June 19, 2007
The Mock Turtle
Ah, what a wonderful and relaxing week spent in Brighton with olduvai! Her dorm room faces Brighton Beach and it's so nice to look out of the window and see the vast sea, the occasional sailboat and the seagulls flying around. The seagulls in Brighton are like mutants – they are especially big! They must be fed too much by humans. The pigeons are also terrible. They aren't afraid of humans at all and are very audacious as to come right up to you and snatch your food away. It's also a bit risky to eat alfresco as evident when we walked past one woman sitting at a fish & chips eatery being "bombed" by a seagull. Ooops!
It was so nice meeting up with olduvai again after a whole year. Without fail, we'll always go in search of good food every time we meet up. We visited some cafes and also cooked dinner every night. Notably we made Bak Kut Teh, cornbread, pasta, mash potato etc. I'll do a tag team with olduvai here...she has written about the places we ate at and I'm just going to fill in the gaps by supplying some pictures and short descriptions! First to feature is The Mock Turtle! Don't you just love the name already?
It's a very quaint little cafe near the Pool Valley coach station serving English tea and cakes. There is more seating downstairs if you can't find any seats on the street level. Expect to find traditional English fare like scones, tea cakes, lemon cake, orange cake, walnut & date cake, shortbread etc.
OK, the only thing is that the pictures don't look that good 'cos they wrap all their cakes up with cling wrap! Actually I think it looks visually awful...can't they use glass cake covers or something???
Jars of homemade jam stacked on the shelf for sale.
Ooh, big fat jam doughnuts below!
Olduvai had the Walnut & Coffee cake which was really nice and moist, though maybe it could do with a wee bit less sugar.
I had the Old-Fashioned Dark Gingerbread with cream. This was a little bit dry but it had the right amount of spice. The cream that came with it, however, was scary! Gosh, imagine eating all of that artery-clotting cream! I suggest that you go without the cream and save yourself 30p.
We ordered a cup of tea each. Service is prompt and expect to spend about £6 for a cup of tea and a slice of cake. Note that it's closed on Mondays and is opened the rest of the week till 6.30pm.
The Mock Turtle
4 Pool Valley, Brighton
East Sussex
BN1 1NJ
Tel: 01273 327380