rounds of eggs on toast and two pots of tea both of which served a minimum of four cups each*. I went for the Earl Grey. Sourced from the Golden Monkey Tea Company in Warwick, this is Sri Lankan in origin, super fragranced, very orangey aftertaste. The pot of leaf tea comes with a timer to ensure that the leaves are properly steeped to avoid the face-gurning stew so familiar to less sophisticated establishments.

Best poached eggs in town. No fancy schmancy boil-water-in-a-saucepan-and cross-your-fingers-you-don't-end-up-with-egg-soup malarkey. Just good old fashioned use of a poacher to make stunning eggs with the soft centre just perfect, and plump, glossy whites with the right amount of wobble. The scrambled eggs were creamy in texture on hot, buttery toast. Eat outdoors in the tea garden, or by the Anderson shelter, or just stay indoors and hum along to the Andrews Sisters.**

There is really only one way to properly describe this establishment: bei mir bist du schon. It means you're grand.




*You may have noticed, oh faithful bloggee, the lack of lattes these days and the profusion of tea . This is due to a combination of (a) age and (b) side effects of prescription drugs

** although you shouldn't sing along too loudly. They don't like that.

Cafe, Chedworth Villa

This is a small place, part of the purpose-built entrance to the ruins of the Roman villa, but easily accessible. The Romans were great ones for flat surfaces and even though it's a modern building, all the straight lines, squares and terracotta shades evoke the history without anyone actually trashing the local wildlife and offering stuffed dormice.

The menu is supplied by Huffkins bakery from Cheltenham - sandwiches, cakes, biscuits, soups, jacket potatoes. I opted for the egg mayo sandwich and a cup of tea. The sandwich was white bread with a generous slug of free-range egg filling and rocket salad. Which is fine by me. Drew opted for the jacket potato with homemade coleslaw, meaning the filling was shredded with carrots, red cabbage, and onions, accompanied by salad leaves. My tea was the house blend, an aromatic, smooth Assam that tempered the sometimes astringent Darjeeling in the mix. Drew had the filter coffee, a hand roasted Cotswold blend with a slightly woody aftertaste.

As the café is served by spring water rather than mains, there is a limit to the supply and hence the amount of washing up. Everything is therefore served on or in disposable tableware, although, being the National Trust, the eco-credentials are impeccable. Where possible everything is recyclable and there are helpfully labelled bins; although if you are anything like me and have forgotten your glasses this can result in a lot of brow-furrowing and quizzical squinting.

Not a big fan of the Romans and never was; but it is tempting when faced with all the ruins to launch into some theatrics in the manner of I, Claudius, rolling and hooting and declaiming in proper old-school Blessedness.





Access: *****
Latte/Coffee: *****

Cotswold Food Store and Cafe, Longborough, Moreton-in-Marsh

This is a converted barn in the middle of nowhere with every sign indicating that the foodstuff is either fresh, sustainably-sourced, seasonal, regional, local, home-cooked, or all of the above. And you just know that they sell game and venison and things like greengages and tins of lobster bisque.

Access is excellent, plenty of room for wheels, parking virtually outside the entrance and moveable tables and chairs for ease of passage. The look is scrubbed pine, blonde wood, creams, biscuit-coloured Cotswold stone, with a pale blue flooring that looks - well, there is only one word for it really. It's lovely.

I opted for the salmon and cream cheese baguette, Drew for the quiche salad. The Earl Grey tea came in a gigantic pot making two cups each. The brand is the Wiltshire Tea Company is known as 'Earl Grey Light', so the result is a super-pungent drink, more aromatic and orangey-tasting. My baguette was warm, lots of salmon and no suspicious-looking brown-grey bits, accompanied by a few salted crisps and some leaves. Drew had the salmon and chive quiche, also served warm, creamy in texture with a crisp but firm base, not too crumby. The potato salad was served with a lemony-mayonnaise. He ate all of his salad.




