Tea Darling's?...At the theatre!

The Tea Darlings Vintage Tea Room, makes for an unexpected and delightful afternoon out. This hidden gem, started as a pop-up tea spot last year and now takes its home on the first floor at the Questors Theatre in our very own Ealing. 

I'd spotted the chalk board sign on Mattock Lane "Vintage Tea Rooms 11am-4pm", and it only took a week to finally make a visit. Four of us arrived with prams in tow and spent the rest of the day there drinking tea and eating cake.

Inside the tea rooms

The location at the theatre is spacious and easy to access (lift tried and tested with our prams!). The space has been made to feel really cosy with pretty bunting strewn across the ceiling and a plethora of furnishings and vintage memorabilia.

There is a range of tea and coffee on offer alongside a selection of homemade cakes... including a special offer when you buy tea and cake together. We also sampled the lunch that day which was a hearty pea and watercress soup. The cake selection always also offers a gluten free option and their lunches are vegan too! 

What makes the tea extra special however, is the range of vintage china cups and teapots that it arrives in. If you book in advance a full afternoon tea experience is available - and includes a glass of Prosecco should you wish! We didn't try the full hog on this visit, but have that booked in the diary soon!

The bakewell cake and a nice cup of tea

A peaceful and calming atmosphere was created by some background music (from the mid 1900's of course), and the extremely friendly welcome we received from Pam the host. Pam helped with all our requests and questions and even offered to reheat the tea of one of our breastfeeding crew.

The tea counter with china and cake lined up for the picking

We loved the atmosphere and quirky-ness of Tea Darlings Vintage Tea Room, and can't wait to head back soon - What better excuse to eat cake and be merry!

Summary score table /5
Food Deliciousness:	4
Drinks Tastiness:	4
Service Skills:	5
Atmospheric Vibes:	5
Recommendation Score for a Casual Eve:	N/A
Recommendation Score for Showing off Ealing:	5
Total average score:	4.6

Tiramisu - why not!

Quietly located on South Ealing Road, the Tiramisu Cafe sits on the corner of Sunnyside Road (also neighbour to one of our favourite eats - Butlers Thai). Just outside the main hustle and bustle of the Broadway, Tiramisu makes for a peaceful spot.

Inside it is much brighter than you might expect, its large windows and light decor make it feel light and airy. A good spot for some work during the week, or a weekend brunch - as we tested ourselves.

The highlight on the menu, and a first for me, was their 'savoury' porridge. Among other light traditional Italian dishes the porridge stood out and tasted as good as it did intriguing. Warm and full of mushrooms and chicken it reminded me of a yummy risotto or a soup.

The menu isn't very large but has a good range of hearty and homemade choices, and also includes some wonderful daily specials displayed on the black board that regularly changes.

Service here is friendly and non-intrusive, and like lots of local independent eats it is closed on Mondays.

The toilet is located at the back of the cafe outdoors, and doesn't have a baby changing station (at last check), but if you are looking for a new spot by yourself or with your family and friends we'd recommend giving it a go.

Summary score table /5
Food Deliciousness:	4
Drinks Tastiness:	4
Service Skills:	4
Atmospheric Vibes:	4
Recommendation Score for a Casual Eve:	N/A
Recommendation Score for Showing off Ealing:	2
Total average score:	3.6

Nuki Nuki

We are having  some work done on our kitchen, so what better excuse to try a new local eat.

We fancied a Thai and had recently tried Butlers Thai for a takeaway, so were keen to try it 'eat in' - however they weren't open on this lovely bank holiday, so we looked elsewhere. We'd heard of the newly opened Thai competitor - Nuki, on Northfields Avenue which had so far been spoken fondly about - so we gave that a go.

So new, they only so far have a Facebook page and no website, Nuki's operates much like a cafe during the day and restaurant by night. With a 'Cafe Open' sign stood outside, not quite to the same theme as its stylish exterior.

The inside is cosy, and a bit more cafe like - but also pleasant for an evening's dinner.

We had luckily called ahead and reserved, as it seemed most other tables had also done... each had a reserved sign on it when we arrived, and the space quickly filled. All evening there was also a steady stream of customers coming to collect their take-away (it made us think that perhaps they don't offer delivery yet - which has been confirmed on their Facebook update on March 7th, something they will look at in future). It is also bring your own bottle (BYO), though they are now charging £2 per head for this, and applying for a liquor license in the meantime.

The menu was great, and seemed to offer most of the fresh Thai dishes we like, except for a lime chicken salad which we've sampled in a few other places before.

We ordered the dim sum and chicken satay to start... so were surprised to be brought (in error) someone else's Tom Yum soup... which was relatively quickly corrected. The starters were delicious, and we particularly liked the little heart dishes of soy that the dim sum arrived in (very practical for pouring that last drop of sauce on top of the Dim Sum on your plate).

For mains we shared a chicken Penang curry (coconutty and creamy), a Som Tom salad (limey and fresh), Pad Broccoli (nicely crisp) and some egg fried rice and steamed rice. This was more than enough for us both with the starters too. It was all really good, except for the steamed rice which was a little on the under-cooked side. We also observed that the salad, although amazing in taste was not quite as delicate as some others we'd had in more upmarket places in the past - perhaps to be expected for the reasonable prices.

As for dessert, the menu was amazing - a full array of Thai options. We ordered the bananas in hot coconut milk, but this somehow got lost in communication at some point and we instead had the banana fritters with ice cream - which weren't a disappointment.

