Father's Day's Box

This Sunday will be Father's Day and I don't know how we will celebrate it this year. I do have an idea on how we could have done it though: Bean & Brew in Wallingford has made a special box for Father's Day. You can see it on this picture. It has fancy cheese, artisan bread, cured meat (though I hate ham), scones with clotted cream, other stuff not on the picture (they mention lemon cake and finger sandwiches, but not the brownies) and, according to their promotion: "A Bottle of Beer for the Man Himself ". All this for £32.50, a true bargain. Sadly, I think we might be a bit far for home delivery and apparently they are already sold out. I'm very sad.

Le rooibos

Nous sommes allés hier à Wallingford et nous avons pris le lunch à Bean & Brew, notre café préféré là-bas (depuis la fermeture de Catherine's Corner), en compagnie des parents de ma femme. Je crois que mon beau-père aurait préféré aller ailleurs, il avait en tête le moins compliqué et surtout moins prétentieux Greggs, mais ce sera pour une autre fois. Un peu pour me faire pardonner de lui avoir imposé Bean & Brew, j'ai voulu flatter sa fibre patriotique en buvant du rooibos (celui-ci vient de Tea People). Mon beau-père est sud-africain, voyez-vous, et le rooibos est originaire d'Afrique du Sud. C'est aussi une excellente boisson chaude sans caféine et donc assez relaxante. Je n'en avais pas bu depuis des mois, je crois que je devrais recommencer à en consommer régulièrement.

Dirty Hippie

During our holidays, we went to Wallingford, where we hadn't been in a while, and we stopped at Bean and Brew. We had quite a nice time there, albeit the service was not very efficient (but always friendly). My wife ordered this drink, called a "Dirtie Hippie", apparently an espresso type of coffee mixed with chai tea, if I understand correctly from a quick Google search. Somebody corrects me if I got this wrong and please tell me in you know anything about the Dirty Hippie. We certainly had never heard of this before, but thought the name was really cool in a quirky way. I don't drink coffee, in fact I hate the taste, but when I find something like this, with a fun name and quite a nice look I must admit, I wish I was a coffee drinker.

Time for cream tea

It has been a very long time since we've been to Wallingford and I miss it. It has also been a long time since we've been to the Bean & Brew there, one of the best coffee houses I have ever been to. They serve a traditional cream tea, with scones, clotted cream, jam and well, tea (from Tea People) that would be perfect for this time of year. The weather is really nasty outside: cold and wet, or cold and dry. Which means that I need sugar to keep my endorphin level up and hot tea to keep warm. I kid you not: it works. Try a proper cream ta on a cold day, with plenty of tea to accompany the scones, and you will be warm and happy for the day.

Une authentique limonade estivale

Photo prise au café Bean & Brew dans la superbe ville anglais de Wallingford. La ville est à peine plus grande qu'un village et elle est mon coup de coeur dans toutes les villes anglaise du sud-est de l'Angleterre. Quant à Bean & Brew, c'est mon coup de coeur le plus récent dans le coup de coeur. Vous pouvez en lire plus sur l'endroit ici. Mais enfin bref, signe que c'est encore l'été, malgré mes passages mélancoliques et le temps parfois plus frais, j'y ai bu une authentique limonade, mélange de lime et de citron, bien plus authentique, je crois, que celle que j'ai bu il y a un mois. Il faisait juste assez chaud pour ça. Je considère cette limonade authentique car elle était brumeuse et pas claire. Son vert n'était pas le vert lime fluo de celle de mon expérience précédente, mais un vert plus diffus et mêlé de jaune. Peut-être que je me trompe. Dans tous les cas, j'y retournerai. Un été sans limonade, c'est comme un été sans limonade.

The cream tea and Bean & Brew in Wallingford

As this is (still) the weekend and as a weekend tradition on Vraie Fiction I am plugging a meal from a restaurant. This is the new discovery I made yesterday in Wallingford: Bean & Brew, an independent coffee house. For the record, Wallingford is one of my favorite English towns and one of its appeals is its independent businesses, like this one. And because it is such a pretty town. So I had this classic delicious cream tea yesterday afternoon, with scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam. The tea was from lose leafs, not teabags, from Tea People, a company Bean & Brew advertise a lot. It is the first time I've heard of them, but I will learn more, because this was one of the best teas I had in ages. That means it was the best cream tea I had in ages too, because it needs to start with a good tea. But the food was delicious too. I could have eaten more, greedy as I was. So I intend to go back to Wallingford as soon as possible to enjoy the town and this new place.