Access: *****

Swan Hotel, Bibury, Gloucestershire

This is a village of such eye-popping gorgeousness that you feel slightly guilty for being there and sullying it with your human presence. Everywhere you turn is a vision of such ravishing beauty that your head hurts. The row of weaver's cottages at Arlington Row are positively begging to be the backdrop for your magnum opus murder mystery (think Agatha Raisin meets Agatha Christie).

The Swan Hotel is in just as attractive a building but is still, thankfully, being a Cotswold Inns franchise kitted out for the twentieth-century as far as access goes. Plenty of flat surfaces and space, although if you choose to go to the bar via the main entrance and the reception, there are some tight corners to negotiate. There was, however, no mobile phone signal or wi fi. I gather that is not typical, but just a heads-up. This is the depths of nowhereville. While that means a passable, if somewhat lava-hot latte, there's nothing for it but to watch the swans and cygnets, listen to the babbling of the river, the splash of leaping trout, the haunting cries of birds, the lowing of cattle and the rush of wind in the trees. Just generally contemplate nature. In all its glory. And majesty. And stuff like that. As you do.

Bleugh.




Access: *****
Latte: *****

The Garden Tea Rooms [formerly Act V], Stratford-upon-Avon

On the menus in this establishment there is a quotation from Hamlet, Act V, scene one, the 'Alas, poor Yorick' palaver that we all know so well. Far better would be a quotation from Act II of The Importance of Being Earnest; because this is the perfect place to go Bunburying.

Partly because it is an excellent place to hide, even if just to escape the crowds on Waterside. It is at the bottom of Sheep Street, just up from the chip shop, a small café/gift shop combo. And the recently refurbished outdoor space is the real gem here, with comfortable furniture squeezed into a tiny garden that is absolutely, positively the best place to sit in the sunshine writing in your diary, eating cucumber sandwiches and drinking Earl Grey tea in copious quantities. In fact, having ordered said cucumber sandwiches, it occurred to me that I know no other place in the town that sells them. For £2.50, you get two slices of bread, lightly moistened with margarine or butter and quite a few slices of crunchy-but-soft cucumber with a few leaves of salad and some crisps. The tea is the teapigs brand, popular in some of the more upmarket establishments in the town. Be warned - the combination of the two means that you will find your pinky finger creaks involuntarily outward  with every bite and sip.

Following this up with the cream tea is practically compulsory. One of the few places to serve the scones warm and use clotted cream. This all adds up to a delectable melt-in-your-mouth concoction, a heady combination for eschewing your German grammar in favour of starting your revoltingly sentimental three volume novel.




Access: *****

White Horse Inn, Wroxton, Oxfordshire

This is exactly what a small country pub should be. It should recall the days of old when it was a stopping-off point for travellers - an old building, decent hunger-quenching fare. It should be halfway between places, in this case Banbury and Stratford-upon-Avon. It should feel local, not gastro-pub generic, or be full of ramblers and cyclists. It should hint at a chequered past (hasty repairs) and straitened finances (rusty barbecue). And it should have no less than two people sitting nursing a drink who do not take their eyes off you the whole time you are there, to the point of discomfort.

As this was only a refreshment stop, none of the food was sampled, although it certainly looked like a decent menu of chips, steaks and vegetarian options. I had a latte, decent enough, not too strong, half inch of foam, suitably thirst-quenching.

Access is not bad, considering the age of the building. There are a few too tight corners and small steps to negotiate especially to the garden. Ask the sunburnt local in the wife beater vest to give you a hand.

There is an additional bonus. To get to this place can mean driving through the village of Buckingham. And any Shakespearean worth their salt will not be able to resist the most amazing in-joke. On leaving the village, it is practically compulsory to turn to your companion(s) and say "So much for Buckingham".

If no one laughs, maintain a rigid hauteur for the rest of the journey and refuse to speak.