Despite some teething issues perhaps in the service, the food was tasty, and I'm certainly tempted to head back soon for their £5 lunch deals and to tick off some more of the dessert menu.

Summary score table /5
Food Deliciousness:	3.5
Drinks Tastiness:	3
Service Skills:	2
Atmospheric Vibes:	3.5
Recommendation Score for a Casual Eve:	4
Recommendation Score for Showing off Ealing:	3
Total average score:	3.2

WA...a cafe!

Seeking a new place to meet last Saturday afternoon we arranged to check out the recently opened Japanese WA Cafe. The website is pretty trendy, and accurately represents the cool and fresh vibe that is also present inside.

The large glass door at the entrance has a funny little pink button to the right to automatically open it, but before you enter you can already see the beautiful line up of glamorous looking pastries and cakes at the counter. The decor is extremely bright, elegant and modern - providing a lively space to entice you into the unusual section of treats to take away or enjoy sitting in.

We met at 2:30pm and the cafe was pretty busy - but we found a small table and the turn over seemed to be relatively fast so we also nabbed another to make enough space for the four of us. It was bustling in a nice way, and not such that it intruded with our own conversation.

As for the food, an exciting array of unusual cakes, pastries and snacks were lined up in rows, full of colour and unusual names. The staff were good and explained anything we didn't understand. One online review summed it up well I think - the cafe has is something of a French influenced patisserie by sight, but uses Japanese ingredients we are less familiar with. Soba tea - made with buckwheat, some coffees, the sesame cheesecake, bread and butter pudding and a Japanese style sausage roll were on our order. All beautifully presented. The cakes certainly delivered, and provided an unusual sweet treat, but were well balanced. The sausage roll was a sausage cut in two and embedded in both ends of the pastry - so sausage-less in the middle - which was a bit of a surprise.

 

The website has a menu so it will entice us go back and try some more of the cakes on offer soon. All in all a great and different way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Summary score table /5
Food Deliciousness:	3.5
Drinks Tastiness:	3
Service Skills:	3
Atmospheric Vibes:	4
Recommendation Score for a Casual Eve:	4
Recommendation Score for Showing off Ealing:	5
Total average score:	3.75

When the Walpole Cafe does dinner!

It was valentines evening in Ealing. So a new local restaurant to try was in order.

We had heard all the rumours from online reviews; from our friends; and even from Marco Pierre White that The Walpole Cafe was the place to try. It was said to transform from the specialist provider of the full English breakfast into Friday and Saturday nights 'best restaurant in Ealing'. I called ahead to book a spot for Alex and I to sample their famous dinner. Two sittings were available  - 6pm and 9pm, so we went for the earlier option; as it seemed most others also had (we watched them re-lay tables when we left at 8:30pm).

Having walked past many times, I had always been intrigued by the greasy-spoon-looking façade, with its interior hidden behind the red and white checked curtains hanging in the lower half of the window. When we arrived for dinner, I was pleasantly surprised by the warm décor, nicely laid tables with candles and retro tin-plated adverts hung on the walls. We were greeted at our table by the chef's lovely wife - certainly proving a welcoming family feel to the night.

 

I had heard that the menu was small, but there seemed to be more than enough for us to choose from. We also realised that we have never noticed a menu to be too small in any restaurant, and perhaps it this was an indication of our non-fussy/greedy eating habits. It was hard to choose. 

As usual we made sure we ordered different dishes and ate off of one another's plates (or did a few plate-swaps across the table) for the rest of the evening. The evening offer included two-courses for £19.95 or three for £24.95 (we didn't decide in advance - but headed straight for the starters).

Starters were ginormous! between us we had the treacle-cured-salmon on a bed of beetroot, ginger and apple relish and the spicy soup complete with the largest sausage-roll slice we've ever seen. The soup and sausage-roll won on deliciousness here, and the chunky salmon was unfortunately overpowered in flavour from its punchy relish - which would have been better served in about 1/20th of the quantity (the table beside us also had to leave some of their relish untouched).

There was a good selection of wine, and we had a nice bottle of red to join our meal - since we both ordered meaty mains. And meat we did get! We certainly had eyes larger than our stomachs, or at least we had plate-fulls of food five times the size of our stomachs. Alex could sadly only make it through about half of his steak, even with a little help from me. My duck leg complete with sausage and red cabbage did a little better, though also not completable.

We ate far too much and conceded our predictability to the research experiment which proves that you eat 36% more if you can see a bottomless source of food in front of you compared to when you are blindfolded! 

A steak measuring one-hand please! And 2 inches thick!

Of course there is always room for a little sweet thing...and hot tea, after a big meal. We shared the sienna cake and truffles which were yum (and half came home for Sunday afternoon tea the next day). From the friendly waiter we learned that sienna cake is an Itallian, dense, spicy and nutty cake that sets quickly in the cold of winter. Italy's answer to nougat we decided.

Overall it was a great experience to dine at the Walpole, not the cheapest of eats, but very friendly, fun, and tasty. We will go again but make sure that we go prepared for the portions of a lifetime!

Summary score table /5
Food Deliciousness:	3.5
Drinks Tastiness:	4
Service Skills:	5
Atmospheric Vibes:	4
Recommendation Score for a Casual Eve:	3.5
Recommendation Score for Showing off Ealing:	4
Total average score:	4