After the success of last week, in which Fiztbillies both lived up to and exceed mine and Kate’s expectations (I am now forever condemned to measure all experience of cake on a scale of one to chelsea bun), I must admit that I had high hopes for wherever we next chose to frequent. Perhaps my hopes were unreasonable, perhaps my appreciation of coffee shops had been distorted by Cambridge’s finest. Nonetheless, I shall try to approach our most recent destination objectively. An unbiased description from which you can decide for yourself, I shan’t attempt to persuade you in any way. (You weren’t there though, just saying, and I do have photographic proof…)
Things got off to a bad start last Sunday from the get go. Firstly, Kate was otherwise engaged and so I had to call in back up in the form of a friend from another college, (no less lovely, but some how cake with Livia just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.) Our plans were then further scuppered by the discovery that the German cafe on Pembroke street (otherwise known as Trockell, Ullman & Freunde, the pronunciation of which I seem to struggle over) was shut. It will have to wait for another day, another cake date. It was now that it suddenly struck me that Cambridge’s prolific coffee scene as an equally prolific following, particularly on weekends. The queue for the next on the list, Indigo, started at the small counter and wound right out the doorway. So, we turn to Auntie’s. Slightly generic in appearance but who knows, good things come in ordinary packages perhaps? As we look in through the big, glass-front, rather unpleasantly steamed up from the crowds and the cold, I have a distant memory of somebody perhaps warning me against it, but who cares – our fingers are falling off. Tea is needed.
Inside is busy, but that is hardly a surprise any more. The ‘tea shop’ is made up of two rooms, one behind the other. Both are painted a nondescript, muddy green colour and somewhat overfilled with tables of varying sizes. These are covered in clothes meant to match the walls and then further adorned with giant, lace doilies. The effect is supposed to kitsch and charming. It isn’t. Furthermore, we both find ourselves disappointed with the lack of commitment of Auntie’s to creating a quaint and cosy haunt. True, there are a few generic pictures framed on the wall of the first room, but my attention is captured more by the strange array of novelty tea pots that have been scattered on shelves around the place. Stacked next to these, still dressed in their plastic packaging, are various boxes of tea bags, none of which would be out of place on the shelves at Sainsbury’s. For a tea shop, surely this is a little disappointing.
We are led to a table in the furthest corner of the back room, next to a intriguing metal contraption with ‘electro freeze’ emblazoned across the front. What this is will be revealed to us later, but for the moment it serves only to whir mysteriously across our conversation. The menu looks more inviting, with cakes slightly more reasonably priced than Fitzbillies, but only just. There appears to be a huge array, so we choose with difficulty, eventually settling on warm banana cake with ice cream and toffee sauce, apple and cinnamon cake and crumpets to share.
Livia’s apple and cinnamon cake is first to arrive and first to disappoint. It isn’t bad, so to speak, but lumped in a block on the plate as it is, it hardly looks appealing. It is also a little dry, I am told by my slightly dejected friend. Her pot of tea is, however, perfectly up to scratch, but the excessive use of doilies had led us to hope it might arrive in prettily patterned cups. Alas, it is not to be.
The crumpets and banana cake arrive at the same time and the crumpets go down a storm. That said, bar burning them, there really wasn’t anyway to screw these up, and, to be fair to Auntie’s, they do come with plenty of butter. The banana cake, on the other hand, is just bizarre. The cake itself is nice enough, if a bit lopsided, and there is quite a lot of very runny toffee sauce trickling off the edges of the plate. The addition of the ice cream, however, has solved the mystery of the ‘electro freeze’ machine, which turns out to be a mini Mr. Whippy. The waitress bringing my cake stops of briefly to squirt what appears to be semi-melted white sausage on to the plate, before handing it over. That was not what was expected. It tastes just as would be expected, like eating a 99p flake with my cake, and I have to admit we are both amused and disappointed. This view is further compounded when we see scones arriving for the table next door, complete with jam and a good portion of cream from, horror of horrors, a squirty can. Rodda’s would turn in their graves.
All in all, Auntie’s has been quite far from the raging success of last weekend and both of us feel no small amount of resentment when the bill arrives, with an added 10% gratuity. We depart, nodding politely to the woman behind the front counter, in the knowledge that this will most likely be the first and final time we pay a visit. Outside in the bitter Cambridge cold, with it’s foggy windows and piles of stacked wicker chairs, it presents a rather sorry sight. Ah well, onwards (and hopefully upwards) to the next cake fuelled excursion.
Comments