Access: *****
Latte: *****

Winthrop's Cafe, Hidcote, Gloucestershire

This place is not the sandwich and coffee bar just by the entrance, but the one in the garden itself. There is the right mix of history and modernity that the National Trust does so well. Parquet floors, wood-burning stoves, mock-Deco and Arts and Crafts furnishings, homely baking; but not so much that they do without a decent coffee machine, central heating and clean loos. The terrace outside is accessible, with a decent slope, flat paving and moveable furniture. It is also sheltered and accented with fairly picturesque plants and green, growing things. It is Nature just the way I like it, trimmed and pruned with no unseemly scruffs of overgrowth or wet slimy bits.

The menu is restricted but what is there is all speciality stuff. 'Lemon' and 'asparagus' were bandied about a lot, as were 'date', 'apple' and 'sultana'. You probably would not be surprised to know that 'lightly drizzled' was in there somewhere, along with 'balsamic'. It is the kind of the menu that stops just short of 'coulis' or 'jus'. I settled for an 'open sandwich' which turned out to be a generous portion of tuna mayo and six slices of cucumber laid on one slice of bloomer bread and loosely overlaid with a second slice of bread, accompanied by three cherry tomatoes, a few shreds of red onion and around five or six salad leaves. You have to start eating it with a knife and fork, such are its gargantuan proportions before you can resort to the traditional grab and gulp method. Tasty, very creamy, an ever-so-slightly sharp aftertaste and, interestingly enough, initially cold on the tongue and teeth. By which I mean, not fresh from the fridge but what a cold sandwich should be - not room temperature.

Drew opted for the gala pie, an oblong crusted portion, pale pink, almost Spam colour with a golden yellow egg all of which certified its fresh-made credentials. I was not allowed to taste it. The accompanying Earl Grey tea was just the way I like it, the scent being strong but the taste subtle.

Always worth having a walk around the gardens after lunch, designed by the reclusive, eccentric Laurence Johnson. Though if I was going to get rich and adopt an eccentricity it wouldn't be gardening. Something more me, perhaps. Like crisps. Or cheese.





Access: *****

Shaw's Corner, Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire

There is no café at the home of everyone's favourite Stalin-loving pacifist, despite his famous declaration that there was no love sincerer than the love of food. Instead, there is a small shed selling gardening stuff and ice creams.

Still, it gives you a chance to meander around the gardens and peer through the window of the writing hut, musing on the man and reflecting on the works.

And realize that he got it wrong. It is not alcohol that is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. It's a Cornetto.

Sarehole Mill Cafe, Hall Green, Birmingham

This childhood haunt of J. R. R. Tolkien does not have a large café, but that it entirely part of it's charm. It's just a small room in the old Miller's cottage serving light refreshments - meaning, of course, cakes and biscuits. If you were a local, this would be a lovely regular haunt. Despite the everpresent rumble of traffic on the Cole Bank Road, this really is a little oasis of rural peace. There's limited seating, but sit outside in the courtyard and soak up the romantic ambience of industrial Birmingham before traffic and suburbs*. The pot of tea was tasty enough - no standout brands for either tea of coffee but at less than 2 quid for either, who cares? Drinkable, refreshing and cheap enough to tempt you back for more.**

In the Cotswolds this place would be prettified beyond belief, groaning with ornamental flower borders and home-made lavender scones and chintzed-up countryside living. Birmingham museums tend to face up to the realities of an industrial past, focusing on more material matters - machines, technology; stuff. There are a few aspects of eye-rolling cheesiness in the form of the Tolkien homages - some 'search for Bilbo' game for the kids, so the magnificent ingenuity of the mechanization of food production is punctuated by pictures of characters from the books. However, it is complemented by some information describing Tolkien's own account of how the Mill and it's surroundings appear in the stories.

He's right, of course. The sprawling industrial suburbs wrecked his rural idyll. But, when you are sitting outside, drinking tea and listening to the sounds of the Mill and the traffic, you realize that this particular destination perfectly epitomises that moment when what was, becomes what is.



