Cheviot (cheviot-ranter)

Crossroads is Ashington’s best kept secret. This gem of a little community cafe, tucked away next to Iceland, is somewhere I make a point of visiting when in th... Weiterlesen Crossroads is Ashington’s best kept secret. This gem of a little community cafe, tucked away next to Iceland, is somewhere I make a point of visiting when in the Ashington area. With the exception of bread, everything on offer is made on the premises from scratch. The magnificent and beautifully finished cakes, the selection of dinners and notable home cooked pies and even the coleslaw is created on site by staff who really know how to cook. The prices are very competitive too. I don’t know how they do it. As a community cafe the Crossroads do a lot of worthy charity work and I have been fortunate to experience one of their themed evening events. In this case it was a charity pudding night with a choice of three (yes three! delicious puddings from a very tempting menu. As usual everything was home cooked and rather delicious. First class. All tips are donated to local charities. Given the above it seems odd to me that Crossroads does little to promote itself and doesn't even make a point of what, for me, in this modern world of bland processed food, is surely a unique selling point of the cafe; the home cooked food. There is a small sign near the door but it is really not enough. The building itself isn't exciting and the interior, though spotlessly clean, lacks colour and needs some decorative touches. There are, for example, no pictures! A while ago a number of photographs by a local artist appeared on the walls and this was a nice touch, especially in a community cafe. However these quickly vanished and the walls are, once again, rather bare. However I can do nothing but give the Crossroads five stars. Great food. Great prices. Excellent staff. A great concept.

Dropped into Coldingham on a very rainy day with the cunning plan of finding a coffee shop to warm us through just a little. Parked in front of the Luckenbooth... Weiterlesen Dropped into Coldingham on a very rainy day with the cunning plan of finding a coffee shop to warm us through just a little. Parked in front of the Luckenbooth and spied the diffuse shapes of people drinking coffee through the steam haze of the windows tempted us to investigate. Well worth doing. Coldingham is a very friendly village with a stunning cove framing an often boiling sea. There is a good deal of history here too. A little display in the Luckenbooth illustrates this rather well. We got chatting with some of the locals over our coffee and found out so much more about the village and its history. As you will glean from the reviews here the Luckenbooth is, at once, post office, museum, snack bar and gift shop. More than this, it is a real asset to the village. A point of contact within and beyond the local community.