Be Careful, New Le Creuset, Good Coffee shops

On Saturday last I went to make a Saturday fry up and our induction hob refused to respond. I then thought I’d be terribly modern, and Google the problem. This I did and soon came upon a website, “JustAnswer.co.uk” that promised to give an answer for the princely sum of £1. Call me naïve but I went ahead and entered my card details, paid a £1 and “chatted with an engineer”. He couldn’t help as it turned out, but in the meanwhile, Jonathan had also Googled it and got an answer (for free) that sorted it. I replied back to the engineer that the issue had been solved.

However, on Monday this week the company, JustAnswer.co.uk, that I’d entrusted with my card details took a further £30 out of my account and it transpires that I’d unwittingly enrolled myself in a “membership scheme” of some sort. I suppose I’m a little surprised that this hasn’t happened to me before, as I rarely read the small print on websites. So I have only myself, to take to task…! But I thought I’d let you know, just in case you come across them, and find yourself tempted to use them. Treat with some caution, I’d say!

Busy Beans
And just before I get on with product, last Sunday, Jeanne and I did a late afternoon shop in Sainsbury’s and not having had any lunch, we thought we’d treat ourselves to coffee and a sticky bun afterwards. Redhill was beginning to close down, so we chose the first café that we came across. It’s called BusyBeans, situated right in the middle of the town and we were really rather impressed by it. Admittedly it didn’t look terribly promising as it was a bit dark (needs more lights to make it look open), but on entering we realised that it was a bit of a gem. The girl behind the counter was smiley, helpful and patient. We had coffee, Carrot Cake and a large Brownie. The coffee was especially good (they sell the beans and we bought some to take home with us), the carrot cake was very tasty and moist, the brownie was pretty good as well. The portions were generous and the prices very reasonable. The savoury food that they had there looked mouth watering. Quite a find!  

Canakin
And talking of really good coffee shops, I’ve been going across the road to Canakin (Reigate High Street) for some time now and Lee over there, knows his stuff when it comes to baking cakes. I’m probably understating his talents when I say baking cakes, because what he produces is exquisite, so I imagine he’s trained as a pastry chef. We’re neighbours actually, so I must ask him when next we meet. Anyway, my favourites are “Pastel De Nata” (A Custard Tart to you and me…but oh what a custard tart!) and his Frangipane Tart (upmarket Bakewell Tart, lovely light crisp pastry containing a mouth watering frangipane filling with three real raspberries) Bloody marvellous!

I think I can safely recommend both establishments if you’re after great coffee and great food, albeit I’ve done more ‘research’ at Canakin.   What strikes me about both these businesses are the people behind the counter. In both coffee shops there is a really friendly welcome and a desire to please me the customer. 

Le Creuset Coupe NEW range
My chums at Le Creuset have been hard at work extending their Stoneware ranges again, and whilst for me the jury’s out, on at least part of the new range, what I can most certainly enthuse about are the colour combinations and some of the shapes. The colours are, to my eye, just beautiful! There are 5 pieces in the range, and come in 4 colours.
 
The five pieces comprise Dinner Plate, Side Plate, Pasta Bowl, Cereal Bowl, and a rather nice homely Mug. I can’t tell you why I say that about the mug, but it’s just a rather pleasing shape and feels lovely in the hand. It’s also got the colour glaze on the inside as well (which is different to all other Le Creuset’s mugs which have a cream interior), and I rather liked that.

The four colours are “Sea Salt” (this is a colour previously only done in their standard 350ml mug, an attractive pale Eau de Nil), “Meringue”, “Shell Pink”, and “Flint” and they look really stunning together. Makes me wonder if some might be tempted to go for more than one colour rather than sticking with just one.

The downsides for me, are the plates don’t have a rim and the pasta bowl is too shallow, but I suppose that’s largely, just personal taste.
 
So the plates are £20 and £22 respectively, and the bowls £17 and £22 each. The lovely mug is £14. For this weekend, buy any 4 or more pieces from the range and receive 25% off, use code COUPE25 if shopping on the website, or tell us who you are if coming into Cobham or Reigate.
 

That’s it for this week. I’ll leave Simon Sinek to have the last word.

“Happiness comes from WHAT we do.”
“Fulfilment comes from WHY we do it.”  

Discuss!

I hope you have a pleasant and peaceful weekend.

Kind regards

Andrew

Andrew Bluett-Duncan

Director