*Before, in fact, Birmingham was relatively 'uninhobbited'
**Or, if you like, 'hobbit-forming'


Access: *****

Morrisons Cafe, Stratford-upon-Avon

Do you remember in As You Like It when Celia says 'I like this place/And willingly could waste my time in it'? I reckon she could have been talking about this place. Seriously, I mean it. This cafe/restaurant combo is unsophisticated, with basic plastic-and-formica decor. The windows are covered with gigantic stickers depicting idealised rustic views (presumably because the view would otherwise be 20th century Brutalist car park); but, like Celia's country retreat, it is perfectly comfortable and has everything you need. If you are fainting for succour then this will all do very nicely. Your food is even served by local Corins amiably shuffling toward you with platefuls of food that, OK, is not exactly prepared from flock and pasture, but the Morrisons version of it that they call Market Street; and it's tasty, filling, and cheap. 

In terms of space, access is absolutely fine. Though the chairs and tables are bolted to the floor, someone has had the foresight to designate a couple of spaces at some tables for wheelchairs meaning that no one has to suffer the indignity of being perched on the end of a table, blocking the aisle and feeling horribly conspicuous. The main difficulty is that you have to serve yourself to virtually everything. Meaning that there are coffee machines, and coke machines, and milkshake machines and orange juice machines and a vast refrigerated counter of sandwiches, cakes, pasties, sausage rolls, biscuits, juice boxes, portions of fruit, bottles of water, fresh orange juice, fruit juice - if you have wheels, you won't be able to have coffee and a cake without help. 

Meals are ordered and paid for at the till and you are given a number to put on a stand at your chosen table. At busy times, the place is dotted with these numbered cards which, while not exactly love letters pinned to trees, are certainly indicative of yearning appetites. In keeping with many establishments that serve a variation on a chips-with-everything theme, items on the menu are conscientiously labelled with the calorie content, and there are limited options for vegetarians and vegans.

The breakfast menu is great. I recommend the Flying Start Breakfast. For a mere £2.79, you get egg, sausage, fried bread, half a grilled tomato and bacon which is as near as dammit only a portion of mushrooms short from many of the more expensive all-day options in the town. And the bacon is crispy, there's a glossy look about the sausages, a satisfying gravelly crunch on the fried bread, and an elegant, ever-so-slightly crispy frill around the fried egg. The fish and chips is only £4.75 and quite acceptable. Thick cut chips, not terribly crispy, but neither do they taste like warmed-over potatoes. A portion of cod, in a thickish batter, pale gold in colour and slightly crunchy. I had mushy peas, being, of course, the more civilized option, but you are offered baked beans and garden peas. Drew had the lasagne which is offered with salad as an option but we stopped laughing long enough to cut our losses and ask for the chips. The lasagne came served in a separate round dish, presumably as it is heated up when ordered, but at less than a fiver neither of us were anticipating full-on artisan fare.

Just a heads-up - you are charged 10p each for sachets of sauces and mayonnaises so be careful that an otherwise cheap meal doesn't get drowned in three quid's worth of condiments because you grabbed a handful of everything as a matter of course. Too much of a good thing and all that.

 

 

Access: *****

KFC, Shires Retail Park, Warwick

This place looks like it should. By which I mean it's small, slightly shabby and the floors and tables are permanently sticky. Access is fine as long as the tables near the entrance are available, otherwise it involves a lot of moving of chairs and apologising to all and sundry.

I had the popcorn chicken with fries. Apparently this qualifies as a 'meal' - but that might be age talking. A teensy box of what are essentially chicken nuggets and the usual fast food fries. Still, it's cheap. And, apparently only 600 calories. It tasted the same as any fast food meal always does - that sort-of-salty meat taste that does something indefinable to your taste receptors and you are somehow convinced that what you are eating is wholesome and palatable and not at all bad for you, and by the way where's the rest can I have some more? Drew had the fillet burger meal which was served on a just-about-palm-sized bun with some rather flabby lettuce; but then this kind of stuff only has green stuff on it so you are duped into thinking there is something healthy in front of you.

Whatever you do, don't agree to tip both portions of fries onto the tray to 'share'. The resulting altercation is never pleasant, and people tend to stare.

Access: *****