Went in a cafe of the wrong class today. [sad face]

I quite like a bit of dressing on a side salad. But I also like a pasty microwaved so that the pastry has gone a bit soggy, covered in brown sauce, so I think it offsets.
Once ordered a ham salad baguette in a pub which had banana, chives and mayonnaise on top of the lettuce as the salad . This was long before hipsters and artisanal was a thing: we just put it down to the fact that they must have run out of tomatoes (and that the staff were Australian so maybe they have funny ways). It was unsurprisingly rank.

I managed to move DH up at least a whole class, lower middle to middle middle by producing a gluten free child. Over the years he has been forced to change his caf to and at least an accented e.

He hasn't thanked me yet.

The orange garnish with the fry up is not new. Does anyone else remember the Ben Elton stand up from the early 90s where he was bemoaning the pointless garnishes in life and that now everyone was at it? He says he went to a greasy spoon and got orange on his plate and says 'what's this?' and the lady says 'garnish, it looks nice' he replies along the lines of 'vaginas look nice but i don't want them with my egg and bacon!'

Kreesh - sad thing is, they probably thought they were being posh. Unless its regionally correct in essex? (Odd concept ...)

I saw this spoof news story the other day.

Benedict Cashmere-Luroll hosted a launch party for his new swanky eatery Good Karma Bites in Leigh Lane last night, but his shutters had come down for good this morning when it emerged that his commitment to ‘wholesome vegetarian vegan gluten-free organic fairtrade ethical produce’ had basically stopped him from preparing every known food substance on the planet.

Where do we think the paper doily lies in the pantheon of cafe-class indicators?

I would think lower middle but with aspirations, but then I'm sure Betty's use them which I think is quite a classy place (loose leaf tea! Dry cure bacon! Macarons!) It's a minefield alright.

Still sniggering at the tingly notion of 'intercourse sorbet'. Theres's a reason for hyphens!

Tiggy
One indicator you can use when you are in the cafe is the variety of tea available and how it is served.
PG Tips teabag in a stainless steel pot that leaks when you pour = lower middle class
8 million types of teabag including baobab twig and goji berry = middle middle to upper middle
Leaf tea in a china pot with a strainer = upper middle to upper

Haha really? Does that mean that I am actually the posh one? I always thought my relations from 'dahn sath' (e.g. Essex) were pronouncing it the posh way. Thank you for putting me right on that one. Ooh I love a good fat rascal. Consuming one in Betty's tearoom once made us very late for a lunch at dh's nan's!

Have I woken up in 2008? This is the best thread I've read for ages.

Hazey your flat white post reminds me so much of my mum. She gets positively aggressive when ordering coffee anywhere but M&S cafe. She once ordered a Mulatto I almost died laughing.

In the North East potato-fish-potato was called a fish scallop! Kitkat I see you called it that too.

I had a fried breakfast recently with a bit of salad and a slice of orange on the side. This was greasy spoon doing "posh"

The scone problem could be alleviated if more cafes would serve Fat Rascals instead, of course.

You're wrong about scone. While the pronunciation may be regional (which is fine) according to Sir John Betjeman scone to rhyme with stone is for the Mrs Buckets of this world. I refer you to How to get on in Society

I suggest googling the cafe. If it has a website, it's probably not what you're looking for.

T'other way round, kreesh.

My favourite ever cafe was in Glasgow. My friend and I had been window shopping in Princes Square which is full of hipster posho nonsense and we were starving.

She said she knew of a 'suitable establishment' and dragged me for miles to a wee side street to a cafe with a sandwich board outside that read the bold legend 'Nae Shite Served Here'.

Dear reader, the bacon, sausage, tattie scone and fried egg roll I had that day was the most delicious thing I've ever eaten my life. Closely followed by the fluorescent pineapple cake I had for afters.

I've searched the streets of that fair city and have never been able to find it again. I often wonder if it was some kind of cafe Brigadoon.

I occasionally buy a pasty from the 'West Cornwall Pasty Co' vans whilst awaiting a train. I'm not sure what class this makes me, being a 'posh-ish' pasty, but eating on a train bench seems to lower the tone of the whole affair.

Surely the most glaring indicator of class divide in cafe culture is how you pronounce the word 'scone'. Where I'm from (Edinburgh), we say 'scone' to rhyme with 'gone'. I always think 'scone' to rhyme with 'tone' is very, very posh!

barbara/rattlebag I'm from near Doncaster and we called potato-fish-potato-batter Scallops. Fishcakes were squished up fish and mashed potato.

Mind you my nanna was from Lincolnshire so maybe that's why?

Flying, was it the St. Giles Cafe?

I always use that as the ultimate example of creeping bourgeois/hipster influence. Even the world's best greasy spoon has succumbed to a horrible fate involving organic drizzles of jus.

A very haute bourgeois Parisian friend of mine visiting me when I was a student in Oxford walked into a greasy spoon near my house and asked in his distinctly French accent for a cappuccino - was nearly stoned out of the place by a bunch of outraged cabbies and lorry drivers, only I think they were laughing too much.

In fairness to him, he'd seen the choristers from my college choir going in there one morning, choral surplices over their arms and all, but, despite singing like rather posh angels, they used to go in after matins for a giant fry-up, rather then looking for fancy foreign coffee...

A friend and I (and too many children) went to the cheapest cafe in the world yesterday. 8 of us had lunch and the children had drinks and cookies too. It came to... £20 in total. And they hadn't added it up wrong (we checked). It even came on plates and everything.

We had been considering going to the hipstery place across the road but were very glad we went for the non-hipstery cafe with pricing from our childhood instead. And super helpful staff too.

I once got presented with a dish called An Ethereal of Cheese. It came on a tiny Doric column.

Great thread - currently sat in Starbucks with a sausage butty (sausage croissant) reading this thread avoiding my cleaners . Was offered sauce but declined due to likelihood of decorating myself in the stuff.

In my defence, I've been here since 7:30 (cleaners wait for us to leave for work before they attack our mess) and no other local cafe is open at that time of the morning - i'm also heavily pregnant hence the hired-in services.

Could murder a greggs jam doughnut now so i think that'll be my next target this morning but the greggs that used to be in the same vicinity as starbucks closed to make way for a gym. Says it all.

Not read all 12 pages. What's the hot tub thread please?