This may not be the last Coffee Shop review of the year, but it’s close!
This is an unusual place in an unusual location, as we mentioned in the recent God’s Own Junkyard review, we stumbled across something out of a weird comedy show, a rather gentrified road in the middle of Chav infested Walthamstow, where the local youf’s sat at the peripheries and watched the Mama’s & Papa’s eating Brunch, sipping Prosecco and bellowing hooty horsey laughs, but daring not to enter the sacred Orford Road in the heart of Walthamstow Village, for fear of being turned themselves. well we chanced the pedestrianised pavement in search of Coffee, hoping to blend as ‘A local’ or at least a passerby.
So with that said we chose Froth & Rind – why is it called this, surely the addition of a ‘G’ would have made more sense – Froth & Grind! – But anyway…
It’s kind of a lost identity inside, it looks more like a second world war, general store with cafe type tables and chairs, a wide selection of ‘stuff’ to buy and about 6 baristas and yet it still took about 15minutes to get our order. Maybe we didn’t look local enough!
But eventually we did get the drinks and…
The cups were a standard size and the coffee was a standard taste.
Café Marrone Shadwell Station E1
If you have ever travelled from Shadwell on the DLR you’ll know it’s a strange place, a kind of station that isn’t, it’s more like a shopping arcade, with an Oyster Machine at the bottom of the stairs and a man selling copies of the Koran.
But to the left of the escalators is a large cafe and the only real option for coffee in the area.
So one day while passing through we stopped off to get our usual order (Americano & Oat Mocha) and we really wished we didn’t.
This is truly one of the worst excuses for coffee we have ever had, if you’d been through our coffee reviews, then saying this is on par with The Reach Climbing Wall’s coffee will give you an idea, if tastes like a melted plastic toy, in melted polystyrene cups. The servers were clueless and couldn’t truly understand the order and asking for a little cold water in the americano, was clearly beyond the woman’s comprehension and we aren’t sure if the Oat Milk really was that or actually ordinary milk.
As the name suggests, they are Morons who can’t even make a cup of coffee.
Seriously this is a public health warning avoid the Shadwell Station’s Poison Coffee Shop
We like Eltham, well we like the Crystal Shop and the Palace (just not the price of admission), we even like the names of the roads – King’s Butts and Orangey Lane, etc and thankfully we can now say we have a coffee shop we like there too.
It’s just a shame the rest of it isn’t as nice!
Taste is a little down the hill from the station and seems very popular and has great reviews and given the other choices in the area we took the detour to our journey, willingly and are glad we did.
The staff were a little confused with the request for ‘a drop of cold water in the black americano’ and tried adding milk, but other than that were really accommodating and friendly, a fairly quick service given it was lunch time and they were busy.
But the coffee was good, not amazing, but good enough to be returnable should we visit again.
We found a woman under a railway in a tunnel, she wore a mid-aged face and diamond grills and told us to visit Shot’s next to The Clock House Station.
No this isn’t a ghost story or a lyric from some strange Prog Rock song, but a description of how we came to Shotsmiths coffee.
While on a recent walk we passed through a tunnel and saw a lady walking towards us, holding a large coffee cup and in the area avoid of any cafés. We asked her where she found it, she highly recommended it as the best in the area (not a difficult choice given the lack of competition) but following some confusing directions and found the corner shop and two staff, who it seemed didn’t like each other – he was confident in his way of doing everything, but she was in charge, yet still he corrected everything she did. Still she carried on and made our usual order and we are glad she did what she wanted.
And the results? Well they were delicious and somewhere to remember not only for the random way of finding the shop, but should we ever return Shotsmiths Coffee will see us again.
Croydon is well as we joke ‘A little town outside London’ (according to Hollywood!) But mostly it’s another of those places filled with drunks, druggies and low-lifes who watch strangers waiting to pounce and mug them, we are not kidding, it was not a pleasant experience.
We were passing through but needed a caffeine boost and Matthew’s Yard had such great reviews we dallied to grab a brew.
The interior is large and busy, lots of tables and loads of Art on the walls, a mix of mums and freelancers filled the space, sipping at Flat Whites and nibbling at Panini. We ordered the usual – Black Americano & an Oat Mocha and waited and waited a looooooong time!
One woman in front of us ordered a sandwich and a beer which took one woman barista to the kitchen and left one other to serve, but it took over 15 minutes from walking in to walking out with the two drinks. (No exaggeration, honest).
That said we took the drinks and ran from West Croydon, but the coffees were great, like, up there with the best and honestly, the only reason to ever go to West Croydon is this coffee shop!!
We had to deduct a star for the wait though…
Leaf Cafe Bistro – St Pauls Rd
For a change Bob and Bruffin was around St Pauls road and saw a new coffee shop had popped up – Leaf. We liked the look of it so we went in. The weather wasn’t bad so we opted for Smoothies instead of coffee (strange but it does happen every now and then) The smoothies were pretty good! There is a vast selection of food and different coffees too so it will be one to return to. The staff were welcoming friendly and happy to help.
Well there you go another round-up of coffee from a little further afield this time, we will be back next time with another post and there will be one final Coffee Shop Review before the end of the year, so keep an eye out for that.
Climbing Moss 
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