Hello Dear Reader,
I've just had the best time today! I had the opportunity to take a friend out as we really only get to see each other in the school holidays. Today, it was my turn to treat her and we headed for Totnes.
If you've visited Devon then you must have visited this beautiful little town. It is a foodie paradise without being snobby, expensive or pretentious. It's the sort of place where you can have an affordable lunch in relaxed surroundings without feeling you have to be on your best behaviour. Totnes is also a great place to buy local food. It has lots of specialist shops where I go every few months to top up with gluten free products that I would need to buy from the internet. It's also a great place to buy natural toiletries, chemical free food and we saw lots of fair trade, organic and local produce. It's also full of charity shops, great bookshops and you can just wander and mooch about at a very relaxed pace.
Our first stop was for lunch. We visited Fat Lemons Cafe in Ticklemore street. www.fatlemons-totnes.co.uk It was a first visit and it was relaxed and although small, it certainly wasn't cramped. My friend had the sweet potato and lentil soup, I had the Spanakopita, hummus, salad and pitta. My lunch was £7.50 and although delicious, it was a small portion and Dearly Beloved would have needed two. The spanakopita was a couple of tablespoons of spinach and feta wrapped in a sheet of filo, more like a samosa than the layers of filo pastry and healthy sized portion of spinach and feta I would have liked for over seven quid. The salad was very delicious, as may I add, was the mouthful of Spanakopita, although the hummus was too liquid and quite bland. My friend's soup and bread for a fiver was really substantial and I would recommend that. I would recommend the Spanakopita too but you might want to have something else with it as it certainly was more of a sample than a substantial Devonian lunch for a substantial Cornish woman. The cafe sells the most amazing selection of teas, all served as loose tea and it tea pots. It's worth a visit for those alone. The only down size was the 'I'm going for a pee pee' spoon, with a key you have to ask for, if you want to use the loo. I felt as if I was asking the teacher for a hall pass and walking through the cafe with the key attached to the spoon shouted 'Customer just about to have a wee!' Maybe I'm fussy here but if you have to lock the loo and customers have to ask then it might put people off.
Overall experience, I would recommend it. We looked at other menus whilst looking around Totnes and the Fat Lemons cafe was relatively cheap compared to many of them. There were others with similar menus with higher prices so if you want a light lunch and you're in Totnes, then have a look.
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The quality of the tea for less than £2.50 a pot was fantastic. I had de-caff, sorry to be a bore, but I can't appreciate tea that gives me a head ache. They had every type of tea and none of it was expensive even though it was loose tea and some of the finest products you could buy. A pot of tea was the same price no matter which blend. In these times of squeezing every penny out of the customer, that was very reasonable.
The surrounding were absolutely charming. This would be a wonderful place for a date (if you're reading this Dearly Beloved, the answer is yes, I would love to go) and it all felt very relaxed and genteel without being in any way stuffy. I don't like formal or stuffy and I felt it was the perfect place for a relax and a cuppa before our journey home to Cornwall.
If you get the chance to go to Totnes, then call into either of these establishments, relax and enjoy yourselves. The vintage tea rooms was by far the loveliest place I've ever sat and relaxed in with a pot of tea and I can't wait to go back there again one day. We had a scone and jam each too. The scones were light and buttery, not at all dry and full of fruit. I would have preferred a thicker jam that didn't run away when I tried to eat it but that's a personal preference to have a more set preserve. The clotted cream was just lovely (I know, the scones was full of gluten and I will suffer most of the night and probably tomorrow) A cream tea cost £6.95 per person which is a pot of tea, two scones, clotted cream and jam. We shared one of those and it's more than enough as the scones are just huge.
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| Customer photo from Trip Advisor - we didn't eat the afternoon tea but we saw this being served. It looked lovely. |
I do remember that I'm mainly a food blogger who writes about thrifty and affordable food. As such, affordable is subjective and plenty of people seemed to be eating everything in sight in Totnes. I think the places we visited were good value in comparison to a lot of eateries all of which charged a lot more. Totnes is known as a foodie hub of really good, local, organic and seasonal food and it's a great place for a very chilled out day out.
Totnes...........I will be back!
After all the scone, cream and jam..............a big run is planned for tomorrow.
Over to you Dear Reader, where do you recommend for a place to eat affordably? Where can you go that's not stuffy, where mums can bring prams, or walkers can turn up in walking boots, or people can sit outside with their dogs and relax and eat without breaking the bank?
We paid for all our food, the proprietors didn't know I was coming and my opinions are my own. I would recommend both establishments.
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxxxxxxxx